“The bodies of metals are domiciles of their spirits. When their terrestrial substance is by degrees made thin, extended, and purified; the life and fire hitherto lying dormant is excited and made to appear: for the life which dwells in the metals is laid hid, as it were, asleep nor can it exert its power or show itself unless the bodies be first dissolved and turned into their radical source.”

Golden Treatise of Hermes Trismegistus