The Golden Tract is a treatise written by an author who has deliberately remained anonymous and was originally published in the Musaeum Hermeticum (1625) in Franckfurt am Mayn by the publisher Bey Lvca Jennis zu Finden. The translated version presented here can be found in Arthur Edward Waite’s The Hermetic Museum, Vol. I (1893). I have kept this version mostly true to Waite’s with slight edits in word choice and typesetting to render it more accessible to modern readers. In the heart of distributing this sacred knowledge I want to share some insights below that may already be obvious to those initiated into the mysteries of alchemy. This is by no means a complete or definitive understanding of the The Golden Tract, but I hope that it might still be appreciated to those who are yet to find their way through the symbolic meanings.
The tract itself opens up with a statement to the reader that the work, or as the author calls it, the Art, is a way in which all things can be perfected. For the artist, one can expect enlightenment, blessed works, and a great improvement to life. This is because the alchemical process is one of purification. The Author begins with a the following sentiment and states:
“…for which benefit all praise, honour, and glory are justly due to Him.”
The Him being God, for without God none of this could ever be, and as aligning one’s will to the Will of God is part of the Art, it is fitting that the Author sets expectations early.
After a quick history of alchemical knowledge, the Author warns us that there is a true method to the synthesis of the Philosopher’s Stone but that it is mired by false records from scholars who do not know this truth. This warning is a kind of segue into the bulk of the work, which will initially discuss the Matter. The Matter is a term referring to the original source material for the philosopher’s stone. In practical alchemy, alchemists will begin with a source material, whether it be blood, dirt, seamen, or other, and then proceed with the various alchemical processes to purify the substance. The desire of this purification was to create the fabled philosopher’s stone, however, without the correct Matter to begin with, one will not be able to synthesize the stone. However, the author reassures us that:
“Agreement exists in regard to the Matter, its solution, its weight, and the regulation and increase of the fire.”
The tract now takes time to explain what the Matter is, and what it is not. But to truly follow the meaning of the Author and the other alchemical philosophers, we must understand that alchemical terms are symbolic and often have multiple definitions. Take for example the quote from Anasratus who says the following in regards to the Matter:
“It is the distilled moisture of the Moon joined to the light of the Sun, and congealed.”
If we read moon as the unconscious mind and sun as the conscious mind, then we see he is referring to the congealed, or materialization of a mind which has unified the conscious and unconscious. The Author also tells us that the Matter is one thing, not multiple things, and leaves us with a kind of riddle, stating:
“Nature has made it ready to the hand of the adept, having willed this one thing, and no other thing in all the world, to be the material of the Stone. This Matter lies before the eyes of all; everybody sees it, touches it, loves it, but knows it not. It is glorious and vile, precious and of small account, and is found everywhere.”
I propose that the one thing, the Matter, is consciousness, but that consciousness in humanity is a duality of the active masculine conscious awareness and the passive feminine unconscious which must be unified. If there is any further doubt, see the quotation from The Crowd where it is stated:
“Know that the secret of the work consists in male and female, i.e., an active and a passive principle. In lead is found the male, in orpiment the female. The male rejoices when the female is brought to it, and the female receives from the male a tinging seed, and is coloured thereby.”
This quote brings an important point to consider. The active and passive principles of the mind influence each other. The active consciousness “colours” the passive unconscious, or in other words, how we consciously think and act will influence our unconscious psyche. With this in mind, it becomes apparent that it is vitally important to the Artist to become aware of our conscious decisions, and to make those decisions deliberately as to not negatively impact the unconscious mind. Diomedes speaks to this, referring to poor conscious choices as foreign matter, he says:
“Join the male child of the ‘red servant’ to the fragrant spouse, and they will produce the object of our Art. But you must not introduce any foreign matter, neither dust, nor any other thing.”
Now that it is clear that the Matter is a unification of consciousness within the individual, the tract takes length to explain how consciousness can be purified, but does so under the symbolism of alchemical terms. The Author explains the process in the following way:
“That inward sulphur [actions] which fashions the quicksilver [consciousness] belonging to it, and matures it towards perfection, is either pure or impure, combustible or incombustible. Impure sulphur [actions] hinders the digestion of the quicksilver [consciousness], which cannot be transformed into gold until that which does not belong [impure actions] to it has been entirely separated from it; but the pure, incombustible, fixed sulphur [pure actions] remains with it, and then at length it passes either into gold or silver, according as the sulphur is either white or red.”
The in-quote brackets above are my own and were inserted for ease of understanding the concept as meaning that an individuals actions which are not aligned to his or her True Will are impure and will hinder the development of consciousness into gold, so one must combust, or, destroy, impure actions leaving only those that align to the individuals True Will. This is not a complex goal, one should always be striving to live in truth, and if we always do what is true and right, then our actions will be aligned with True Will.
However, our actions are often made subconsciously and we do not always do what is good or right and this aspect of the self needs to be purified. The Author quotes Geber who states:
“Seek to resolve the sun and the moon into their dry water, which the vulgar call mercury.”
The dry water referred to here is emotions, so Geber is advising that conscious (sun) and unconscious (moon) can be resolved or unified through processing stubborn emotions. Once the dry water has been distilled, what is left is purified and can be worked on further as is stated in Sounding of the Trumpet which says:
“That which is left at the bottom of the distilling vessel is our salt—that is to say, our earth.”
The author then tells us that once this salt, or purified union of consciousness, has been produced, that a second youth of health and wellbeing is given to the practitioner, no doubt due to the state of a clear conscious. We are then told in no uncertain terms that the Philosopher’s Stone cannot be made from impure materials, meaning that this stage of the process must take place.
Mercury is then deemed as the material of the stone, however, the Author tells us that there are two kinds of mercury, the common mercury and the mercury of the Sages. I propose that the mercury of the sages is that connection between our mortal and immortal consciousness, that part of ourselves which is connected to the divine and is our superconsciousness which is the bridge between the True Will and consciousness. We can imagine common mercury to be the link between the conscious and the subconscious, then we can imagine the mercury of the sages to be the link between the subconscious and the superconscious.
In the end, the Author does not tell us directly what the Matter of the stone is, but with the above understanding, the following quote reveals much of what is needed:
“You are to know that, although the solution is one, yet in it there may be distinguished a first, and a second, as they say in the schools. The first solution is that of which Arnold speaks in the above quotation, viz., the reduction of it to its First Matter; the second is that perfect solution of body and spirit at the same time, in which the solvent and the thing solved always abide together, and with this solution of the body there takes place simultaneously a consolidation of the spirit.”
The synthesis of the Philosopher’s Stone is an internal process. The first stage is the purification of the conscious and unconscious mind, the second stage is to then implement this purified state of being by aligning actions with the purified will and allowing the self to become a channel for divine True Will to manifest in the material world. A true union of mind, body, and spirit.
A classic alchemical source text translated and edited for modern readers.
The Golden tract: Concerning the Philosopher’s Stone is a must-read for any serious student of alchemy. It describes the true synthesis of the Philosopher’s Stone in classic medieval alchemical symbolism.
Originally published in the Musaeum Hermeticum (1625) and later translated into English by Arthur Edward Waite in his The Hermetic Museum, Vol. I (1893), this version of the text has been diligently edited by Jones so that it can be easily digested by modern readers. Jones has also included a foreword introducing the text and diligently footnoted the text to give meaning and context to the original writing.
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