#opera vegetabilia

[pathofregeneration]

Hermetic Tria Prima, part I

“Therefore, let my child be aware that the first matter of everything in the world has been Mercury; since water existed before there was even time, and the Spirit of the Lord rested on it. But what kind of water was it? Was it cloudwater? Or another kind that one could pour? No, but it was a dry, slimy water into which God set His earth, which was His Sulphur, so that the earth coagulated the water, and there arose from it the four Elements which had been locked in these two by command of God and His supreme Will. Mercury dissolves the Sulphur, and Sulphur coagulates Mercury, and these two cannot be one without the other. Mercury is never without the Sulphur because it is transformed into it. The nature proper of Mercury is that it dissolves its Sulphur and makes it white, and the nature of the dry Sulphur purges and congeals its Mercury. As these two cannot be one without the other, they also cannot be without Salt. The latter is the principal means whereby Nature accomplishes her generation of all things in the whole world, in vegetables, minerals, as well as in animals, which teaching of mine you should well understand.

For if Nature did not have Mercury in her generation straight at the beginning of the original composition of every created thing, the latter could not keep together in its natural moisture, which is one of the most necessary ingredients for keeping a thing in its essence. And if she did not have the Sulphur, the moist parts would not be congealed. Likewise if she did not have the Salt (which is the means whereby she connects both and causes one to enter the other), it would neither mingle with anything in the world nor unite with it, because there would be no sharpness for entering, and it could not unite with anything. Consequently, these three, namely Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt, are none without the other; where you find one of them, you find them all three, and there is no created thing in the world wherein you do not find them. From these three everything has arisen that is in the world.”

— Isaac Hollandus, Opera Vegetabilia

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Sulphur, Mercury, Salt — 18th-century engraving Based on the work of Basil Valentine (Coloured by Adam McLean)

[pathofregeneration]

Hermetic Tria Prima, part II

“They are also so much intermixed in the four Elements that they are one in one body. The Salt, however, is hiding in the deepest part of the Elements because it must keep them together by its sharpness and dryness. It is nevertheless a spirit and volatile. However, because it is contained in the deepest of the mixture and is kept captive by the fat-combustible oil to which it clings—for the Salt is contained in the combustible oil like the yolk in the egg, and the combustible oil lies in the deepest part of the Elements where it separates last from the Earth together with the Salt and fecibus—the Salt lies buried at the bottom of the Earth and the combustible oil.

Consequently, it cannot flee from the Earth except by the power of the Fire, or else the three aforementioned spirits must first separate from the mixture of the Elements, which is the soul of all things or their Quinta Essentia, which must keep the whole mixture of the Elements together, and when it is extracted, this mixture separates of its own. Thereafter the Salt must not be separated from the Earth with the Fire, but when all the Elements separate from the fecibus, the Salt also separates. This Salt is an unknown Salt to the ignorant, because it is contained in the deepest of the Elements. Therefore, all those who do not know this Salt must necessarily be mistaken, because without this Salt no thing on earth can stay together or come together.”

— Isaac Hollandus, Opera Vegetabilia

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Polarities, Elements and Tria Prima Engraving from Giovanni Lacinio, Pretiosa Margarita Novella de Thesauro (1714) (Coloured by Adam McLean)

[pathofregeneration]

The Secret of the Arts

“Now I will teach and describe the secret of the arts, which secret is at the heart of all secrets hidden in the art of alchemy; since one will here understand the wonderful works that God has accomplished in all things he has made out of the four elements… For I shall here teach you to know the spirits of herbs, trees, and all growing things; how to separate them from their bodies, and also how to purify the four elements and restore them to their first being and their perfect power; that is, that when the elements are purified, how they can be put together again and make a perfect and fixed body of them, which is then glorified and has a miraculous effect.“

— Isaac Holland, Opera Vegetabilia

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J.D. Mylius, Coitus — illustration from Pretiosissimum Donum Dei (Coloured by Adam McLean)