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Neil
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Quote: Originally posted by Sedit  | I do find it highly amazing, like I said I know where my roots lay but I have also studied a large amount of Alchemy and the conclusion I always
return to when it boils down to the most well known Alchemist is that they where frauds. Sure they did a great service to modern chemistry but they
had to pay the bills as well and since the majority of them where being backed by people of wealth they had to produce results sooner or later and
that they did.
They did this in ways we see in the opening post, making Mercury amalgams and boiling off the stone "transmuting" it into gold, or a variety of other
underhanded methods to keep the cash train flowing.
I do have a greater respect for those of the old then I do people like the one in the OP. He is stealing from the weak and uneducated where as the old
Alchemist of the past where stealing from the overly rich and powerful. I have little conscious when it comes to stealing from those who do not
deserve the wealth they have. |
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.
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blogfast25
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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.
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Neil
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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!
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watson.fawkes
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It's a good site; I've read plenty on it
before. It is heavily skewed, however, toward late European alchemy. It omits the oldest Greek and Egyptian texts and has nothing from the Arab world
at all. This focus on alchemy-as-psychology is due to Jung. While it's not wrong, it's horribly incomplete, as it only applies to late European
alchemy and only to a fraction of that.
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.
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D4RR3N
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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]
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blogfast25
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| Quote: Originally posted by Neil | IHave 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.
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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]
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watson.fawkes
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The claim that alchemists never used mercury is just plain
false. On that web site you site, there's a translation of the Leyden papyrus. Four of the recipes there call for mercury.
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D4RR3N
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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.
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blogfast25
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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.
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watson.fawkes
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| Quote: Originally posted by D4RR3N | | 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. |
The "our mercury" illocution appears
rather late. The earliest references to mercury are clearly to metallic Hg. By the time that speculative alchemy comes into prominence, both meanings
are in use. The recipes in the Leyden papyrus, the one I provided a link to, are very clearly Hg amalgamations.
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Neil
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| Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes |
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. |
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.
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blogfast25
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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]
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Neil
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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.
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blogfast25
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Since as you've now considerably moderated your stance, I'll let you off, Neil!
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watson.fawkes
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| Quote: Originally posted by Neil | 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. |
Don't get me wrong. I agree there were plenty of fraudsters identifying themselves as alchemists.
By analogy today, there are script kiddies identifying themselves as hackers and drug cooks identifying themselves as amateur scientists. The
existence of these unsavory types should not diminish the worth of those they imitate, but to the outside world, they often do. Thus there's an
interesting historical question, insufficiently examined in my reading, about why there seems to have been something of an alchemical crime wave in
the 17th century. The name Jabir was corrupted to "geber", and became lowercased, as a moniker for such people.
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.
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D4RR3N
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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.
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Neil
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 I was saying the same to myself about you.
@ watson.fawkes - Right on but I'm not touching the string theory part 
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Sedit
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| Quote: Originally posted by D4RR3N |
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. |
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.
Knowledge is useless to useless people...
"I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes. The fall of Rome, the fall of Germany — the
fall of the ruling country, the people who think they can do whatever they want without anybody else's consent. I've seen this story
before."~Maynard James Keenan
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D4RR3N
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| Quote: Originally posted by Sedit |
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. |
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.
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Neil
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"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
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Endimion17
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| Quote: Originally posted by D4RR3N | | 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 |
That's a "No true Scotsman" fallacy.
I think you're just trolling around, but that's just me.
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watson.fawkes
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It is early chemistry, but it is not
just early chemistry. | Quote: Originally posted by D4RR3N | | 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. |
What's being posited
here are two things: an ordinary mercury, which is just metallic Hg, and another thing that acts just like mercury, which is a hidden substance behind
the scenes, that they called mercury-with-a-modifier. This passage is justifying calling this other thing "mercury" because it has similar properties:
it amalgamates and has a mobile vapor. It's also positing a piece of the operational theory: that the vapors of this other mercury are at the center
of metallogenesis under the surface of the earth. This theory is grounded in the modern-chemical properties of Hg, but certainly isn't confined there.
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.
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D4RR3N
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| Quote: Originally posted by Neil | "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
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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)
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Sedit
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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.
Knowledge is useless to useless people...
"I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes. The fall of Rome, the fall of Germany — the
fall of the ruling country, the people who think they can do whatever they want without anybody else's consent. I've seen this story
before."~Maynard James Keenan
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D4RR3N
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If it makes you feel good to believe so then yes it is the stone, congratulations
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