ALCHEMY AND ASTROLOGY 259 



as Paracelsus, Johannes Tritheim, Van Helmont, and 

 others, should have consented to write whole volumes 

 of such intolerable rubbish as such writings would cer- 

 tainly be if they were to be taken in a literal meaning, 

 than to believe — as is actually the case — that great 

 spiritual truths were thus hidden behind allegories that 

 were intended to be understood only by those who pos- 

 sessed the key in their own hearts. 



Although Paracelsus asserts that it is possible to make 

 gold and silver by chemical means, and that some persons 

 have succeeded in making it,-^ still he condemns such 



containing the queen, attempting to scratch with his nails the seal away, 

 and to liberate her. In answer to the servant's call for help, the Count 

 rushed in, and after a prolonged chase caught the king, who, from his 

 long exposure to the air and the want of his appropriate element, had 

 become faint, and was replaced into his bottle — not, however, without 

 succeeding to scratch the nose of the Count." 



It seems that the Count of Kufstein in later years became anxious for 

 the salvation of his soul, and considered it incompatible with the re- 

 quirements of his conscience to keep those spirits longer in his possession, 

 and that he got rid of them in some manner not mentioned by the scribe. 

 We will not make an attempt at comment, but would advise those who 

 are curious about this matter to read the book from which the above 

 account is an extract. There can be hardly any doubt as to its veracity, 

 because some historically well-known persons, such as Count Max Lam- 

 berg, Count Franz Josef v. Thun, and others, saw them, and they pos- 

 sessed undoubtedly visible and tangible bodies ; and it seems that they 

 were either elemental spirits, or, what appears to be more probable, 

 homunculi. 



1 The following is a prescription how to make artificial gold, taken from 

 an old alchemistical MS., and a marginal note says that an experiment 

 tried with it proved successful : — Take equal parts of powdered iron, sub- 

 limated sulphur, and crude antimony. Melt it in a crucible, and keep it 

 in red heat for eight hours. Powder it, and calcinate it until the sulphur 

 is evaporated. Mix two parts of this powder with one part of calcinated 

 borax, and melt it again. Powder and dissolve it in common muriatic 

 acid, and let it stand in a moderate heat for one month. The fluid is 

 then to be put into a retort and distilled, and the fluid that collects in 

 the recipient (the muriatic acid) is returned into the retort and again dis- 

 tilled, and this is repeated three times ; the third time a red powder will 

 be left in the retort (probably a mixture of muriate of iron with antimo- 

 nium oxide). This powder is to be dissolved in the menstruum philoso- 

 phicum (made by pouring chloride of antimony into water, filtering, and 

 evaporating the fluid to a certain extent, to make it stronger). The solu> 



