The Alchemy of Ibn Bishrun

The premises of this noble craft were mentioned by the ancients – the generation of minerals, the creation of rocks and precious stones, and the different natures of regions and localities. The students of this science must first know 3 things:

1. whether it exists
2. what brings it into being
3. how it comes into being.

I have sent you elixir as proof for the forces of alchemy. Alchemy is the search for the stone that makes the alchemical operation possible.

Potentially, the operation may be performed with anything. This is because the potentiality comes from the 4 Elements.

However, there are things that might be used for the operation only potentially, not actually.

There are some things that can be decomposed and others that cannot.

Those that can be decomposed can be processed and treated. They are the things that can be transformed from potentiality into actuality.

On the other hand, the things that cannot be decomposed cannot be processed and treated. This is because they have nothing but potentiality in them.

They cannot be decomposed, in order to give some of the elements they contain an advantage over the others and to have the power of the bigger (elements) predominate over the lesser ones.

“You - may God give you success - must therefore know the most suitable of the decomposable stones that can be used for the operation.

You must know its genus, power, action, and which kind of dissolution or solidification, purification, calcification, absorption, or transformation it may be able to effect.

People who do not know these basic principles of alchemy will never be successful or achieve any good results.

You must know whether:

• the stone can be aided by something else or is sufficient by itself
• it is one thing by itself at the beginning or is associated with something else and becomes one thing by itself during the treatment, and is therefore called ‘stone.’

You must also know:

• how it works
• how much its components must weigh
• what times are suitable for it
• how the spirit is inserted and the soul made to enter into it
• whether fire can separate the soul from the stone after it has been inserted in it
  • if not, why (not), and what makes it necessary that it be that way.

All philosophers have praised the soul and thought that it is the soul that governs, sustains, and defends the body and is active in it.

When the soul leaves the body, the body dies and gets cold. It cannot move or defend itself, because there is no life in it and no light.

The body and the soul only because alchemy is similar to the body of man, which is built up by regular meals and which persists and is perfected by the living, luminous soul.

Man suffers from the disharmony of his component elements.

If his elements were in complete harmony and thus not affected by accidents and inner contradictions, the soul would not be able to leave his body. Man would then live eternally.

The Elements producing the alchemical operation constitute a quality that pushes forward at the beginning. It is a process of emanation requiring an end.

When they have reached this limit, they cannot be transformed back into the state that formed the starting point of their composition.

The natures of the substance had been separate, but now they adhere to each other and have become one thing, similar to the soul in power and activity, and similar to the body in having composition and pulse.

There is a strange thing about the actions of the elements.

It is the weak Element that is powerful, since it has power over the decomposition, composition, and completion of things. This is how I use the words ‘powerful’ and ‘weak.’

Change and nonbeing in the first composition occur only as the result of disharmony among the component elements.

They do not occur in the second composition, because there then is harmony among the component elements.

An early philosopher-alchemist has said: ‘Decomposition and division mean life and duration, as far as the alchemical operation is concerned, while composition means death and nonbeing.’

This statement has ‘a subtle meaning. The philosopher meant by ’life and duration’ its transformation from nonexistence into existence.

As long as it remains in (the state of) its first composition, it is, no doubt, nonbeing. But when the second composition takes place, nonbeing no longer exists.

The second composition comes about only after decomposition and division.

Thus, decomposition and division are peculiar to the (alchemical) operation. If it is applied to the soluble body (substance), it spreads in it, because it has no form, since it has come to take in the body the place of the soul which has no form.

This is because it has no weight as far as (the substance) is concerned.

Mixing a fine thing with another fine thing is easier than mixing a coarse thing with another coarse thing. I have in mind here the similarity in form among spirits (on the one hand) and bodies (substances, on the other), for it is the form of things that causes their union.

It is logical that stones are stronger in their resistance to fire than spirits.

Likewise, gold, iron, and copper offer more resistance to fire than sulphur, mercury, and other spirits.

Therefore, The substances were spirits at the beginning.

When the heat of the natural process (kiyan) affects them, they are transformed by it into coarse, coherent substances.

Fire is not able to consume them, because they are exceedingly coarse and coherent. When an exceedingly great amount of fire is applied to them, it turns them again into spirits, as they had been when they were first created.

If fire then again affects the fine spirits, they flee and are not able to endure it. Thus, you must know what brought the substances to their particular condition and (what) brought the spirits to theirs. That is the most important knowledge you can have.

The spirits flee and are burned, because of their combustibility and fineness. They became combustible because of their great share of humidity. When fire notices humidity, it attaches itself to it, because humidity is airy 975a and thus similar to fire.

The fire does not stop eating it, until (the humidity) is consumed. The same applies to substances when, (noticing) the approach of fire, they flee,976 because they have little coherence and are coarse.

But they are not combustible, because they are composed of earth and water which offers resistance to fire, in that the fine (components of water) unite with its coarse (components) through a long (process of) cooking which softens and mixes things. For, anything that is annihilated through fire 977 is annihilated only because its fine (components) separate (under the influence of fire) from its coarse (components), and its parts merge with each other without dissolution and adaptation,

Thus, the resulting combination and interpenetration is (mere) aggregation, not (real) mixture.