From the scattered writings of the adepts, collected over four centuries, comes this treasury of alchemical wisdom. Not one voice but many, united in the pursuit of the Great Work.
The Emerald Tablet, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the thrice-great, speaks first:
"True, without falsehood, certain and most true:
What is below is like what is above,
And what is above is like what is below,
To accomplish the miracle of the One Thing.
As all things were from One, by the meditation of One,
So from this One Thing come all things by adaptation.
Its father is the Sun, its mother is the Moon.
The Wind carries it in its belly, the Earth is its nurse.
It is the father of all perfection throughout the world."
Basil Valentine, the Benedictine monk who wrote in riddles, declared: "The Stone is not a stone. The gold is not gold. The medicine is not medicine. All names deceive. Only the work reveals."
From the Rosarium Philosophorum: "Make the fixed volatile and the volatile fixed. Unite the opposites. Let the king and queen enter the bath together. Let them dissolve. Let them die. Let them rise as one being, greater than either alone."
"Visit the interior of the earth;
By rectification you shall find the hidden stone."
— The Vitriol Acrostic
George Ripley, the English alchemist, wrote of the twelve gates through which the philosopher must pass: Calcination, Solution, Separation, Conjunction, Putrefaction, Congelation, Cibation, Sublimation, Fermentation, Exaltation, Multiplication, and Projection.
"Each gate is a death," Ripley taught. "Each death is a gate. The coward turns back at the first. The foolish rush through without understanding. The wise move slowly, dying fully at each stage, until no death can frighten them."
From an anonymous master: "The Great Work is performed in one vessel, with one fire, and one matter. The vessel is yourself. The fire is attention. The matter is your life. There is nothing to add and nothing to subtract — only to purify what is already present."
"In the beginning, you are lead.
Through the work, you become silver.
At the completion, you are gold.
But know this: the gold was always there.
You did not create it. You uncovered it."
Teaching 10
The Great Work is performed upon yourself, using yourself as both the vessel and the matter. The fire is sustained attention. The result is the gold that was always hidden within the lead of your ordinary existence.