Here is a rough translation of the title, introductory parts and the first five pages. I have not checked the translation.
EXPERIENCE OF ANAXAGORAS,
ACCORDING TO THE PLATONIC RINGS,
AND
THE GOLDEN CHAIN
OF HOMER.
In which the true process to elaborate the universal medicine—both for the human body and for improving the metals—lies clearly and candidly before the eyes.
Frankfurt on the Main,
At the expense of good friends, and on commission with Dominico von Sand, 1723.
The manuscript has hitherto remained hidden in curious hands, but has now been brought to light by a special lover for other lovers to have at a low price, and has been promoted for printing.
The whole process shows
how very simple and plain nature is and how she works, and how art must thus imitate her if it does not wish to work against her, but rather successfully with her. Also an evident and sun-clear demonstration of how one thing proceeds from another, and how all our labors hang together, like a chain consisting of pure rings where one is linked into the other, and finally all of them together thus come forth for a useful purpose, or accomplish what they could not otherwise do individually. So that therefore the various preparations of our material are really nothing else than a single continued operation.
Whence Rasis says in the
Book of Divinity: Know that the things of nature are bound together by a subtle artifice, so that in every single thing there is potentially any other thing whatsoever, although it may not be seen active in writing.
You, however, beloved Christian reader!
You who are deemed worthy by GOD the Most High to get this manuscript into your hands and to behold it with your eyes: sharpen your understanding therein, and let your hands prepare the truth from it, which you will infallibly find. But guard yourself against making such an art common; seeing that, after the most holy redemption of the entire human race through the most holy blood of JESUS Christ, there is no higher secret on earth than this Hermetic Art, which therefore might with all right and reason be named
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. For this reason GOD has reserved this revelation entirely to Himself, to give it to one of His servants, to whomever HE will.
If you act against this heartfelt warning given to you by me, then may the curse of the philosophers be upon you, and I assure you that GOD will either withdraw His blessing from you therefor, or punish you with sudden death, so that you yourself may not enjoy the fruits which you wish to make common to an unworthy person. Whence the philosophers likewise conceal the
materia and
praxis of this mystery even from their own children.
Hoc tibi cape. [Take this to heart.]
A True and Faithful Account / of the Mystery
OF THE
PHILOSOPHER'S STONE,
and of the particular way resulting therefrom.
Concerning the remotest matter.
If one wishes to walk the ancient universal way of all philosophers to the greatest mystery—without which there is no higher one, and which justly leads to the true Philosopher's Stone—one must remain of steadfast resolve, and choose no other for the work than a mineral, nor any other than a saline one; and indeed specifically such a one as has never been any metal, yet nevertheless stands in the bowels of the earth like a mineral within its bounding walls and flanking layers, in striking or hanging veins, but as aforesaid, is neither a metal nor a mineral, but solely a salt and
forma minerali imbutum [imbued with a mineral form], precisely like copper-smoke—that is, the true
Minera Vitrioli or native vitriol (
Vitriolum nativum).
Considering that other salts as well, such as saltpeter, alum, common and rock salt, or the like, are likewise dug out of the earth—nay, even according to Leurse in the
Vortrab of his Chemical Theatre, pages 37 and 38, yield a very small amount of living mercury (
Mercurio vivo)—yet they are nowhere and at no time found in the form of a mineral like vitriol, nor around and near all metals and minerals, much less regarded as a womb thereof; nor indeed can any metal be made out of them as out of vitriol, even if they were to lie in and under the earth for ever so long.
The word "mineral," however, is meant here to signify an underground matter in which a mineral luster and body can already be seen internally, as is the case in antimony, bismuth, zinc, cobalt, and the like; whereas in the
minera or native vitriol this is not so.
Vide A.
Just as the Philosopher's Stone is nothing else than a highly volatile, easily liquefying, and plus-quam-perfect salt-stone, so it must necessarily be made best from a salt; but, as mentioned more fully, from such a salt as is not only endowed with a mineral form, like vitriol, but is also grasped in its operation or complete course to become a metal.
Batsdorff reports on this on page 110 as follows: Just as our bodies were first a saline water, they must—after they are compounded and our
principia separated from them—finally become a salt once again; inasmuch as the true universal tincture must unfailingly have such a property if it is to be useful as a salt of food to its brethren, the lesser metals, and to the human body.
And Rupescissa:
Vitriolum, seu sal est tanquam principium remotissimum omnium metallorum. [Vitriol, or salt, is as it were the remotest principle of all metals.] If you can bring it back
per reductiones to the
materia prima, then you have what you ought to have.
Basil Valentine, that most esteemed philosopher, calls the matter for the great work on page 255—not only openly, but also this mineral on page 362—a coagulated mercury (
Mercurium coagulatum), when he states: Thus coagulated mercury must be turned by art into water, just as he also further on the same page calls the oil distilled therefrom a mercurial water, when he writes: Thus the coagulated mercury must be brought by art into water, into its
prima materia: hoc est, mercurial water; then it is a stone and yet not a stone, from which a volatile fire is made in the form of water, just as on page 360 he calls the vitriol prepared anew from this oil, instead of a philosophical vitriol, actually a philosophical mercury (
Mercurium Philosophorum), when he writes thus:
Our Azoth is not common vinegar, but it is extracted through (or from) common Azoth, and from the
materia prima (thus he calls the mercurial water or oil of vitriol) a salt is made, which salt is called the Mercury of the Philosophers, which was then coagulated
in ventre terræ (that is, in Mars). As he further states: That when the matter comes to light, it is not expensive, but indeed heavy, has an odor of dead bodies, and one could purchase the same for 2 florins—which cheap time, however, has vanished.
And what is most especially to be observed in this author's writings stands on page 277, which every man might well write in golden letters upon his Jasper table and hang before his eyes at all times, namely:
See to it that from all metals, and especially from iron and copper—which are nevertheless entirely hard and nearly fixed metals—a vitriol can be made from each in particular. Now that is a reduction of a metal into a mineral, for minerals become metals; thus all metals were also once minerals in the beginning, which is why minerals are the
proxima materia of the metals, but not the
prima.
From this same vitriol further reductions may take place, so that through the power of fire a spirit is driven out. Now when such spirit has been driven off, there is once again at hand a reduction of a mineral into a spiritual essence, yet each spirit retains in its reduction the metallic property. (For the oil of vitriol has two spirits, a red and a white one.) But such a spirit is otherwise not yet the
materia prima.
Who then could be so gross and absurd as not to further understand or believe how one may also bring and arrive at the
prima materia, and finally to the seed itself, through such reduction and conversion of one thing into another—both of minerals and of metals, although it is not necessary to destroy the metals themselves, because one finds their seed completely naked, unfixed, and open in the minerals?
Oh GOD! in all eternity, what do such ignorant people imagine! Indeed, it is quite an easy and childish labor.
NB. One thing indeed proceeds from another, just as finally a loaf of bread is baked from the dear grain.
NB. here one has from all this not only what the
vera [true] as the
remotissima materia is in Basil, but also how to arrive at the
prima,
scil. per reductiones [namely through reductions], and at the same time the reason why on the title page of our work I called our labor a single continued or continuing operation, because namely one thing must proceed from another.
Jacob Böhme, the Teutonic philosopher, says: This ore and stone is found in a crude shape, hence to most people it is a stone of offense, to which Chortolasseus adds on page 73: clothed in a pitiful gray smock; although in Hungary it is also found brownish-red, item in a white-gray spath. All sorts are good, provided it is a pure
minera, and the vitriol found therein is not aluminous; yet Naxagoras's Concordance teaches on page [...] how such is to be separated from it.
alchemyforums.com
This is what I was saying in reference to our discussion previously on Goossen van Vreeswijck's works. There will always be a place for a proper in-depth translation done with the utmost attention and care, but the machine translations are not bad, often "good enough" for most purposes, and improving by leaps and bounds as time passes.
