The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly

In the “Ladder of the Sages " we are told to beware of vitrification in the solution of bodies, with the odour and taste of imperfect substances, and also of the generative virtue of their form being in any way scorched and destroyed by corrosive waters. If you have been trying to do any of these things, you may see how grievous your mistake has been. For the water of the Sages adheres to nothing except homogeneous substances. It does not wet your hands if you touch it, but scorches your skin, and frets and corrodes every substance with which it comes in contact, except gold and silver (it would not affect these until they have been dissipated and dissolved by spirits and strong waters), and with these it combines most intimately. But the other mixture is most childish, it is condemned by the concert of the Sages, and by my own experience. I now propose to show that quicksilver is the water with which, and in which, the solution of the Sages tales place, by putting before the reader the opinions of many Philosophers living in different countries and ages. -

-An excerpt from The Alchemical Writings of Edward Kelly translated by Arthur Edward Waite