This is a never-before published letter from a female spiritual alchemist of the late seventeenth century. It is a complement to the kinds of spiritual treatises found in works available in The Divine Couple, edited by Robert Faas, and in Wisdom's Book: The Sophia Anthology, edited by Arthur Versluis. Click here for more.

Wisdom VI.v.13-19


Wisdom is beautiful and eternal, and gladly lets herself be seen by those who love her, and lets herself be found by those who seek her.
Yea, she meets and gives herself to be known by those that she holds dear.
Whoever would soon see her, is not given much trouble; he finds her already waiting at his door.
For looking after her, that is true cleverness, and whoever is valiant in pursuit of her will not long sorrow.
She herself walks about looking for those who are worthy of her and graciously shows herself to them as they go,
in every thought of theirs coming to meet them.
Of her the most sure beginning is the desire for discipline;
care for discipline means loving her;
loving her means keeping her laws;
obeying her laws guarantees incorruptibility;
incorruptibility brings near to God
Thus desire for Wisdom leads to sovereignty.



Even before your fine teaching letter had fallen into my hands, the compassion of God had condescended to his unworthy maiden, and opened to me the following instructions of the right way for my work according to the whole content of philosophic truth.

Form and materia are two substances, which are our field and magnet, because every agens [agent] needs its corresponding [receptacle]. Two and yet still one, and these two are generated out of one body, and will again come to one body in purity, but even nobler than before.

This agent or forma has in itself something eternal and indestructible, of which the philosophers have written so much (Mercury of the Wise, its secret fire), but when this general agent is become corporeal, then is it the salt of all things.

These two, forma and materia, have opposed qualities and are nonetheless come forth out of one root: hence is it said: one is mercurial, the other sulphuric, one lunar, the other solar; and though both come from heaven out of a pneumatic root, both are imprisoned in the earth. This pneuma is the field where their roots green.

Forma and Materia are man and woman, brother and sister, king and queen, and yet there is the greatest enmity between them; but whoever can make them lay together, and enkindle the metallic sulphur through their fiery spirit, can thus unite them inseparably, and make something corporeally new; for hereafter hold the newborn Apollonian son in the proper warmth [calore], feeding and drinking, washing it with the spirit of its father much and long, until it receives it and can descend, for this spirit is a water of life, which causes the newborn child of nature to visibly swell: so that manifold inner colors appear in its visage, and this lasts so long as the dragon eats its wings and tail.

These colors are called the tailings, because they are often transforming from one into another, as citron [greyish green-yellow], pomerance-green, and lazuli-green colors; but the latter green is held longer than the others, for in this latter green is the whole completeness; for this green demonstrates conclusively that our stone is graced with a wakening soul, in order that consequently the unending branch or scion is brought forth:

That is the green lion of nature, who in his innermost is bloodred; herein comes the redness that gives the sign of its true right work, a color of peach-blood, which certifies that it has not come to nothing.

This tincture is powerful enough to be used as medicine, and needs its augmentation, but one can extract the fixed white salt out of the calcinated work with the fiery vegetable spirit, with little trouble, to restore the human body to prevent all illnesses with the highest usefulness.

When the garnet-color is sustained for a while, apply the strongest fire to the refined ashes [aschenkapelle] so that the materia bursts forth, and falls apart from one another in drunkenness, and the noblest part stays together in the midst; take this part out from the other no-longer useful material, put it in a kolbenglas, apply a graded fire, like earlier with imbibing and coagulating unto the highest degree, so one will find a black, worthless, burnt materia, and separate the good red from it, for it is the sulphur solis multiplicarum. Seek whether it has a ingress into projection into silver or gold; where it does not go, then continue as before with solution and coagulation, until it flows like wax, and then out of the fire, pulverize it into a powder.

This is the multiplication in quality, with solution and coagulation, with our mercurial-water, or water of life.

The multiplication in quantity proceeds thus: of this perfectissimi pulveris take a part, of the first nymphic body-salt take three parts; solving and coagulating as you like, which comes to pass through imbibing and distilling, and this one repeats as often as one wants in the gentle ashenfire until it remains throughout fixed, so that it doesn’t ascend into the heights, but rather flows in the fire like oil or wax, but in the cold outside the fire appears like a glass, which allows itself to be pulverized into a red powder.

Through this solution and coagulation, which is none other than steeping [can also mean impregnating] and calcinating, we make our salt porous, thus calcinating the earth, in which the seed should be thrown, so that the earth will become thirsty, and want to drink, in order that it become impregnated, and overflows with multiplying; but give it no more to drink than it can take, for this is the best proportion: thus the natural warmth augments and grows, and the fire increases; this is the philosophic sublimation.

But it needs time, and this labor can take a year or longer without being completed; so that our earth has a flow and a color, so it doesn’t disappear and this may come to pass in an even longer time, sometimes nearly two years.

Many an understanding man, who has followed this to the letter, has ended where he ought to have begun: for one cannot hurry the work, shorten it, or bring it to a quick conclusion.

Whoever wants to do something fruitful in this work, should turn to it with all his diligence, work, and care, and not be burdened with business, otherwise it will be hindered.

It also costs thus: originally, one cannot bring the work to completion with little materia, for it takes a long time, and where you aren’t able to do it for the two years of food, drink, coals and more that belongs thereto, to maintain you and your companion (because one alone cannot do the Work) then the thing becomes idle: for whoever wants to do such a work, he should prepare all things with his hands, and at least in the beginning have prepared four to six pounds of the materia, along with what is necessary for the maintenance of his fire.

You also need a book, feather, and ink close to hand, so you can write down everything, be it great or small, all signs and colors and transmutations that you see, and also the time for it to happen, and the heat [can also mean passion] necessary.

You should also know that it gives no other particular than the philosophic, in that our particularia ex radice of the true subjectiuniversalis arises (and that the common silver doesn’t change, [nor other] than through the good of the gold can it be improved) and both must be made corporeal through the conjunction, that is, out of Mercur and Sulphur, each in its proportion being mixed together, so they may run together, in order that they remain inseparable and undivided. And they will both be volatile and spiritual, hence emerging the bodies (our gold and silver): that is truly the beginning of our true medicine.

On the other hand, in the sophistic [false] process and particulars there is nothing to find as ungrund. It is true that the ancient philosophers based half their work on this, with something taken out [excluded], and the better [they thought] the manifestation of the great work, the more they squandered, annexing, [annectirt] in that they reduced a particular thereby (by which is to be understood transmuting Luna in Gold): hence is the word Particular understood by most. Although many people of high and low position, in an improper understanding, imagine that one can make gold and silver out of other metals without the Universal-tincture, this is a horrible deception.

But whoever has the right augmentum, he can be certain of an unending treasure and enduring, undeceiving truth.

Out of this one can well see a true Filius Hermetis, as it is a totally different situation with the true philosophical Fundamental-sayings, than with the sophistic deception and deluded-process. Thus you my beloved disciple, pray to our gentle Diana, the same, as I wrote, diligently observing, and even more endeavoring to prepare the philosophic Subjectum (our Gold and Silver) wisely, to hold it in the philosophic marriage-bed in the proper heat [calore], and may earnestly learn to wait in patience.

He scorns all gross Compositions, and lets himself imagine his Particular, because the common Silver does not change except as it can be improved through the good of the exalted Gold.

Throughout he keeps his prayer and patiences strong and continuous, and fears God, loves his neighbor, and is always ready to render to God in heaven his due.

It is and remains incontrovertibly true that the fear of the Lord must be the beginning and the end in undertaking all good science.

You, my well-meaning friend! will now by my Answer understand enough, whether our ways separate from one another, or whether we will travel in a single path of temporal and eternal happiness; it is only one way, one truth, and one life; and with these three I am, so long as I will be,
your true friend and companion,
Theosophia Sternbucta.


Here I only seek; there will I find
There will I be holy and radiant,
Experiencing virtue’s whole worth
Inexpressibly great worth.
I will see the God of love
Those who love him, eternally exalted.

There will be the foresight of the holy will
My will and my welfare;
And [I will be a] loving being, filled with holiness,
Celebrating around the throne of God.
Then will I feel gain upon eternal gain
That I eternal am.

There will I know in light
What I see on earth but darkly;
Name it wonderful and holy
What unfathomably here came to pass;
There will my spirit think with praise and thanks
On the providence in conjunction.

There will I bring to the throne
Where God reveals my salvation
singing a holy, holy, holy
To the lamb that was slaughtered.
And cherubim and seraphim
And all heaven exults.