Quote: Originally posted by ScienceSquirrel  |
| Quote: Originally posted by Endimion17 |
| Quote: Originally posted by D4RR3N |
| Still nice to see that alchemy is still alive in some parts of the world, gives me a warm feeling in my heart |
| Quote: Originally posted by D4RR3N |
| Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25 |
| Quote: Originally posted by D4RR3N |
| Quote: Originally posted by D4RR3N |
| Quote: Originally posted by D4RR3N |
| Quote: Originally posted by ScienceSquirrel |
| Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes |
| Quote: Originally posted by hissingnoise |
| Quote: Originally posted by Sedit |
| Quote: Originally posted by blogfast25 As regards greed, what purpose do you think the overwhelming majority of science is about today? Did think it’s about happy tinkering with chemicals like we do here? No, it’s all about generating WEALTH. No great difference there either… [/rquote | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Well, sort of. The overwhelming majority of science today is applied to production - making a product that people need or desire, and making it better, faster, or cheaper. Alchemy seems to have had two branches - one that was interested in pure research and discovery, like the ideal vision of today's university research. Like today's university research, they were funded by people who were interested in funding discovery or were self-funded, and there was no real expectation of profit at the end, only discovery. (That's the ideal vision - funding for today's university research is also drifting more and more to funding only applied science). The second branch was the hucksters and pseudo-scientists, the ones who got money by fraud, claiming that their knowledge of "secret" processes made possible things that were too good to be true - elixirs of eternal life, edible gold that would cure all diseases, gold from base metals. We have those today as well - perpetual motion machines, free energy machines, weight loss pills, secret-formula supplements, and numerous other scams from people claiming that their "special knowledge" makes possible things which "science" claims is impossible, and bilking people out of their money either by selling worthless products or by pretending to do research on useless ideas. Then as now, sometimes its a little difficult to tell the difference between the two groups. blogfast25 - 7-12-2011 at 14:12
Products that people need or desire, or needs and desires that have also been produced? D4RR3N - 7-12-2011 at 15:32
You have probably not read one single ancient alchemical text so I forgive you totally, try reading one and after the first chapter I bet you give up not being able to understand what the alchemist is talking about, and no its not because he is crazy its because it is wrote in code and only for those who understand the code.....read a few and you will understand why it took me so long to understand it Dr Sigismund Backstrom speaks most clearly on the subject so recommend you read his writings but please approach the texts understanding that it is written in code! If you have no knowledge of metaphysics/occult you have zero chance of understanding any of it [Edited on 7-12-2011 by D4RR3N] Sedit - 7-12-2011 at 15:38 But there WAS a turning point blogfast, and If I'm not mistaken the book I have sitting in front of me once again is the man that made this great turning point from Alchemy to chemistry possible. His name is Antoine Lavoisier and the book I have is Elements of Chemistry. He IIRC single handedly implemented the Scientific method in chemistry.(I could be wrong) but what I am trying to say is that this great leap when the Scientific method started to be employed is when Alchemy died and modern chemistry started. You seem convinced that I give the Alchemist no credit at all and this is simply not true, I love them and have a passion for studying there works because I feel some of there metaphysical parts of the "science" had validity. I study astrology and am a firm believer, not because of what the older text state but because of my own study, I believe in cyclic time and use astrology as nothing more then a way of keeping track of these cycles. So I assure you I do not hate Alchemy, I just don't fully agree with much of the practices of it. Yet while at the same time I'm sure you will outright dismiss astrology due to modern views on it and a lack of understanding its roots, its ability, and its shortcomings. watson.fawkes - 7-12-2011 at 19:43
Sedit - 7-12-2011 at 20:09 No offense taken, I knew I could have been wrong about the one who was first to implement the scientific method that's why I added the caveat to my sentence, but none the lest the logic still holds true. The advent of the scientific method is what made modern chemistry and all those previous alchemist that started to follow the scientific method are the real heroes in this story not those who continued on the wrong path even after most had been disproved. blogfast25 - 8-12-2011 at 06:55
No, not really, the ‘turning point’ really exists largely in your mind. Lavoisier’s adoption of what is now called the Scientific method is largely the continuation of the increasingly quantitative work done by his predecessors, the latter end of alchemy. You’ve been taught this because we like to simplify things and because this is after all a world of ‘heroes and villains’, is it not? (Hint: it is not). Tidbits about Lavoisier: In his list of elements, he included light. You can see in that almost a literal remnant or echo of an earlier interpretation of what was supposed to be an element: something fundamental, a building block. He wasn’t really wrong: photons are quite ‘elemental’. His interpretation of what was ‘cold’ was spectacularly wrong. But the ‘calorifique’ that he named and he was trying in vain to identify still lends its root to the ‘calory’. blogfast25 - 8-12-2011 at 06:59 D4RR3N: Do keep decyphering the 'code'. That frmly places you outside of this debate. D4RR3N - 8-12-2011 at 09:55 Bogfest25 Alchemy as others have pointed out is NOT the father of chemistry, alchemical text have metaphysical meanings and when the alchemist is talking about mercury he is not talking about Hg, When he is talking about Sulphur he is not talking about S and when he is talking about gold he is not talking about Au. Almost every alchemists informs his readers that this is so however have you actually read any ancient alchemical text and if so which ones. Seems like there are a lot of “experts” in alchemy here who have never read even one alchemical text! blogfast25 - 8-12-2011 at 10:04 D4RR3N: You’re no more an ‘expert’ on alchemy than I am. Your selective reading and interpretation and cherry picking of ‘evidence’ is completely reductionist. You seem, in short, totally incapable of understanding what Watson.fawkes and myself are writing about. Neil - 8-12-2011 at 11:51
I agree with Sedit. Saying that alchemists in general were the forbears of chemistry is like saying Hwang Woo-suk is a father of cloning, or that the myth busters are great scientists. I've read a fair number of alchemical texts and while there are some who clearly do try to comprehend a little of the mystery, there are many others who are obviously making it up and claiming great successes which we all know is impossible. The fact that they claimed successes we know are impossible and that they inevitably failed to reproduce results (opps I hath hiddeneth the thone of philothophy) means they where full of BS. alchemist one "I made gold!" alchemist two "Me too!" alchemist three "Yup same here!" alchemist four "uhhhh, nope no gold but I got this weird liquid that dissolves things... hmm what happens if I piss into it?" Lets not forget the chemical studies in the Islamic and Asian universities that started long before folk in Europe where boiling piss and mercury, and that a lot of those studies started and were based on data gleaned by by translating Greek works on the topics. How did greek fire work? I think the only thing that is agreed on, is that it was a feat of chemical engineering. http://www.alchemywebsite.com/texts.html lots of txts... Twas a magical time when pissing in your flask or tasting the boiling green liquids was scientific. blogfast25 - 8-12-2011 at 13:24 Turning things into a parody doesn't debunk anything, Neil. You're simply falling for the same old, same old false dichotomy 'science/not science' that's been promulgated by so many an ahistoric modern scientist. A little humility in the face of other, past achievements does no one any harm. Neil - 8-12-2011 at 14:31 I do not think that I am. There are many scientists who falsify their results or read into erroneous conclusions. There were alchemists who were legitimately working towards the creation of the scientific method. The ones who reported creating gold from lead were not moving towards creating a scientific process but rather self aggrandizing fraudsters. How else could their obvious false results be explained? Their writing are often very pretty even beautiful pieces of poetry and are, as far as I know, the only writings which will poetically describe things like melting sulphur or boiling urine; but the fact remains that any of the ones who wrote that they had mastered the philosophers stone could not have been seeking truth - they were propagating lies. This simple fact actually implies that they were counter productive, as they propagated "truths" which were adverse to the scientific method and obviously untrue. Have you read through any of the texts that are freely available? A good number of them (by today's standards) were bat shit insane. They lived in a universe constructed of their own understanding and ignored everything which disproved them - that is not scientific. Still, others strove to find new meanings and laid down the foundations. No one argues that the catholic church is the forbearer of modern genetics, yet a monk did the research that did lay the corner stones. No one argues that Muhammad was the saviour of mathematics yet Islamic universities were just that during the dark ages. By and large I honestly see no evidence to suggest that most alchemists where anything more then the HHO/magnetic water/ cold fusion advocates of their time. If even 1% of their claims were true, then today we would be using gold cooking pots and nuclear physics would be based on woolly logic. Some alchemists were the embryonic true scientists that we have today, but certainly not all. How can it be interpreted other wise, given the clearly false and fully bogus/biased/useless nature of much of their research? Also as I alluded to above, many of them were simply going off of translated murmurs from the Greeks. If they stood on shoulders to see further, then surly those shoulders were the true founders of the chemical arts? What about the Hindu untouchables who figured out how to grow carbon nano tubes in hyper eutectic iron, 1500 years ago? There are lots of examples of chemical application which actually meted results. Why would the group who mostly meted BS be the fathers of anything other then mushrooms? This seems to be an okay source; http://www.alchemylab.com/history_of_alchemy.htm Aluminium, calcium carbide, diesel engines, manned flight, synthetics dyes... If alchemists were the fathers of chemistry then back yard loners are the fathers of the modern age, but ya never hear anyone arguing that do ya! watson.fawkes - 8-12-2011 at 23:25
For example, that site is missing Leyden Papyrus X, one of the earliest alchemical texts (3rd c. CE), one that well illustrates the earliest alchemical interests, including the multiplication of gold. It's pretty clear, reading that manuscript, that the very word "gold" did not mean the same thing to the ancients as it does to us. Our modern, atomically-pure gold fell into the old meaning, to be sure, but many things considered "gold" anciently were not made of pure element Au. Plenty of alloy compositions, surface gilding, etc. The notion of gold that's in this text seems to be that of surface appearance. At some point, a point I've never managed to track down, alchemists developed a more precise notion of "gold" that's essentially the same as the modern notion of "chemically pure". Best I can tell, it must have been Arab alchemists, possibly even Jabir himself, because the assays required mineral acids that didn't exist before then. It's certain it wasn't Europeans alchemists, because the goodness of gold is assumed by the Renaissance and afterwards. This notion of gold is essentially that of consistency to a complete set of test conditions. I also don't know when specific gravity was broadly accepted as part of this list. (This was famously discovered by Archimedes, but it was originally used to determine if mineral gold had been diluted with silver, not to say that some other substance wasn't also another kind of gold.) In other words, the notion that there was a particular substance that was "real" gold and other substances were "bogus" gold, this notion has itself a history and shouldn't be taken for granted. There continued to be efforts to understand the difference between real and bogus for centuries. It remained plausible for a long time that one could construct the substance "gold" with chemical means. After all, just because there were a bunch of known fakes didn't exclude the possibility that there was another route. It's easy to look back with full knowledge of the periodic table and atomic theory and mock past ignorance. Yet it's also analytically worthless to do so, since it utterly ignores the state of understanding that earnest researchers, the alchemists, were working with. D4RR3N - 9-12-2011 at 04:20 They do use other metals to make an amalgam but they use trickery to introduce it. One guy was chanting over a spoon containing mercury and moving it around with his finger, magically it became solid….the spoon was made of silver This is an off shoot of alchemy, those who failed to understand the deeper meaning behind the alchemists text. Real alchemists never used one drop of Hg Here is a very good website containing masses of alchemical text: http://www.alchemywebsite.com/index.html [Edited on 9-12-2011 by D4RR3N] blogfast25 - 9-12-2011 at 04:59
Not by today's standards, no. And that, as Watson.fawkes explains, is part of your problem: applying today's standards to yesteryear's knowledge. Can't be done. [Edited on 9-12-2011 by blogfast25] watson.fawkes - 9-12-2011 at 07:07
D4RR3N - 9-12-2011 at 09:39
The metallic water of the alchemist, "our" mercury is not "your" mercury Hg and any alchemist will tell you that all things are made of mercury (our mercury) which can hardly be said for Hg...as I said before its a code. blogfast25 - 9-12-2011 at 12:43 D4RR3N: Nope. Not code at all. Mercury has been known for at least 3000 years, it was of course also known and used by many alchemists. The idea that mercury was kind of an essential ingredient, an ‘essence of’ as it were, of most other metals may seem stupid to you but it really wasn’t that crazy, measured against the knowledge base of that time. To invoke code here isn’t necessary at all. watson.fawkes - 9-12-2011 at 14:02
Neil - 10-12-2011 at 06:01
I agree, my point is merely that not all of them were honest hard working individuals. A blanket statement saying that they were this or that which led to now is, romanticism, not fact. A statement saying that a handful of them lingered and worked on in the shadows of ignorance is much more truthful. It's like the caveat of 'dedicated' used now as in 'a handful of dedicated researchers continued to work on...' To view their work in the mind frame of their times would be to conclude that they were god fearing or devil fearing nutters who made the neighbourhood smell like hell fire. To look at them with a more modern eye is to say they paved the roads of knowledge as we can see the right and wrong of what they said and we can follow the correct ideas through the ages right up till now. to apply modern logic to them is err... out of cheese error... Re-evaluating the past with modern knowledge isn't a waste of time (well...) it's called "The Arts" - modern word based alchemy. Re-evaluation being different then re-writing; really interpreting the past, as this is they key to the future (works for rocks ).I'm not attempting to apply modern standards to the alchemical writings. Read a bunch, I assure you that applying modern logic to them is like fitting a square peg into a round hole. Interpreting them in their time and place - some of them are brilliant while others are clearly rather dull and gritty. It is widely acknowledged that there are frauds(and mistakes) now a days, hence peer review, why is it so abhorrent to conclude that it may have been the same then as it is now? An early chemist http://www.alchemywebsite.com/agric_10.html "Take 6 Lots of fine gold which has passed through antimony or has been purified by it. Beat it into thin plates, coat it with the artificial Mercury, called Aqua Regis by the Philosophers, and give it a gentle heat. The plates will begin to give off a crocus and color. Put that in a clean glass, then coat the gold plate again and calcine it till a vitriol or color appears once more. Continue doing this till all the gold has become one color. This vitriol is like the crocus of Mars (iron). Put everything together and pour Aqua Regis over it. When it is dissolved enough, cleanse it with Nature's water., then distill the phlegma off to half the amount, and a beautiful vitriol will sprout, which attaches to the glass like sugar. That is the vitriol from gold." I 100% fully with no doubts agree this is the foundations on which the still somewhat poetical works of chemistry from the 1800's were formed. An example of a mixture of recited early chemistry and charlatanism; http://www.alchemywebsite.com/arsenal_.html "This treatise is the first item in MS. 3027 in the Bibliothèque de l'Arsénal. It is entitled 'De la matière de la pierre des philosophes en général'. Here it has been translated from the French by Mike Dickman." "PART THE FIRST OF THE WORK Of the very pure menstruum of a prostitute woman, take 12 parts, of the perfectly washed lower body 1 part, in a long- necked and oval vessel, mix well all together until the whole materia be amalgamated. But let first there be added to the body 2 or 4 parts of the menstruum, and allow the whole to lie for 15 days or thereabouts, during which time the dissolution of the body shall take place. Take then this materia, and press it that there comes from it the menstruum which you shall keep. Upon the body remaining after expression, place one or two parts of fresh menstruum, and let it stand it again eight days, after which time you may proceed as you did at the beginning, and continue in the same fashion until the body in its entirety has transformed into water. All such operation is performed with the gentle fire of ashes, the vessel well sealed and corked with pasteboard. PART THE SECOND OF THE WORK Take all of the aqua vitae and place it in a sealed vessel like unto the one above, and at the same degree which is the first degree of the fire of ashes, for 8 days and 8 days it shall form upon its surface a black skin, which is the head of the crow and this you shall gather with the black powder which is beneath it, drawing off first the aqua vitae by inclination. Again place this water in the vessel and continue in like manner, until blackness no longer forms. PART THE THIRD OF THE WORK Take all of the dead head you have gathered, and place it upon a fire of the ashes of oak, in the Philosophic Egg which same seal hermetically at the orifice, but with paste only at the joining of the two sections of the Egg, that it may the more easily he opened. For the first 8 days more or less shall you give unto your black and moribund earth nothing to drink, in that it is yet full drunk of humidity. Then, when it be dehydrated and parched, you shall give it to drink in equal weight. Opening the vessel to this end, mix well and then close it again and leave it thus, until it be not quite entirely dried out, but only well coagulate; continue imbibition in like manner until the materia has drunk off all of the water. PART THE FOURTH OF THE WORK Take now this materia and place it within an Egg upon a fire of the second degree, leaving it there for several months until finally, having passed through divers colours, it becomes white. PART THE FIFTH OF THE WORK The EARTH being white, is near ready to receive the seed, and this because of the fecundity it has acquired through the preceding operations. Take therefore this earth after having weighed it, and divide it into three parts. Take of the ferment one part equal in weight to one of the three parts of your divided materia, and four parts of the menstruum of a prostitute woman, make of the ferment laminated as before and the menstruum an amalgam, and work the dissolution at slow heat for 14 days, until the body be reduced to a subtle lime; for we seek not here the aqua vitae. Take now the menstruum with the lime of the body, and the three parts of your white earth, make of all this an amalgam in a marble mortar, and in a vessel of glass upon a fire of the second degree, for a period of one month. Finally, give it the fire of the third degree until the materia become quite white, which shall be like unto a mass, gross and hard like a pumice stone, but weighty. Thus for the operation of the white Stone. For the red, you shall operate the same, save that at the end you are to apply the fire of the third degree for longer time and more vehemently than for the white. PART THE SIXTH CONCERNING THE PREPARATION OF THE STONE FOR THE EFFECTING OF PROJECTION Many have made the stone without however knowing how to prepare it so as to effect the projection. Also, the Stone although prepared and achieved will make no transmutation if one does not make it have ingress into the body. To this end, break up your Stone, grind and place in a vessel well sealed with lute right up to the neck, that it my suffer great fire such as that of the fourth degree, give it fire of charcoal so strong that the sand be that hot that when one cast upon it drops of water these last make sound, and that one dare not touch with the hand the neck of the vessel placed upon the sand, by cause of its great heat. Keep your vessel upon this degree of heat until your material becomes a most subtle and light powder; the which occurs usually within the space of one month and a half. PART THE SEVENTH AND LAST OF THE AUGMENTATION AND MULTIPLICATION OF THE STONE Once made, you may multiply the Stone unto infinity, without needing to make it again. When you have the Stone made and achieved at the fifth step of the operation, one half shall you take to serve for yourself and this prepare to effect projection, and the other shall you keep for multiplication. Weigh then that part, and if it weigh three parts, take one part not of the menstruum but of the aqua vitae; you shall then have four parts the which you shall place within the Egg and upon a fire of the second degree for the space of one month, following which you shall give it the fire of the third degree until the end, as above taught by ourselves in the fifth part of the operation." However as to the above, how can you conclude there is even a farthing of truth? We end up with a transmuting substance which may be divided without depletion unto infinity. blogfast25 - 10-12-2011 at 06:18 Nobody disputes there was charlanism, Neil. But by concentrating on it you distort the whole of alchemy. It's a human failure that we tend to identify any activity with the worst of its manifestations. [Edited on 10-12-2011 by blogfast25] Neil - 10-12-2011 at 06:45 The whole is the sum of the parts, recognising that alchemy was a mixture of BS and truth (mixed together and heated on a flame of the second degree for no less then three months) is the truth and in no way diminishes it, unless one regards the truth as diminishing. Isn't it more exciting to think that in a research field paved in blood, sweat, tears and menstrual fluid - The planted kernels of knowledge sprang forth, wrestled with the world of then and congealed into the world of now - that we daily discuss on this forum? It is impossible to say that anyone with a infinite stone of Midas was telling the truth - which I believe is what Sedit was saying and to which I agree. But it is indisputable that the work to find said stone was pivotal in our understanding of the universe. Which I believe is the gist of the thread? So what if there is a tinge of scat on every kernel of truth? Is it not that way today? How long was it taught in schools that glass was a super cooled liquid which flowed under average conditions? How long was it thought that grinding up a Planarian and feeding it to others transferred it's acumen? I feel that a complete understanding of the past, that is taking the good with the bad, is a accurate understanding and in now way diminishes what is the past. I'm not advocating that we burn all of our books because someone creatively defrauded someone 300 years ago and I can't see the fact that someone, who smelled like a boiling latrine, told a lie to gain some respect (300 years ago) in anyway threatens our modern world. blogfast25 - 10-12-2011 at 09:37 Since as you've now considerably moderated your stance, I'll let you off, Neil! watson.fawkes - 10-12-2011 at 10:31
So when Boyle promoted the word "chymist" as opposed to "alchymist", there seem to have been three interlocking reasons, all involving legitimacy. One is the fraud that we've just been discussing. Another is the obscurantism in speculative alchemy that has also been discussed here. The last is a kind of anti-Arab racism and/or anti-Islamic chauvinism that sought to suppress intellectual history for self-glorification. The legacy of this period is still with us, clouding the past. As for taking the good along with the bad, we have no need to restrict ourselves to the past. After all, physics has string theory. D4RR3N - 10-12-2011 at 13:45 The vapour which (in the manner repeatedly described rises from the earth's centre, and is called Mercury not on account of its essence but on account of its fluidity, and the facility with which it adheres to anything, is assimilated to the sulphur on account of its internal heat; and, after congelation, is the radical humour. Thus metals are indeed generated out of mercury; but those ignorant persons who say that this first substance of metals is ordinary mercury, confound the whole hole body with the seed that is in it, seeing that common mercury, too, contains metallic seed, as well as the other metals. Neil - 10-12-2011 at 18:28
I was saying the same to myself about you. @ watson.fawkes - Right on but I'm not touching the string theory part Sedit - 10-12-2011 at 21:31
I am quite saddened to hear you make this statement because I was hoping that we could turn this into a serious discussion on alchemy since you claimed to have studied it for 15 years but I know realize you know absolutely nothing about the craft you claimed to have studied so well. The internet will not teach you the ways of the old alchemist. I can offer up some text for you to read that enhance your understanding if you wish but you will not find them in any book store more then likely. Yes it is all in code, I have come to the conclusion you do not understand the code even a little bit. Sorry to be so harsh about it but this is a personal observation I can not ignore. D4RR3N - 11-12-2011 at 04:34
Do not blame me if yuou failed to understand! If you do not understand it at first, or are unable to accept the truth, accuse not my work, but blame rather yourself, believing that God will not reveal this secret unto you. Take it, then, in all earnestness, read and again read it, especially the Epilogue of these twelve Treatises, and diligently consider the possibilities of Nature, the action of the elements, and which is chief among them, especially in the rarefaction of air or water, by which the heavens and the whole world were created. This I admonish you to do, as a father admonishes a son. Do not wonder that I have written so many Treatises. I am not in need of books for myself but was impelled to record my experience by pity towards those who are wandering astray in the darkness of their own conceits; and though I might have set forth this secret in few words, I have written at great length in order to equip you with that knowledge of Nature, without which you could not hope to succeed in this Art. Do not be put out by the seeming contradictions with which, in accordance with the custom of the Sages, I have had to conceal my real meaning a little. There is no rose found without thorns. Neil - 11-12-2011 at 06:30 "The vapour which (in the manner repeatedly described rises from the earth's centre, and is called Mercury not on account of its essence but on account of its fluidity, and the facility with which it adheres to anything, is assimilated to the sulphur on account of its internal heat;" Mercury binds to sulphur - no mystery "and, after congelation, is the radical humour" Mercury sulphide "Thus metals are indeed generated out of mercury; but those ignorant persons who say that this first substance of metals is ordinary mercury, confound the whole hole body with the seed that is in it, seeing that common mercury, too, contains metallic seed, as well as the other metals." Mercury forms amalgams and may give up other metals when drawn off as they are left behind. No mystery and nothing magical. Just early chemistry Endimion17 - 11-12-2011 at 06:31
That's a "No true Scotsman" fallacy. I think you're just trolling around, but that's just me. watson.fawkes - 11-12-2011 at 08:12
Some history is in order to make sense of this. There was a sulfur-mercury theory of matter that goes back to the Arab alchemists. At the writing of the passage quoted, this theory is several hundred years old. One thing that's going on here is an attempt to rationalize this theory. It became clear over time that ordinary Hg wasn't working for the theory, so they posited a new mercury which was very much like the old one that was the mercury, and that made the theory work. This isn't irrational at all, in my book. What they're doing is playing with their theory, trying to make small modifications to it that are consistent with their own experiments and mostly-consistent with the previous theory. This strikes me as exactly how physical theories make progress in today's science. In historical hindsight, we know that their theory was wrong, but that doesn't make their approach to it unscientific. These old theories have a rather common theme of "hidden vapors". Perhaps the best-known one is "alcohol", which is an Arab phrase that translates as "the stibnite". Yes, kohl, antimony sulfide, still used as eye makeup in the Middle East. The vaporous nature of alcohol dates back to Jabir (of course). Stibnite sublimates and recondenses readily, even to the point of making fine aerosol powders. Hence stibnite was known to have a "vaporous" nature, which really just means that its sublimation point was low enough to be readily observed. In absence of other such vapor phases, though, the conclusion was that some substances were vaporous and some not. In any case, alcohol was named after stibnite because of the similarity of their vaporous nature. This example should illustrate the old naming practice of reusing words with similar properties, instead of coining new ones. D4RR3N - 11-12-2011 at 08:52
I have read the theory that mercury sulphide is the philosophers stone and it is true that in ancient times some who made this compound thought it was, upon ingesting it though I’m sure they learned to their detriment that it was not. Yes mercury sulphide is red Yes it contains mercury Yes it contains sulphur No it is not the philosophers stone The sun (sol) is its father, the moon (Luna) is its mother, the wind carries it in its belly (our mercury), the Earth is its nurse (our Earth, the prima material) Sedit - 11-12-2011 at 11:24 Yes it is the stone, the chinese literal interpretation of old text have proven this fact. Its beliefs to cause immortality lay in the embalming practices of the Chinese at the time. It prevented the decay of the body. One of the oldest mummys in history ever found was in perfect condition(she died of a heart attack and still had her last meal in her stomach over 3000 years later) was preserved in such condition due to the use of HgS and various oils to resist decay. Thats Immortality, the prevention of the destruction of the physical body, not literal immortality as most alchemist have gotten wrong. I am 100% sure Mercury sulfide is the stone your looking for. If you don't believe be then that is your burden to bare because as Im sure you understand that one of the things about alchemy is the understanding of the world around you that you gain while searching for the philosophers stone. D4RR3N - 11-12-2011 at 19:10 If it makes you feel good to believe so then yes it is the stone, congratulations Sedit - 11-12-2011 at 20:29 ..... You have a lot to learn young man, it makes me feel indifferent to know what the stone is. If you don't believe me then tell me... What is the stone? and don't give me some BS cryptic crap because I have grown tired of that decades ago. I want a real answer from a chemist... What is the Stone made of? I know the conclusion that my over two decades of study landed me, if you don't believe me then A: that is your burden to bare, and B: do more study and prove me wrong. I am not wrong BTW so best of luck. You are so wrapped up in the cryptic nature of the text that you are missing the point entirely, at lest that's the impression I am getting from you at this point. D4RR3N - 12-12-2011 at 03:57 From reading alchemical text you should know that no alchemist ever revealed this knowledge openly or without talking in a cryptic way and this is how it always was and will be. Your logic however should tell you that cinnabar, mercury sulphide can not be the secret of the stone since it is the substance from which mercury is extracted in the first place, hardly a secret! Symbolically Sulphur represents something which is hot and dry, that is contains the element Air and Fire. Symbolically Mercury represents something that is cold and wet, that is contains Water and Earth. By joining Sulphur to mercury it represents the joining of the four elements Earth ,Air, Fire and Water. When the four elements are joined a fifth and new element (Quintessence) or philosophers stone is formed. It is to be understood metaphysically not chemically, that is not to say however that there is no practical application. Sedit - 12-12-2011 at 06:10 "By joining Sulphur to mercury it represents the joining of the four elements Earth ,Air, Fire and Water. When the four elements are joined a fifth and new element (Quintessence) or philosophers stone is formed." And yet you state right above that this is exactly what Sulfur and Mercury are. Remember back in the day the extraction of liquid Mercury from a stone was not normal, it was magical matter of fact. You must remember that if all these alchemist where correct and all there writings where even half true they would still be here with us to tell us what the stone is because they are all claiming they found immortality.... Where are they now? Throw out your understanding of the medieval Alchemy and start to study what was taking place in China since that's where the legend of the Philosophers stone came from anyway and there you will find the reasons I feel Mercury sulfide is the stone everyone looked for but where to wrapped up in cryptic metaphysical BS to see what was right under there nose. They heard legend and went down the wrong path, they made up properties at that making it even harder to identify what the Chinese told them. Neil - 12-12-2011 at 06:22
Sedit, that's just stupid, everyone knows they destroyed the stone to prevent lord voldemort from getting it. D4RR3N - 12-12-2011 at 07:41 I have done it already, studied Chinese waidan and know why you think HgS is the philosophers stone as many do. Ok let me tell you very openly what the philosophers stone is. In ancient times people believed that beneath the air is a primal substance without which life could not exist. In china they called it chi, in Japan they called it Ki, in India they called it prana. Once this principle was discovered methods were devised to capture this energy. One method was breathing exercises from which developed Qi gong, Yoga and Kabbalistic exercises . The idea being that the mind in meditation coupled with breathing exercises could increase the bodies level of this energy resulting in increased health and lifespan. The alchemist however went down a different road, they theorised that there should be some substance that could be used to capture this energy much in the same way what steel can capture and retain a magnetic field. After long searching they found it, the philosophers stone! "There are many who seek to catch Heaven's Salt or Sal celeste(chi,ki,prana) through magnets, but we rather remain with the Minera,(the prima materia) it is already caught in there and it has been placed there by God." [Edited on 12-12-2011 by D4RR3N] Endimion17 - 12-12-2011 at 08:26 D4RR3N, you are aware that they've found shit? Just asking, because you seem very confused. Or trolling, I can't really tell anymore. ScienceSquirrel - 12-12-2011 at 08:42 The world view of the alchemists is hard to understand for us today as many of them believed in a quasimystical explanation of their experiments. We live in a completely different world to theirs. However their strange ideas did not stop them from making valuable discoveries that later helped found the modern world. For instance, Hennig Brand discovered phosphorus while looking for the Philosopher's Stone by boiling down vast amounts of urine. Mad idea but he found something new and interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus#History_and_discover... It should also be noted that Robert Boyle derived Boyle's Law but also spent some time trying to make silver and gold. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyle#Scientific_investi... A lot of 17th century scientists were rational but at the same time held some very strange views. [Edited on 12-12-2011 by ScienceSquirrel] D4RR3N - 13-12-2011 at 04:37
Oh sorry, yeah I must be just confused |