The Fifth Key is about the magnet: like draws like. Basil says the earth is alive with a quickening spirit fed by the stars, and that ‘as iron has its magnet which draws it with the invisible bonds of love, so our gold has its magnet’: the first matter of the great Stone. If you understand this, he says, you are richer than the whole world.
What the engraving shows
Basil Valentine’s Fifth Key, from the Musaeum Hermeticum. Photograph: Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0; colours added.
The engraving shows Venus, crowned, holding a flowering stem that grows from a heart, in front of a great egg-shaped vessel. Cupid aims his bow beside her, a crowned lion stands under a blazing Sun, and a man with flaming hair works a pair of bellows.
What it teaches
The Fifth Key: the magnet. Like draws like, “with the invisible bonds of love”. The power of growth comes from the living spirit in things. If you understand this, Basil says, you are richer than the whole world.
The mirror
Basil compares the spirit of the work to a reflection: ‘When a man looks into a mirror, he sees therein reflected an image of himself.’ Reach for it and you touch only the glass; in the same way the spirit drawn from the matter is ‘visible, but not palpable’.
The Fifth Key, in full
The quickening power of the earth produces all things that grow forth from it, and he who says that the earth has no life makes a statement which is flatly contradicted by the most ordinary facts. For what is dead cannot produce life and growth, seeing that it is devoid of the quickening spirit. This spirit is the life and soul that dwell in the earth, and are nourished by heavenly and sidereal influences. For all herbs, trees, and roots, and all metals and minerals, receive their growth and nutriment from the spirit of the earth, which is the spirit of life. This spirit is itself fed by the stars, and is thereby rendered capable of imparting nutriment to all things that grow, and of nursing them as a mother does her child while it is yet in the womb.
The minerals are hidden in the womb of the earth, and nourished by her with the spirit which she receives from above. Thus the power of growth that I speak of is imparted not by the earth, but by the life-giving spirit that is in it. If the earth were deserted by this spirit, it would be dead, and no longer able to afford nourishment to anything. For its sulphur or richness would lack the quickening spirit without which there can be neither life nor growth. Two contrary spirits can scarcely dwell together, nor do they easily combine. For when a thunderbolt blazes amidst a tempest of rain, the two spirits, out of which it is formed, fly from one another with a great shock and noise, and circle in the air, so that no one can know or say whither they go, unless the same has been ascertained by experience as to the mode in which these spirits manifest.
Know then, gentle Reader, that life is the only true spirit, and that that which the ignorant herd look upon as dead may be brought back to permanent, visible, and spiritual life, if but the spirit be restored to the body: the spirit which is supported by heavenly nutriment, and derived from heavenly, elementary, and earthly substances, which are also called formless matter. Moreover, as iron has its magnet which draws it with the invisible bonds of love, so our gold has its magnet, viz., the first Matter of the great Stone. If you understand these my words, you are richer and more blessed than the whole world. Let me conclude this chapter with one more remark.
When a man looks into a mirror, he sees therein reflected an image of himself. If, however, he try to touch it, he will find that it is not palpable, and that he has laid his hand upon the mirror only. In the same way, the spirit which must be evolved from this Matter is visible, but not palpable. This spirit is the root of the life of our bodies, and the Mercury of the Philosophers, from which is prepared the liquid water of our Art, the water which must once more receive a material form, and be rectified by means of certain purifying agents into the most perfect Medicine.
For we begin with a firm and palpable body, which subsequently becomes a volatile spirit, and a golden water, without any conversion, from which our Sages derive their principle of life. Ultimately we obtain the indestructible medicine of human and metallic bodies, which is fitter to be known to angels than to men, except such as seek it at God's hands in heartfelt prayer, and give genuine proofs of their gratitude by service rendered to Him, and to their needy neighbour. Hereunto I may add, in conclusion, that one work is developed from another. First, our Matter should be carefully purified, then dissolved, destroyed, decomposed, and reduced to dust and ashes.
Thereupon prepare from it a volatile spirit, which is white as snow, and another volatile spirit, which is red as blood. These two spirits contain a third, and are yet but one spirit. Now these are the three spirits which preserve and multiply life. Therefore unite them, give them the meat and drink that Nature requires, and keep them in a warm chamber until the perfect birth takes place. Then you will see and experience the virtue of the gift bestowed upon you by God and Nature. Know, also, that hitherto my lips have not revealed this secret to any one, and that God has endowed natural substances with greater powers than most men are ready to believe.
Upon my mouth God has set a seal, that there might be scope for others after me to write about the wonderful things of Nature, which by the foolish are looked upon as unnatural. For they do not understand that all things are ultimately traceable to supernatural causes, but nevertheless are, in this present state of the world, subject to natural conditions.
Basil Valentine, The Twelve Keys (1599), in the English of the Hermetic Museum (1893).
In Lead to Gold
In Lead to Gold, the Fifth Key’s engraving is the plate of Gate 7, Cibation, in the Clearing part of the path. The whole of the Twelve Keys is in the app’s Library, with a note in plain words on every key.
Last updated October 25, 2026.
Lead to Gold: Shadow Work, on Google Play
The alchemists’ Great Work, made into ten quiet minutes a day: twelve gates, a private journal, and a line of wisdom from the old masters. Free to download, for Android.
What does Basil Valentine’s Fourth Key mean?: Basil Valentine’s Fourth Key (1599) explained: the skeleton on the coffin, why all flesh must return to earth and ashes, and the full text in English.
What does Basil Valentine’s Sixth Key mean?: Basil Valentine’s Sixth Key (1599) explained: the wedding of the king and queen, why everything depends on just measure, and the full text in English.
What is cibation in alchemy?: Cibation, stage 7 of the twelve stages of alchemy: feeding it, little by little. What the alchemists did, and what it means for you.
What are Basil Valentine’s Twelve Keys?: The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine (1599): who he was, the twelve engravings, and what each key teaches about the Great Work, in plain words.
