Alchemical Process Quotes

I've spent, I think, close to the last decade effortlessly and magically converting your tin cans into pure gold.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines crucible as "a place, time, or situation characterized by the confluence of powerful intellectual, social, economic, or political forces; a severe test of patience or belief; a vessel for melting material at high temperatures." A crucible was the vessel in which medieval alchemists attempted to turn base metals into gold. That the alchemists inevitably failed in their audacious attempts doesn't denigrate the power of the crucible as a metaphor for the circumstances that cause an individual to be utterly transformed.

Become an alchemist. Transmute base metal into gold, suffering into consciousness, disaster into enlightenment.

Think of a crucible as an occasion for real magic, the creation of something more valuable than an alchemist could possibly imagine. In it, the individual is transformed, changed, created anew. He or she grows in ways that change his or her definition of self.

Cut that in Three, which Nature hath made One , Then strengthen hyt, even by it self alone, Wherewith then Cutte the poudred Sonne in twayne, By length of tyme, and heale the woonde againe. The self same Sunne twys yet more, ye must wounde, Still with new Knives, of the same kinde, and grounde; Our Monas trewe thus use by natures Law, Both binde and lewse, only with rype and rawe, And ay thanke God who only is our Guyde, All is ynugh, no more then at this Tyde.

Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines.

The alchemists spent years in their laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals. They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.

Thus you may multiply each stone 4 times & no more for they will then become oyles shining in ye dark and fit for magicall uses. You may ferment them with gold and silver, by keeping the stone and metal in fusion together for a day, & then project upon metalls. This is the multiplication of ye stone in vertue. To multiply it in weight ad to it of ye first Gold whether philosophic or vulgar.

But in this Second Work if thou extract our Air and our Fire with the phlegm water, they will the more naturally and easily be drawn out of their infernal prison, and with less losse of their Spirits, than by the former way before described.

If gold must be gold, it must pass through the furnace.

Then hast our the Red Stone perfect with less labour, expense of time and costs, for the which ever thank God.

Nature also forges man, now a gold man, now a silver man, now a fig man, now a bean man.

In alchemical treatises, the formula L'Oeuvre au Noir ... designates what is said to be the most difficult phase of the alchemist's process, the separation and dissolution of substance. It is still not clear whether the term applied to daring experiments on matter itself, or whether it was understood to symbolize trials of the mind in discarding all forms of routine and prejudice. Doubtless it signified one or the other meaning alternately, or perhaps both at the same time.

Tita knew through her own flesh how fire transforms the elements, how a lump of corn flour is changed into a tortilla, how a soul that hasn't been warmed by the fire of love is lifeless, like a useless ball of corn flour.

This is our mercury, our lunary, but whosoever thinks of any other water besides this, is ignorant and foolish, never attaining to the desired effects.

Quiet this metal! Let the manes put off their terror, let them put off their aqueous bodies with fire. Let them assume the milk-white bodies of agate. Let them draw together the bones of the metal.