Splendor Solis: Alchemical Wanderings

THIS BOOK IS NAMED SPLENDOR SOLIS AND IS DIVIDED INTO SEVEN PARTS, IN WHICH IS DESCRIBED THE HIDDEN MYSTERY OF THE OLD PHILOSOPHERS, AS WELL AS ALL THAT NATURE REQUIRES TO CLEARLY ACCOMPLISH THE WHOLE WORK, INCLUDING ALL THE ADDED THINGS; AFTER WHICH NO ONE SHALL BE ADVISED TO GRAPPLE WITH THE MYSTERY OF THE NOBLE ART WITH HIS OWN SENSES. ALPHIDIUS, one of the old Philosophers, said: ?Every one who does not care for the trouble of obtaining the Philosopher's Stone, will do better in making no enquiries at all than only useless ones." The same also says RHASES, in his book "LIGHT OF LIGHTS": "Let it be said then to all, I hereby admonish them most earnestly, that none be so foolhardy to presume to understand the unknown intermixture of the elements, for as ROSINUS say: "All who engage in this Art, and are wanting the knowledge and perception of things, which the Philosophers have described in their books, are erring immensely; for the Philosophers have founded this art in a natural beginning, but of a very hidden operation. Though it is evident that all corporeal things originate in and are maintained and exist of the Earth, according to Time and Influence of the Stars and Planets, as: Sun, Moon and the others, together with the four qualities of the elements, which are without intermission, moving and, working therein, thereby creating every growing and procreating thing in its individual form, sex and substance, as first created at the Beginning by God, the Creator, consequently all metals, originate in the earth of a special and peculiar matter produced by the four properties of the four elements, which generate in their mixture the metallic force, under the influence of their respective planets.