Great Throughts Treasury

"The stone of cold is in me. This is a water by means of which I make the spirits of the six metals congeal into the essence of the seventh, and this is to promote Sol with Luna."

"Then God sends us such a messenger who appears to us in spirit, warns us, consoles us, teaches us, and brings us His good tidings."

"Then their imagination could work wonders upon wonders and invoke the shades of the philosophers, who would instruct them in their art."

"Theory and practice should together form one, and should remain undivided."

"There is a way ? 'tis hard for flesh to tread therein, imbued with frailty ? hopeless, if indulgence first have ripened inborn germs of sin to strength: wilt thou adventure for my sake and man's, apart from all reward?' and last it breathed ? 'be happy my good soldier; I am by thee, be sure, even to the end!' ? I answered not, knowing him. As he spoke, i was endued with comprehension and a steadfast will; and when he ceased, my brow was sealed his own. If there took place no special change in me, how comes it all things wore a different hue thenceforward? ? pregnant with vast consequence ? teeming with grand results ? loaded with fate; so that when quailing at the mighty range of secret truths which yearn for birth, I haste to contemplate undazzled someone truth, its bearings and effects alone ? at once what was a speck expands into a star, asking a life to pass exploring thus, till I near craze."

"This couch shall be my throne: I bid these walls be consecrate; this wretched cell become a shrine; for here God speaks to men through me."

"This is alchemy, and this is the office of Vulcan; he is the apothecary and chemist of the medicine."

"This process is alchemy: its founder is the smith Vulcan."

"Therefore we should keep an eye on the outward characteristics which nature gives a man by shaping him in a certain way."

"Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise from outward things, whate'er you may believe: there is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness; and around wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, this perfect clear perception ? which is truth; a baffling and perverting carnal mesh blinds it, and makes all error: and 'to know' rather consists in opening out a way whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, than in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without. Watch narrowly the demonstration of a truth, its birth, and you trace back the effluence to its spring and source within us, where broods radiance vast, to be elicited ray by ray, as chance shall favor."

"We must treat limb to limb? limb of the macrocosm to limb of the microcosm."

"This, indeed, will not give scope for a pompous parade of words, but, nevertheless, in the consideration of those Canons everything which should be separated from Alchemy will be treated at sufficient length, and, moreover, many secrets of other things are herein contained."

"Throughout his life, a man cannot cast off what he received in his youth, my share was harshness, as against the subtle, pampered, and over-refined. Those who were brought up in soft clothes and by womenfolk have little in common with we who were raised among the pine trees"

"We should do that which our conscience teaches, for no other reason but because our conscience teaches it. To learn from others, to accept the opinion of others, to act in a certain manner because others are acting in that way, is temptation."

"We should become angels and not devils, that?s why we have been created and born into the world. Therefore be and stick to what God has chosen you for."

"What is a philosophy that is not supported by spiritual revelation? Moses did not teach physics; he wrote in a theological sense calculated to impress the feelings and awaken the faith of the simple-minded, and perhaps he may not have understood physics himself. The scientist, unlike the theologian, does not put any trust in his feelings, but believes only in his experiments, because physical science deals with phenomena and not faith."

"Whatever is received into me becomes conformed thereto, and by means of us is converted into one body. It would be of little use to the world if it should learn, or at least believe, what lies hid in me, and what I am able to effect."

"What sense would it make or what would it benefit a physician if he discovered the origin of the diseases but could not cure or alleviate them?"

"Whatever is combustible can be naturally transmuted by fire from one form into another, namely, into lime, soot, ashes, glass, colors, stones, and earth. This last can again be reduced to many new metallic bodies. If a metal, too, be burnt, or rendered fragile by old rust, it can again acquire malleability by applications of fire."

"When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him? For such is the immensity of man that he is greater than heaven and earth."

"Who does not know something does not like anyone .. It cannot do something does not understand anyone who does not understand something that has no value. But it is understood he also loves notes and see, and greater knowledge of something, bone love... and that any man imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time your maturely strawberries knows nothing about grapes."

"Women's regular bleeding engenders phantoms."

"You who are skilled in Alchemy, and as many others as promise yourselves great riches or chiefly desire to make gold and silver, which Alchemy in different ways promises and teaches; equally, too, you who willingly undergo toil and vexations, and wish not to be freed from them, until you have attained your rewards, and the fulfillment of the promises made to you; experience teaches this every day, that out of thousands of you not even one accomplishes his desire. Is this a failure of Nature or of Art? I say, no; but it is rather the fault of fate, or of the lack of skill of the operator."

"Why do you call me a Medical Luther? . . . I leave it to Luther to defend what he says, and I will be responsible for what I say. That which you wish to Luther, you wish also to me: you wish us both in the fire"

"You should know that man has the capability (latent or active) to foresee future events and to read the future from the books of the past and from those of the present. Man also possesses a power by which he may see his friends and the circumstances by which they are surrounded, although such persons may be a thousand miles away from him at that time. This art is taught by the spiritual perception of man. It is a power which may become especially active in dreams, and that which is seen in such dreams is the reflection of the light of wisdom and prophecy in man. If a man in his waking state knows nothing of such things, the cause of his ignorance is that he does not understand how to search in himself for the powers that are given to him by God, and by which he may arrive at all the Wisdom, Reason, and Knowledge concerning everything that exists, whether it be near him or far away."