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In the First Part of the Work and the very last part, you will be using high heat. A high degree of heat is

called by the alchemists a "dry heat" because it causes all the moisture to be evaporated. To avoid damaging

the glassware, the maximum temperature you should use is 500°F/260°C.

However, the majority of the Work requires a "moist heat", which means that the body is never dried out

completely, and the moisture is circulating. A moist heat evaporates off most (but not all) of the moisture,

then allows it to condense and rain back down onto the body, in an imitation of Nature's water cycle.

The exact degree of heat required is, like the time it takes, difficult to state as an absolute since it is relative

and depends on your matter and vessel. The trick is just to adjust the heat so that the moisture circulates

(evaporates and condenses) as efficiently as possible.

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The water, or fire, being subtle, ascends, while the body is hard, and remains where it is. The separation must be

accomplished by gentle heat, i.e., in the temperate bath of the Sages, which acts slowly, and is neither too hot nor too

cold. Then the Stone ascends to heaven, and again descends from heaven to earth. The spirit and body are first

separated, then again joined together by gentle coction, of a temperature resembling that with which a hen hatches

her eggs.

The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous, 1526 AD

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This then is the thing, that the vessel with the medicine be put into a moist fire; to wit, that the middle or one half of

the vessel be in a moist fire, or balneo, of equal heat with horse-dung, and the other half out of the fire, that you may

daily look into it.

The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

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In the beginning of the Second Part, the degree of heat required will likely be equal to, or slightly above,

body temperature (100°F/37°C). The heat will need to be increased as the Stone develops to the black,

white and red stages. Common sense should be able to inform you of the degree of heat required. It should

be a comforting degree of heat, not an aggressive degree of heat, and it should support the circulation of the

moisture.

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Therefore saith Rhasis, be very diligent and careful in the sublimation and liquefaction of the matter, that you

increase not your fire too much, whereby the water may ascend to the highest part of the vessel. For then wanting a

place of refrigeration, it will stick fast there, whereby the sulphur of the elements will not be perfected. For indeed in

this work, it is necessary that they be many times elevated, or sublimed, and depressed again. And the gentle or

temperate fire is that only which completes the mixture, makes thick, and perfects the work.

The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon, 13th Cen.

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17. Different Methods

As you may have guessed, there is not only one possible method or one possible ingredient in the world for

the making of the Stone. There are several ways to get to the same place. As long as you are following the

rules of Nature you will get the Stone by whatever method you use. Some methods will be more efficient

(quicker) than others.

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many ways have been sought to the Tincture of the Philosophers, which finally all came to the same scope and end.

The Book Concerning the Tincture of the Philosophers, by Theophrastus Paracelsus, 16th Cen.

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For the making whereof several operations have been invented by several philosophers, that that might be completed

by art which was left by Nature; since Nature herself is always inclined toward her own perfection.

Book of the Chemical Art, by Marsilius Ficinus, 15th Cen.

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The method I am presenting in this book is, I'm sure, not the most efficient method possible. But it is the

method I know and is a tried and tested method, developed over thousands of years by some of the greatest

minds.

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