SIXKEYSEUDOXUS.PDF

The Six Keys of Eudoxus

THE FIRST KEY

1. The First Key is that which opens the dark prisons in which the Sulphur is shut up: this

is it which knows how to extract the seed out of the body, and which forms the Stone of

the philosophers by the conjunction of the spirit with the body -- of sulphur with mercury.

2. Hermes has manifestly demonstrated the operation of this First Key by these words: In

the caverns of the metals there is hidden the Stone, which is venerable, bright in colour, a

mind sublime, and an open sea.

3. This Stone has a bright glittering: it contains a Spirit of a sublime original; it is the Sea

of the Wise, in which they angle for their mysterious Fish.

4. But the operations of the three works have a great deal of analogy one to another, and

the philosophers do designedly speak in equivocal terms, to the end that those who have

not the Lynx's eyes may pursue wrong, and be lost in this labyrinth, from whence it is

very hard to get out. In effect, when one imagines that they speak of one work, they often

treat of another.

The Six Keys of Eudoxus

5. Take heed, therefore, not to be deceived here; for it is a truth, that in each work the

Wise Artist ought to dissolve the body with the spirit; he must cut off the Raven's head,

whiten the Black, and vivify the White; yet it is properly in the First operation that the

Wise Artist cuts off the head of the Black Dragon and of the Raven.

6. Hence, Hermes says, What is born of the Crow is the beginning of this Art. Consider

that it is by separation of the black, foul, and stinking fume of the Blackest Black that our

astral, white, and resplendent Stone is formed, which contains in its veins the blood of the

Pelican. It is at this First Purification of the Stone, and at this shining whiteness, that the

work of the First Key is ended.

THE SECOND KEY

1. The Second Key dissolves the compound of the Stone, and begins the separation of the

Elements in a philosophical manner: this separation of the elements is not made but by

raising up the subtle and pure parts above the thick and terrestrial parts.

2. He who knows how to sublime the Stone philosophically, justly deserves the name of a

philosopher, since he knows the Fire of the Wise, which is the only instrument which can

work this sublimation. No philosopher has ever openly revealed this Secret Fire, and this

powerful agent, which works all the wonders of the Art: he who shall not understand it,

and not know how to distinguish it by the characters whereby it is described, ought to

make a stand here, and pray to God to make it clear to him; for the knowledge of this

great Secret is rather a gift of Heaven, than a Light acquired by the natural force of

reasoning; let him, nevertheless, read the writings of the philosophers; let him meditate;

and, above all, let him pray: there is no difficulty which may not in the end be made clear

by Work, Meditation, and Prayer.

3. Without the sublimation of the Stone, the conversion of the Elements and the

extraction of the Principles is impossible; and this conversion, which makes Water of

Earth, Air of Water, and Fire of Air, is the only way whereby our Mercury can be

prepared.

4. Apply yourself then to know this Secret Fire, which dissolves the Stone naturally and

without violence, and makes it dissolve into Water in the great sea of the Wise, by the

distillation which is made by the rays of the Sun and Moon.

5. It is in this manner that the Stone, which, according to Hermes, is the vine of the Wise,

becomes their Wine, which, by the operations of Art, produces their rectified Water of

Life, and their most sharp Vinegar. The Elements of the Stone cannot be dissolved but by

this Nature wholly Divine; nor can a perfect dissolution be made of it, but after a

The Six Keys of Eudoxus

proportioned digestion and putrefaction, at which the operation of the Second Key of the

First Work is ended.

THE THIRD KEY

1. The Third Key comprehends of itself alone a longer train of operations than all the rest

together. The philosophers have spoken very little of it, seeing the Perfection of our

Mercury depends thereon; the sincerest even, as Artefius, Trevisan, Flammel, have

passed in silence the Preparation of our Mercury, and there is hardly one found who has

not feigned, instead of showing the longest and the most important of the operations of

our Practice. With a design to lend you a hand in this part of the way, which you have to

go, and where for want of Light it is impossible to know the true road, I will enlarge

myself more than others have done on this Third Key; or at least I will follow in an order,

that which they have treated so confusedly, that without the inspiration of Heaven, or

without the help of a faithful friend, one remains undoubtedly in this labyrinth, without

being able to find a happy deliverance from thence.

2. I am sure, that you who are the true Sons of Science will receive a very great

satisfaction in the explaining of these hidden Mysteries, which regard the separation and

the purification of the Principles of our Mercury, which is made by a perfect dissolution

and glorification of the body, whence it had its nativity, and by the intimate union of the

soul with its body, of whom the Spirit is the only tie which works this conjunction.

3. This is the Intention, and the essential point of the Operations of this Key, which

terminate at the generation of a new substance infinitely nobler than the First.

4. After the Wise Artist has made a spring of living water come out of the stone, and has

pressed out the vine of the philosophers, and has made their wine, he ought to take notice

that in this homogeneous substance, which appears under the form of Water, there are

three different substances, and three natural principles of bodies -- Salt, Sulphur and

Mercury -- which are the spirit, the soul, and the body; and though they appear pure and

perfectly united together, there still wants much of their being so; for when by distillation

we draw the Water, which is the soul and the spirit, the Body remains in the bottom of the

vessel, like a dead, black, and dredgy earth, which, nevertheless, is not to be despised; for

in our subject there is nothing which is not good.

5. The philosopher, John Pontanus, protests that the very superfluities of the Stone are

converted into a true essence, and that he who pretends to separate anything from our

subject knows nothing of philosophy; for that all which is therein superfluous, unclean,

dredgy -- in fine, the whole compound, is made perfect by the action of our Fire.

6. This advice opens the eyes of those, who, to make an exact purification of the

Elements and of the Principles, persuade themselves that they must only take the subtile

The Six Keys of Eudoxus

and cast away the heavy. But Hermes says that power of it is not integral until it be

turned into earth; neither ought the sons of science to be ignorant that the Fire and the

Sulphur are hidden in the centre of the Earth, and that they must wash it exactly with its

spirit, to extract out of it the Fixed Salt, which is the Blood of our Stone. This is the

essential Mystery of the operation, which is not accomplished till after a convenient

digestion and a slow distillation.

7. You know that nothing is more contrary than fire and water; but yet the Wise Artist

must make peace between the enemies, who radically love each other vehemently.

Cosmopolite told the manner thereof in a few words: All things must therefore being

purged make Fire and Water to be Friends, which they will easily do in their earth, which

had ascended with them. Be then attentive on this point; moisten oftentimes the earth

with its water, and you will obtain what you seek. Must not the body be dissolved by the

water, and the Earth be penetrated with its Humidity, to be made proper for generation?

According to philosophers, the Spirit is Eve, the Body is Adam; they ought to be joined

together for the propagation of their species. Hermes says the same in other terms: "For

Water is the strongest Nature which surmounts and excites the fixed Nature in the Body,

that is, rejoices in it."

8. In effect, these two substances, which are of the same nature but of different genders,

ascend insensibly together, leaving but a little faeces in the bottom of their vessel; so that

the soul, spirit, and body, after an exact purification, appear at last inseparably united

under a more noble and more perfect Form than it was before, and as different from its

first liquid Form as the alcohol of Wine exactly rectified and actuated with its salt is

different from the substance of the wine from whence it has been drawn; this comparison

is not only very fitting, but it furthermore gives the sons of science a precise knowledge

of the operations of the Third Key.

9. Our Water is a living Spring which comes out of the Stone by a natural miracle of our

philosophy. The first of all is the water which issueth out of this Stone. It is Hermes who

has pronounced this great Truth. He acknow- ledges, further, that this water is the

foundation of our Art.

10. The philosophers give it many names; for sometimes they call it wine, sometimes

water of life, sometimes vinegar, sometimes oil, according to the different degrees of

Preparation, or according to the diverse effects which it is capable of producing.

11. Yet I let you know that it is properly called the Vinegar of the Wise, and that in the

distillation of this Divine Liquor there happens the same thing as in that of common

vinegar; you may hence draw instruction: the water and the phlegm ascend first; the oily

substance, in which the efficacy of the water consists, comes the last, etc.

12. It is therefore necessary to dissolve the body entirely to extract all its humidity which

contains the precious ferment, the sulphur, that balm of Nature, and wonderful unguent,

without which you ought not to hope ever to see in your vessel this blackness so desired

by all the philosophers. Reduce then the whole compound into water, and make a perfect

The Six Keys of Eudoxus

union of the volatile with the fixed; it is a precept of Senior's, which deserves attention,

that the highest fume should be reduced to the lowest; for the divine water is the thing

descending from heaven, the reducer of the soul to its body, which it at length revives.

13. The Balm of Life is hid in these unclean faeces; you ought to wash them with this

celestial water until you have removed away the blackness from them, and then your

Water shall be animated with this Fiery Essence, which works all the wonders of our Art.

14. But, further, that you may not be deceived with the terms of the Compound, I will tell

you that the philosophers have two sorts of compounds. The first is the compound of

Nature, wherof I have spoken in the First Key; for it is Nature which makes it in a

manner incomprehensible to the Artist, who does nothing but lend a hand to Nature by

the adhibition of external things, by the means of which she brings forth and produces

this admirable compound.

15. The second is the compound of Art; it is the Wise man who makes it by the secret

union of the fixed with the volatile, perfectly conjoined with all prudence, which cannot

be acquired but by the lights of a profound philosophy.

16. The compound of Art is not altogether the same in the Second as in the Third Work;

yet it is always the Artist who makes it. Geber defines it, a mixture of Argent vive and

Sulphur, that is to say, of the volatile and the fixed; which, acting on one another, are

volatilized and fixed reciprocally into a perfect Fixity. Consider the example of Nature;

you see that the earth will never produce fruit if it be not penetrated with its humidity,

and that the humidity would always remain barren if it were not retained and fixed by the

dryness of the earth.

17. So, in the Art, you can have no success if you do not in the first work purify the

Serpent, born of the Slime of the earth; it you do not whiten these foul and black faeces,

to separate from thence the white sulphur, which is the Sal Amoniac of the Wise, and

their Chaste Diana, who washes herself in the bath; and all this mystery is but the

extraction of the fixed salt of our compound, in which the whole energy of our Mercury

consists.

18. The water which ascends by distillation carries up with it a part of this fiery salt, so

that the affusion of the water on the body, reiterated many times, impregnates, fattens,

and fertilizes our Mercury, and makes it fit to be fixed, which is the end of the second

Work. 19. One cannot better explain this Truth than by Hermes, in these words:

When I saw that the water by degrees did become thicker and

harder I did rejoice, for I certainly knew that I should find what

I sought for.

It is not without reason that the philosophers give this viscous Liquor the name of Pontick

Water. Its exuberant ponticity is indeed the true character of its virtue, and the more you

The Six Keys of Eudoxus

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