Vinceslas Lavinius de Moravie, Treaty of Terrestrial Heaven (1612)

Vinceslas Lavinius de Moravie, Treaty of Terrestrial Heaven (1612)

There is one bodily spirit, which Nature first created, which is common and hidden, and which is the precious balm of life, which keeps what is pure and good, and destroys that which is impure and evil. This Spirit is the end and the beginning of every creature, triple in substance, for it is made of Salt, Sulfur and Mercury, or pure water, which from above coagulates, unites, assembles, and waters all the low places, by a smooth and moist dry.

He is clean and willing to receive any form and figure whatsoever; only Art, through the help and mediation of nature, makes it visible to us. He conceals and hides in his belly a force and an infinite virtue: for it is a thing that is full and filled with the properties of Heaven and earth. It is hermaphroditic and it gives growth to all things, mingling indifferently with them, because it holds within itself all the seeds of the Ethereal Globe. For she is full of a subtle and mighty Fire, and coming down from heaven, she influences and imprints her strength on the bodies of the earth, and her belly, which is porous, is full of ardor, and he is the father of all things. Then this belly fills with another vaporous fire, and unceasingly it receives its food of the radical mood which, in this vast body, is coated with the body of the mineral water, which it does by the concoction of its warm fire.

This Water, which can be coagulated, and which gives rise to all things, becomes a pure earth which, by a strong union, holds the virtue of the highest heavens enclosed in itself; and because in this same earth it is united and conjoined with Heaven, that is why I give it this beautiful name: the Terrestrial Heaven.

Just as in the beginning the first nature used separation, to adorn and arrange the mass which was in disorder and confusion, so Art, who loves perfection, must imitate Nature. Nature takes away the substantial excrement, or by a terrestrial slime which it converts into water, or by adustion. Art uses lotion and digestion, either by water or by fire, and separates junk and impurity, purifying and cleansing the soul of all vice.

He who knows how to use Water and Fire knows the true path that leads him to the highest secrets of Nature.

Water, this great body, this first creature of God, was filled with Spirit from the beginning, having all kinds of forms in seed; and by vivifying by movement, she animates everything, and she produces all things in the light of Heaven and Earth. Water is the nurse of all that lives in these two places: in the Earth, it is a vapor; in Heaven, it is properly a Fire, triple in its substance and first matter; because from three to three, all bodies proceed and depart from Nature. It contains a balm that has for its father the Sun and for its Mother the Moon. By the Air, it sprouts in the low places, and it seeks high high places; the earth has nourished her in her warm belly, and she is the cause of all perfection.

The great God, who gives life to everything, has established two remedies for spirits and bodies, that is to say two things that cleanse and purify them of their impurities, and that is the reason why the corruption disposes and tends to a new life. Metals have these two things in them, and these two things are causes of reparation, and they participate in the Earth and Heaven, so that they unite and bind together the other two ends. This is why these two things came down from Heaven to Earth, and then they return to Heaven, so that they can show their power in the Earth.

As the sun dispels the clouds and illuminates the earth, so this spirit being prepared in this way, and separated from its clouds, it illuminates all that is dark.

In this spirit, we must consider two forms: in its juice and in its venom; its juice is double, which preserves all the bodies, by a bitter salt; its venom, which is likewise double, consumes and destroys them.

These are the faculties which are contained in the limbo and chaos, which has the same effects when one draws from the earth; but when he is separated by the separation of the good from the bad, he makes his strength and power appear on the perfect and the imperfect.

Enigma.

I live in the mountains and in the plain; I am a father before being a son; I begot my mother, and my mother, or my father, carried me in his womb, giving birth to me without the need of a nurse.

I am hermaphrodite and I have both natures; I am victorious over all the strong, and I am vain by the weakest and the smallest; there is nothing under the sky so beautiful, nor who has a figure so perfect.

There is born to me an admirable bird, who, from his bones, which are my bones, makes himself a little nest, where, flying without wings, he revives himself by dying. And Art surpassing the Laws of Nature, he is at last changed into a King who infinitely surpasses in virtue the other six.

This is the true Miracle of Terrestrial Heaven, by the Art of the Wise.

Vinceslas Lavinius de Moravie, Treaty of Terrestrial Heaven (1612), in Salmon, vol. IV V2.0