Sendivogius - nitre

[solomon levi]

Just found this quote looking at books on ebay.

"Pure salt of the Earth, otherwise known as nitre, is formed in the cauldron. This now has to be dissolved and concentrated, and purified and rinsed, until it becomes beautifully transparent and crystalline. It then acquires the name nitre of the philosophers' earth, our salt, which rises in the sea of the world, WATER WHICH DOES NOT WET HANDS, without which nothing in this world can be born or come to exist.


Thus you have in your hands the secret of all Philosophers and the source of the spring, or the hiding place of Nature. It is in this secret that the aforementioned Spirit of Nature, and the whole world resides. Both life and health proceed from this."


Processus D. Michaelis Sendivogii super centrum universi, seu Sal centrale. [published in:] J.J. Becher, Chymischer Gltickshafen, (Frankfurt, 1682)

[phliosehea]

A decent etymological study of the word niter

We begin with the Egyptian word ntr (I've also seen it spelled netjeri / netjry /ntrj / ntry). The word originally meant "divine" or "pure".

Jeremiah 2:22- For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord GOD.

The Pretiosissimum Donum Dei: To calcine is no other thing then to dry and to turn in to ashes. Therefore burn it without fear, until it be ashes, which when it is so thou hast mixed it well. Despise not these ashes but give it them the sweat that they have cast out, and when the water is all drank up and turned into earth within certain days will be done.