Philosopher’s Stone NFT

[Lawton]

Only speak this potent word and it conjures images — a magical act in and of itself in our supposedly non-magical, scientific age — images of charlatans and frauds bent over primitive flasks and beakers and furnaces and crucibles, inhaling the noxious and toxic fumes of sulfur and mercury, trying by a variety of obscure and murky processes only darkly understood by their practitioners to turn base metals into gold, and going quite mad in the process, its adepts dying insanely young. It is the last gasp of a dying, unscientific, mediaeval age that is desperate for fresh air in an atmosphere choked with vials of vile philters and smoggy, greasy arts and vapors.

For others, it summons depictions of Daoists and Yogis, performing their ancient breathing and inner alchemical techniques in an effort to transmute themselves to attain realization of the self and beyond — even physical immortality and a body completely transmuted into light.

Alchemy.

Only speak the word and one will make a “real” scientist distinctly uncomfortable, perhaps even somewhat belligerent.

For alchemy — in its quest for the Philosopher’s Stone, The Elixir of Life, capable of transmuting base metals into “gold” — with its bewildering array of coded symbols, astrological lore, geometric diagrams and charts, is really a quest to penetrate the deepest secret of the universe; The essence of life and death and to gain power over matter. In this, it is curiously much like modern physics with its own bewildering array of obscure hierophants scratching the coded symbols of higher mathematics on blackboards, working in their own laboratories of arcane equipment, poring over their own charts of computer-generated models and geometries of atoms, paying enormous sums for obscure volumes of wisdom and recipes of equations, all in aid of its own quest to confect exotic matter, a dark materia prima, able to manipulate the fabric of space-time itself.

And like alchemy, it seeks the patronage of the wealthy and caters to the powerful, all the while speaking its own coded language, trying to keep its secrets to itself and away from the great masses of the people.

The Legendary Philosopher’s Stone is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals into gold. Elixir vitae, “elixir of life,” also known as the Elixir of Immortality was given to the substance that would indefinitely prolong life, grant eternal life and/or eternal youth that was believed to be allied and sometimes equated with the actual the Philosopher’s Stone, or as a byproduct of its alchemical process.

The possibility that the elixir could prolong life was undoubtedly one of the the chief reasons alchemists continued their search. The aged alchemist, weary with his quest for gold, craved the boon of youth and desired renewed health and strength to assist him in carrying out his great purpose. Not only that, the Elixir was said to be a panacea that cured all diseases and maladies. The alchemist’s quest to complete his “Great Work” was the most sought-after goal. In the view of spiritual alchemy, the making of the Philosopher’s Stone would bring enlightenment upon the maker and conclude this “Great Work”.

Rebis was also known to be the Philosopher’s Stone of the hermeticists and alchemists. It symbolizes the search for unity, androgyny, unity of opposites, wholeness, as well as enlightenment and finding the center. This is the unity of the Sun and Moon, male and female, king and queen, sulfur and mercury. Rebis is a balanced trinity, it is both Mars the male, Venus the female (as loving spouses in a happy marriage are one flesh), and their child, copulating in himself with his parents.

Occultists and magicians became interested in the fantasy material because it was described as an elixir (or powder) by which enlightenment is achieved. Magisterium endowed one with wisdom, revealed secret abilities, and helped one achieve recognition, fame, and renown. This is that spiritual, divine, that is hidden inside each person. Therefore, having set out on the path of enlightenment and self-development, there is a chance to find the mysterious “material”.

It embodies the energy of the spoken word. Alchemists took this idea from the Gnostics, identifying Mercury with the principles of mobility and transformation. Mercury is the archetype of self-conversion/ transformation. The stone is associated with the god Mercury himself. The dual nature of Mercury is determined by its proximity to the male planet - the Sun. Like the Greek Hecate (a personification of the sinful side of the feminine and the moon), known in Roman mythology as Trivia, the goddess of three roads, he was often depicted as three-faced. It also corresponds to the note E in the semitone scale.

The Philosopher’s Stone, the White Stone by the River, The Sword in the Stone, all the same, meaning that which contains the knowledge of creation, a symbol that represents the final outcome of man’s inner transformation, of the conversion of the base metal of his outer character to the golden properties of his higher self. It is all about the evolution of consciousness in the alchemy of time.

NFT Attributes

We initially had quite the list of features and benefits “attached” to the Philosopher’s Stone when we presented it to Captain. However, through his wisdom, we were told these additions would only limit the Stone itself. Therefore, we asked our Captain to make it as powerful and epic as possible without any limitations.

It is the True Philosopher’s Stone. The core concepts and ideas used to facilitate its creation:

Philosopher’s Stone → Vast rapid spiritual growth
and
Elixir of Life (It is a part of the Stone itself) → Pristine health, Immortality, panacea from all diseases and maladies

It is also a smart field.

The properties of the Philosopher’s Stone can also be directed:

@El_Capitan_Nemo

@Lawton

Also, would it be possible to direct this healing energy to somebody else?

I dont see why not.

One can also use it an a variety of ways, such as to charge chakras.

Caveat

The subject matter of alchemy is cavernous — therefore the following information presented below may not be 100% correct, however, they are presented to provide some background information, history and context to those unfamiliar with the alchemy in general.

The Origins and Heyday of Alchemy

The Real Significance of Alchemy for Esoteric History

To put it succinctly, the very existence of alchemy is testament to the fact that, from the death of the last great Neoplatonist magician, Iamblichus, to the rise of the Renaissance with its own strong esoteric preoccupations, there was more or less a continuous underground current of esoteric thought deliberately trying to “turn the stream” and to recover ancient lost science. Alchemy was thought to be both the means of recovering that lost science and also the embodiment of it.

Most scholars of alchemy are agreed that its origins lie in ancient Egypt. The English scholar E.J. Holmyard, however, expressed a more cautious outlook toward the view that would connect the science too exclusively with Egypt itself:

The word alchemy is derived from the Arabic name of the art, alkimia, in which ‘al’ is the definite article. On the origin of ‘kimia’ there are differences of opinion. Some hold that it is derived from kmt or chem, the ancient Egyptians’ name for their country; this means ‘the black land,’ and is a reference to the black alluvial soil bordering the Nile as opposed to the tawny-coloured desert sands. In the early days of alchemy it was much practised in Egypt, and if this derivation is accepted the name would mean ‘the Egyptian art.’ Against this etymology is the fact that in ancient texts kmt or chem is never associated with alchemy, and it is perhaps more likely that kimia comes from the Greek chyma, meaning to fuse or cast a metal.

Thus, while the etymology of the word is suggestively obscure, there is little doubt that the actual practice of the art is connected to Egypt in some form.

This becomes more apparent as one searches for the earliest mentions of the art. And in this search for the earliest mention, another strange twist is added to the story, for a new contender for the origin of the practice enters the scene: China.

There is some doubt concerning the earliest mention of alchemy, for a reference to it occurs in a Chinese edict of 44 B.C., while a book on alchemical matters was written in Egypt by Bolos Democritos at a date that cannot be more precisely fixed than about 200 B.C. However, whether the honour should go to China, or whether Egypt established a slight lead, there is no uncertainty about the fact that the main line of development of alchemy began in Hellenistic Egypt, and particularly Alexandria and other towns of the Nile delta.

That both Egypt and China should record some of the earliest mentions of alchemy highlights once again the possibility that the art may be very ancient indeed, and stem from some hitherto unknown contact between the two civilizations, or alternatively, may be the declined legacy in each case of an even older common civilization, of extreme antiquity, from which Egypt and China derived it.

In any case, by the time of the famous Greek alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis, or Akhmim, in Egypt in 300 A.D. “alchemical speculation (had run) riot.”

We now find in it a bewildering confusion of Egyptian magic, Greek philosophy, Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, Babylonian astrology, Christian theology, and pagan mythology, together with the enigmatical and allusive language that makes the interpretation of alchemical literature so difficult and so uncertain.

By the time of the Byzantine alchemist Stephanos of Alexandria, active during the reign of the Emperor Heraclius I (610–641), alchemy had considerably toned down the Gnostic and Neoplatonic elements, but the situation in general remained more or less the same as far as the confusion and ambiguity present in alchemical texts and their “technological” vocabulary were concerned.

By the time of alchemy’s heyday, “from about A.D. 800 to the middle of the seventeenth century,” its practitioners included everyone from

kings, popes, and emperors to minor clergy, parish clerks, smiths, dyers, and tinkers. Even such accomplished men as Roger Bacon, St Thomas Aquinas, Sir Thomas Browne, John Evelyn, and Sir Isaac Newton were deeply interested in it, and Charles II had an alchemical laboratory built under the royal bedchamber with access by a private staircase. Other alchemical monarchs were Herakleios I of Byzantium, James IV of Scotland, and the Emperor Rudolf II.

In other words, alchemy had the patronage not only of some popes, but more importantly, of the powerful royal houses of Hapsburg and Stuart, whose own connections to Masonry and other esoteric societies and doctrines is a matter of some record.

Exoteric and Esoteric Alchemy - What exactly is alchemy then?

Most people are aware of the fact that alchemy is the “quest to make the Philosophers’ Stone,” and most know that this in turn is a stone which purportedly has the power to “transmute base metals into pure gold,” either through touching them with it, or via some other operation involving it. But here popular knowledge usually stops and fantasy, or ignorance, begins, for all is not as simple as the popular imagination would make it out to be, for the quest for the Philosophers’ Stone really involves the whole system of alchemical belief regarding the properties of matter, and their derivation from the first act of creation itself.

The first thing to be noticed about alchemy is its persistent “dual” nature at almost every level, from the ambiguity of its technical terminology to its overall framework involving both exoteric and esoteric pursuits. In the latter respect, Holmyard observes that:

Alchemy is of a twofold nature, an outward or exoteric and a hidden or esoteric. Exoteric alchemy is concerned with attempts to prepare a substance, the philosophers’ stone, or simply the Stone, endowed with the power of transmuting the base metals lead, tin, copper, iron, and mercury into the precious metals gold and silver… The belief that it could be obtained only by divine grace and favour led to the development of esoteric or mystical alchemy, and this gradually developed into a devotional system where the mundane transmutation of metals became merely symbolic of the transformation of sinful man into a perfect being through prayer and submission to the will of God. The two kinds of alchemy were often inextricably mixed; however, in some of the mystical treatises it is clear that the authors are not concerned with material substances but are employing the language of exoteric alchemy for the sole purpose of expressing theological, philosophical, or mystical beliefs and aspirations. (E.J. Holmyard, Alchemy, pp. 15–16.)

This dual exoteric-esoteric aspect of alchemy, however, is so intricately intertwined that its exoteric aspect “cannot properly be appreciated if the other aspect is not always borne in mind.”

The “dual” aspect of alchemy is replicated in its exoteric practice as well. The mediaeval alchemist Petrus Bonus, writing ca. 1330 A.D., stated that:

The principles of alchemy are twofold, natural and artificial. The natural principles are the causes of the four elements, of the metals, and of all that belongs to them. The artificial principles are sublimation, separation, distillation, calcinations, coagulation, fixation, and creation, besides all the tests, signs, and colours by which the artificer can tell whether these operations have been properly performed or not.

In other words, the operations of alchemy itself constitute the human and artificial element of exoteric alchemy. In this, one sees the connection to the esoteric, for in order to perform these operations, the alchemist himself had to transmute himself, with the aid of divine enlightenment, from the “base metal” of sinful humanity to the “pure gold” of the redeemed and enlightened soul.

The Ambiguous Nature of the Technical Language of Alchemy

Petrus Bonus also notes that the dual aspect of alchemy is further mirrored in its actual technical terminology and style of diction, for everywhere one turns in conventional alchemical texts, one is confronted by intentionally ambiguous language, i.e., language that is intentionally designed to have more than one level of meaning. Even though the actual operations of exoteric alchemy could be transmitted in a very short time, he goes on to explain that the search for that knowledge is very difficult, partly because the adepts use words not only in their ordinary sense but in allegorical, metaphorical, enigmatical, equivocal, and even ironical ways.

In other words, alchemy, like any other occult or esoteric art, used language deliberately designed both to reveal and to conceal. The result, as Holmyard observes, “is that it is not always possible to decide whether a particular passage refers to an actual practical experiment or is of purely esoteric significance.”

Alchemical Operations and Zodiacal Correspondences

This ambiguity may easily be seen by a glance at a typical table of correspondences between alchemical operations and the signs of the zodiac, both of which share common symbols:

Operation <----------------------------> Zodiacal Symbol <----------------------------> Astrological Meaning

Calcination → -------------------------------------- ---------------------------------- → Aries, the Ram
Congelation → ------------------------------------- ----------------------------------- → Taurus, the Bull
Fixation → ------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------- → Gemini, the Twins
Solution → ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ → Cancer, the Crab
Digestion → ----------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ → Leo, the Lion
Distillation → ---------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ → Virgo, the Virgin
Sublimation → -------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ → Libra, the Scales
Separation → --------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ → Scorpio, the Scorpion
Ceration → ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ → Sagittarius, the Archer
Fermentation → ------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ → Capricornus, the Goat
Multiplication → ------------------------------------ ------------------------------------ → Aquarius, the Water-Bearer
Projection → ---------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ → Pisces, the Fishes

The point of this table and its true significance becomes increasingly evident, in that alchemy associates certain of its processes and results with the positions of celestial bodies.

Alchemical Base Metals and Planetary Associations

There are also dual uses of some symbols of the common base metals of alchemy that associate them with particular celestial bodies.

Base Metal <----------------------------> Symbol <----------------------------> Celestial body

Gold <----------------------------------------> ʘ <------------------------------------> The Sun
Silver <---------------------------------------> ☽ <------------------------------------> The Moon
Copper <------------------------------------> ♀ <------------------------------------> Venus
Iron <-----------------------------------------> ♂ <------------------------------------> Mars
Mercury <-----------------------------------> ☿ <-------------------------------------> Mercury
Lead <---------------------------------------> ♄ <-------------------------------------> Saturn
Tin <-----------------------------------------> 🜩 <-------------------------------------> Jupiter

This highlights yet another aspect of alchemy’s dualism, and it is a connection to an aspect of the most ancient Egyptian and Sumerian astrology which was its connection of particular planets and celestial bodies with particular crystals and precious gems:

Most modern people only encounter astrology, if they encounter it at all, in the “horoscope” page of the local newspaper, or in little booklets of sun signs in the grocery store aisle. Because of this type of exposure, most people think of astrology as having only to do with the subtle influences of the stars and planets on human life. But there is most decidedly more to the ancient view, as Budge observes:

“The old astrologers believed that precious and semi- precious stones were bearers of the influences of the Seven Astrological Stars or Planets. Thus they associated with the–

“SUN, yellowish or gold-coloured stones, e.g. amber, hyacinth, topaz, chrysolite.

“With the MOON, whitish stones, e.g. the diamond, crystal, opal, beryl, mother-of-pearl.

“With MARS, red stones, e.g. ruby, haematite, jasper, blood-stone.

“With MERCURY, stones of neutral tints, e.g., agate, carnelian, chalcedony, sardonyx.

“With JUPITER, blue stones, e.g. amethyst, turquoise, sapphire, jasper, blue diamond.

“With VENUS, green stones, e.g. the emerald and some kinds of sapphires.

“With SATURN, black stones, e.g. jet, onyx, obsidian, diamond, and black coral.”

As also noted there, while no one really knows the exact origins of astrology, it is known that it was present from the inceptions of the “sciences” of the most advanced civilizations of antiquity: Egypt and Sumer. In particular, it is from Sumeria that most contemporary Western astrology stems, for the Sumerians recorded their astronomical and astrological observations on clay tablets. These

they then interpreted from a magical and not astronomical point of view, and these observations and their comments on them, and interpretations of them, have formed the foundations of the astrology in use in the world for the last 5,000 years. (Budge, op. cit., p. 406.)

But that was not all that was claimed for astrology. Budge continues:

According to ancient traditions preserved by Greek writers, the Babylonians made these observations for some hundreds of thousands of years, and though we must reject such fabulous statements, we are bound to believe that the period during which observations of the heavens were made on the plains of Babylonia comprised many thousands of years.

There is ample evidence to suggest, however, that such views were declined scientific legacies of a much more ancient, and much more sophisticated, civilization. It is thus not outside the bounds of possibility that, indeed, Sumerian astrology has origins that date back “some hundreds of thousands of years.”

So one is presented with an interesting picture: on the one hand, from Egypt and Sumer, one encounters the association of planets and stars with certain crystals and their color properties, that is to say, with certain electromagnetic and spectrographical properties, and on the other hand, from alchemy, one has the association of the same celestial bodies not only with certain types of alchemical operations but with certain types of metals as well. And metals, as everyone knows, have, like crystals, their own unique “lattice” properties of molecular bonding. In short, one has, from two distinct types of esoteric arts, the association of celestial bodies, with certain materials that in turn possess certain lattice and spectrographical properties. This will become a crucial key into prying open yet another aspect of a paleoancient and very sophisticated physics that may once have underlay the declined astrological and alchemical legacies of Sumer and Egypt.

So why associate materials with celestial bodies to begin with? Why should the exoteric and esoteric aspects have come to be intertwined in the first place? Why is there such an association of alchemy and astrology?

The Goal and Quest of Alchemy: The Transmutative Medium of the Materia Prima

The answer to these questions lies once again in the Egyptian roots of alchemy and in what those roots in turn imply. The basic Egyptian view of creation, as pointed out by the celebrated esotericist and “alternative Egyptologist,” René Schwaller De Lubicz, was that all of the existing diversity of the universe stemmed from one underlying “prime matter” or materia prima, an absolutely undifferentiated substrate, an “aether” or medium which then began to undergo differentiation. This initial process of “hyper- differentiation” of an undifferentiated medium Schwaller called the “primary scission.” Further differentiations are in turn performed upon these initial derivations from the medium, until at last the entire diversity of creation arises. While all this sounds rather fanciful, it is in fact capable of a profoundly sophisticated interpretation from the point of view of certain aspects of modern physics, for an absolutely undifferentiated substrate in fact is physically non-observable; it is therefore, as far as physics is concerned, a nothing, even though it may be said that this materia prima has some sort of “existence.” The whole of Egyptian religion and magical practice, then, stem from this viewpoint, for if all arises from this materia prima, then everything that exists, by dint of its existence, can be described in terms of its “topological descent” from that substrate. In short, every existing thing is connected with every other existing thing by virtue of its creation from the same underlying “stuff” or substrate. The substrate exists in every thing, since every thing is but a particular differentiated manifestation of that substrate.

Consequently, this underlying substrate or medium was transmutative in its very nature; it was, so to speak, a “pure potential,” capable of undergoing differentiation and diversification. To put it succinctly, the medium was the Philosophers’ Stone par excellence. Moreover, since it was an undifferentiated medium, it was above the concepts of space and time themselves. It was, in a word, non-local. And hence one can see the connection to Egyptian sympathetic magic and alchemical practice, for if everything is connected via this non-local medium, then one could manipulate and influence another object (or person!) via the medium from which they are descended. This was supposedly accomplished by reconstructing as exact an analogue of that object’s “descent” or process of differentiation from the medium itself. One had, so to speak, to “back engineer” the whole process of differentiations.

And with this, one perceives the connection to alchemy, to what its real goal was, and to why it connected the exoteric and esoteric aspects of its practice, for if the exoteric operations were to work, the operator performing them had himself to ascend back up the path of his own differentiation and “topological descent” from that medium, at least, insofar as it was possible for him to do so. The quest of alchemy, in short, was to literally embody that materia prima and its transmutative powers as fully within lower diversified matter as was possible in the earthly Philosophers’ Stone.

These views of the underlying substrate or materia prima persisted into the Hellenic philosophers, and became, via Aristotle, the common currency of later occidental alchemy. For Aristotle,

The basis of the material world was a prime or primitive matter, which had, however, only a potential existence, until impressed by ‘form.’ By form he did not mean shape only, but all that conferred upon a body its specific properties.

In terms of the topological metaphor of alchemy, in other words, Aristotle’s “form” is the Egyptians’ “primary scission” with all its ensuing “differentiations.”

This view of the materia prima and the topological descents and differentiations of existing things is the real basis of the famous alchemical and esoteric axiom “as above, so below.” In fact, in the most prized and famous alchemical text, the Emerald Tablet of Thoth, this axiom of the transmutative medium found its most famous expression:

True it is, without falsehood, certain and most true. That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of one thing.

And as all things were by the contemplation of one, so all things arose from this one thing by a single act of adaptation.

In the last sentence of the above quotation, one may see encapsulated the whole sum and substance of alchemical “physics”: the “one thing” is the undifferentiated substrate, the “arising” of all things from that substrate is the primary scission, and the “single act of adaptation” that occurs “by the contemplation of one” is the act of differentiation itself, brought about by Intelligence and a supreme act of will. It will be noted that the act of differentiation thus also connotes placing the undifferentiated medium, which is in a state of utter equilibrium, into a more or less constant state of non- equilibrium or stress.

With this understanding of the ancient view of the transmutative medium in hand — a view that is decidedly modern once all the residue of metaphysics is boiled out of it — one is finally in a position to assess alchemical accounts of the quest for and composition of the Philosophers’ Stone. From the act of that initial “differentiation” of the underlying materia prima, one ends up with three entities: 1) the underlying medium itself, 2) the differentiated parts of it, and 3) their common properties. Interestingly enough, this tripartite structure becomes one of the properties of the Philosophers’ Stone itself, in some alchemical texts, for it is often referred to as the “tripartite Stone.” For example,

According to an anonymous seventeenth-century book entitled The Sophic Hydrolith, the Philosophers’ Stone, or the ancient secret, incomprehensible, heavenly, blessed, and triune universal stone of the sages, is made from a kind of mineral by grinding it to powder, resolving it into its three elements, and recombining these elements into a solid stoneof the fusibility of wax.

Note here that there are three essential operations to the successful confection of this “triune universal stone”:

1. Subjecting it to stress (“grinding it to powder”);
2. Recapitulating the process of differentiation (“resolving it into its three elements”); and
3. “Reverse engineering” its original topological descent from the medium (“recombining these elements into a solid stone”).

The direct connection of the Philosophers’ Stone to the underlying transmutative materia prima is made even more apparent in the following passage from the fourteenth-century alchemist, Peter Bonus:

In the first sense our Stone is the leaven of all other metals, and changes them into its own nature — a small piece of leaven leavening a whole lump. As leaven, though of the same nature with dough, cannot raise it until, from being dough, it has received a new quality which it did not possess before, so our Stone cannot change metals until it is changed itself, and has added to it a certain virtue which it did not possess before. It cannot change, or colour, unless it has first itself been changed and coloured. Ordinary leaven receives its fermenting power through the digestive virtue of gentle and hidden heat; and so our Stone is rendered capable of fermenting, converting, and altering metals by means of a certain digestive heat, which brings out its potential and latent properties, seeing that without heat neither digestion nor operation is possible.

This is a very revealing passage, and for several reasons.

We have the following assertions by Bonus:

1. The Philosophers’ Stone is “the leaven of all other metals,” in other words, the “leaven” metaphor is employed to denote the fact that in some sense the Philosophers’ Stone partakes of the properties of the underlying transmutative medium directly: as leaven is present throughout a whole mass of dough, so the medium is present throughout all the differentiations of created things within it, and that are comprised of it. That medium has, so to speak, literally been “em-bodied” within the Philosophers’ Stone, a metaphor that, as we shall shortly see, Bonus himself employs;

2. The Philosophers’ Stone can effect no change or transmutation until it itself has undergone change and transmutation. This is most likely to be understood in connection with the first point immediately above. But note also that the ability to change is connected with color. As we shall see, this reference to color will assume great significance as a sign of a genuinely alchemical transmutation, even for modern physics;

3. This change in turn is accomplished by heat, for “our Stone is rendered capable of fermenting, converting, and altering metals by means of a certain digestive heat, which brings out its potential and latent properties.”

Thus, the Philosophers’ Stone is confected by:

1. Heat, or, once again, a stress, which makes it undergo a
2. Change, or once again, differentiation which “Brings out its potential and latent properties,” which are those of
3. The transmutative medium itself.

In other words, some of the properties of that transmutative medium are literally “em-bodied” in the Philosophers’ Stone by dint of some process involving heat and color.

Bonus expands on this “embodiment” metaphor by drawing an analogy to the body and the soul as follows:

It is the body which retains the soul, and the soul can shew its power only when it is united to the body. Therefore when the artist sees the white soul arise, he should join it to its body in the same instant, for no soul can be retained without its body. This union takes place through the mediation of the spirit, for the soul cannot abide in the body except through the spirit, which gives permanence to their union, and this conjunction is the end of the work. Now, the body is nothing new or foreign; but that which was before hidden becomes manifest and that which was manifest becomes hidden. The body is stronger than soul and spirit, and if they are to be retained it must be by means of the body. The body is the form, and the ferment, and the Tincture of which the sages are in search. It is white actually and red potentially; while it is white it is still imperfect, but it is perfected when it becomes red.

In typical fashion, Bonus both reveals, and conceals, much about the Philosophers’ Stone in this passage.

We may summarize these points in connection with the italicized portions of the quotation just cited.

1. Note first of all that the Stone is now a “tincture,” implying that it is not a “stone” at all, but a liquid;

2. Observe the important use made of the “body-soul” analogy to “em-body” something. In this case, it is rather clear what Bonus means: the transmutative properties of the medium itself are the “soul,” which requires a “body,” the Stone itself, through which to work. In his own words, it is “this conjunction” that “is the end of the work” or its goal.

3. Thus, the “body” or material that undergoes the change and acquires its new transmutative properties is “nothing new or foreign,” i.e., it remains what it was before in terms of its being a mineral. But…

4. … some “hidden” properties have now become “manifest.” This cryptic remark can be explained by reference to the transmutative medium once again. As was previously mentioned, everything differentiated from that medium inevitably retains to varying degrees the transmutative properties of that medium by virtue of their descent from it. Thus, in alchemical thinking, these properties remain latent in any substance, particularly in its “pure” or alchemically “refined” form. Thus, the goal of the operations of exoteric alchemy is to make these hidden and latent properties manifest; it is to sharpen or intensify the latent properties of the transmutative medium that remain in any element. Thus, the alchemist is really seeking an altered state of ordinary matter, so that the “body” can become, in Bonus’ words, “the form, and the ferment, and the Tincture of which the sages are in search,” that is, so that “ordinary matter” can embody the transmutative properties of the medium itself in this world.

5. And finally, we have a most important clue from Bonus: there is a distinct spectrographic sequence of colors that allows the alchemist to know when he is getting “close”: in its manifest form it is “white actually,” and when processed through its final stage of refinement to bring out its latent potential, it is “red potentially.” Thus, “while it is white it is still imperfect, but it is perfected when it becomes red.”

White, and red.

These are the two colors that we shall see recur over and over again.

Thus, the whole goal of the alchemical art lay in “the general idea that the powers of the cosmic soul must somehow be concentrated in a solid, the philosophers’ stone or elixir, which would then be able
to carry out the transmutations that the alchemists desired.” It was an attempt to reconstruct, for specific cases, the descent of specific minerals from that undifferentiated “cosmic soul” or medium as exactly as possible, in order to incorporate that “cosmic soul’s” very powers of transmutation in ordinary matter. As Holmyard states it, “The underlying idea seems to have been that since the prime matter was the same in all substances, an approximation to this prime matter should be the first quest of alchemy.” The ability to confect such a “philosophical gold” would indeed give its possessors an awesome power.

In addition, there is yet another esoteric connection to alchemy and this quest to confect the Philosophers’ Stone, and we have already encountered it: the Emerald Tablet of Thoth, or, in his Hellenistic incarnation, Hermes Trismegistus, the Thrice Great Hermes, the grand magister of alchemy, the patron of all alchemical adepts. By its constant reference to the Emerald Tablet, alchemy itself acknowledges that the goal of its craft is precisely the reconstitution of this ancient, lost power, the power to manipulate the transmutative medium itself.

The Problem of Alchemy’s Survival: The Triune Stone and the Augustinian Trinity

As was suggested previously, alchemy was the principal mechanism by which esoteric and occult studies survived in a continuous stream from the death of the last Neoplatonist magician, philosopher, and theurgist — Iamblichus — to the rise of the Templars. As was also suggested, this survival in part depended upon royal, imperial, and even occasionally Lateran patronage.

But there is another mechanism at work in alchemy’s survival during this period, particularly in the Latin Christian West, and it is a rather surprising one, and to understand it, one must understand the strange and strong relationship between the “triune Philosophers’ Stone” and the Christian West’s Augustinized doctrine of the Holy Trinity. To understand it, in other words, one must do a little “theology.” And it may come as a surprise to many people, the doctrine which came to prevail in the mediaeval Latin Church was not the original Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which survived only in the Orthodox Catholic Churches of the East. Indeed, the Eastern Orthodox Churches to this day regard the doctrine that came to prevail throughout the West and even at Rome itself as a formal heresy of the highest order, which played no small role in the formal severing of communion between Rome and Constantinople in 1014, and outright mutual excommunication and schism later in 1054.

While this is not the appropriate place to delve into these issues, an understanding of the resemblance of the Augustinized doctrine of the Christian West is essential to understand the enormity of alchemy’s view of its “triune Philosophers’ Stone.”

Clues to deciphering this strange connection occurs when translating the work of an eastern Patriarch of Constantinople, who, upon learning of the exact content and nature of the formulation of Trinitarian doctrine that was increasingly accepted throughout the Christian West, wrote that the doctrine was more appropriate to a formulation of “sensory things,” and not as a formulation of theological doctrine. In other words, the doctrine of the Trinity as formulated in the Latin West was more appropriate to physics than to theology. It was an echo of other comments one often finds in works of earlier Greek patristic authors addressing similar issues.

This indeed serves as a kind of Rosetta Stone to unlock the possible physics meaning of ancient Hermetic texts, for what this ninth- century Christian patriarch was suggesting was something truly revolutionary: the whole philosophy of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism as outlined in so many texts was less about metaphysics in the standard academic sense, and more about the physics of the underlying medium.

Through this lens, certain Neoplatonic and Hermetic texts could indeed be interpreted as containing nothing but an encoded physics of the materia prima. In doing so, one particular passage from the Hermetica becomes particularly significant. The passage in question was about a “topological metaphor in Hermes Trismegistus’ conception of God, Space, and Kosmos (Θεος, Τομος, Κοσμος).” And in its own very suggestive way, it contained its own insight on the “triune Philosophers’ Stone,” by way of a peculiar metaphor of topological triangulation:

A very different and in some respects more sophisticated version of the metaphor of topological non-equilibrium is found in the Hermetica of Hermes Trismegistus…here an attempt will be made to render the implied topological metaphor of one particular passage formally explicit. This passage is the Libellus II:1-6b, a short dialogue between Hermes and his disciple, Asclepius:

“Of what magnitude then must be that Space in which the Kosmos is moved? And of what nature? Must not that Space be far greater, that it may be able to contain the continuous motion of the Kosmos, and that the thing moved may not be cramped through want of room, and cease to move? — (Asclepius): Great indeed must be that Space, Trismegistus. — (Hermes): And of what nature must it be, Asclepius? Must it not be of opposite nature to Kosmos? And of opposite nature to body is the incorporeal… Space is an object of thought, but not in the same sense that God is, for God is an object of thought primarily to himself, but Space is an object ofthought to us, not to itself.”

This passage thus evidences the type of “ternary” thinking encountered in Plotinus, and a kind of metaphysical and dialectical version of topological triangulation… But there is a notable distinction between Plotinus’ ternary structure, and that of the Hermetica: whereas in Plotinus’ system the three principal objects in view are the One, the Intellect, and the World Soul, here the principal objects in view are the triad of Theos, Topos, and Kosmos (Θεος, Τοπος, Κοσμος), or God, Space, and Kosmos.

So in Hermes’ version of the metaphor, the following “triangulation” occurs, with the terms “God, Space, Kosmos” becoming the names or symbols for each vertex or region.

Since what is being described here are three regions or what topologists would call “neighborhoods,” what is actually being modeled, via this ancient metaphor, is not only a kind of “topological triangulation” but that very triangulation is being accomplished by functional distinctions between each region, each of which is not only a “physical nothing” but more importantly, a differentiated nothing. The physical medium on this ancient model thus creates information, and in so doing, transmutes itself. This conception is the basis, of course, of alchemy.

The resemblance of this Hermetic topological metaphor to the Augustinian Trinitarian shield, with its own dialectics of oppositions between the three divine Persons, will immediately be evident, and this suggests that one of the strongest reasons for alchemy’s survival throughout the Western Middle Ages and beyond is that there was a fertile, widely accepted cultural matrix in which it could thrive, for that supposedly theological doctrine, with its own roots deep in Neoplatonism, and therefore with its own deep but largely unsuspected roots in Egyptian hermeticism, was really about physics and topology in a proper sense.

Alchemical References and Analogues to the Augustinized Trinity

A survey of alchemical references to the “triune Philosophers’ Stone” will only bring the fact of the West’s widespread Neoplatonic and Augustinian cultural matrix, and alchemy’s relationship to it, into even sharper focus. For example, the Rosarium Philosophorum (The Rosary of the Philosophers) refers to the animal, vegetable, and mineral nature of the Philosophers’ Stone, as do many alchemical texts. More importantly, it cites the alchemist Arnoldus as stating “Let the Artificers of Alchemy know this, that the forms of metals cannot be transmuted unless they be reduced to their first matter, and then they are transmuted into another form than that which they had before.” Arnoldus is implying precisely the type of “back- engineering” of matter in its topological descent from the materia prima as being essential to the successful confection of the Philosophers’ Stone.

Similarly, the Rosarium Philosophorum cites an intriguing quotation of Rosinus, in which the doctrinal formularies of the Trinity are very much in evidence:

We use true nature because nature does not amend nature, unless it be into his own nature. There are three principal Stones of Philosophers. That is mineral, animal, and vegetable. A mineral Stone, a vegetable Stone, and an animal Stone, three in name but one in essence. The Spirit is double, that is, tincturing and preparing.

The resonance of this formulary to the standard Trinitarian doctrinal and hymnographical expression — three in persons, one in essence — is astonishing. While there is nothing peculiarly Augustinian about this formulary in and of itself, the last sentence concerning the Spirit being “double” is strongly suggestive of the Augustinian formulation of the Trinity, since in the Augustinian formulation the Spirit is made to take His personal origin from the Father and the Son, as the interpolated version of the Nicene creed in use throughout Western Christianity states, and as a glance at the Trinitarian shield cited previously will disclose. Indeed, so strongly is this idea connected with that formulation that the Augustinian doctrine of the Trinity is sometimes simply referred to as the doctrine of the “double procession” of the Holy Spirit. The alchemical reference is therefore suggestive, but hardly conclusive.

Arnoldus de Nova Villa makes yet another reference to the triune Stone in connection with the Christian Trinity in his Cymicall Treatise:

In the beginning of this labour, I’le [sic] say, that the most excellent Hermes teaches the way in plain words to rationall [sic] men, but in occult and hid speeches to the unwise and fools. I say that the father son and holy ghost are one, and yet three, so speaking of our Stone I say three are one, and yet are divided.

The Trinitarian reference again is quite clear, but again, there is nothing distinctly Augustinian about it. Arnoldus additionally makes the comment that the “unifying substance” of the triune Stone is Mercury, for “out of Mercury is everything made.” This type of reference causes many who are unfamiliar with alchemical texts to misinterpret what is actually being said. The term “mercury” is often used in two senses, the first in its literal prosaic sense, referring to the chemical element itself. The second usage, often coupled with other designators such as “Our Mercury” or “the Philosophical Mercury” in a kind of code name, simply means the underlying transmutative medium or materia prima itself. It is, in short, a code name for the Philosophers’ Stone itself, and for the underlying substance that gives it its power.

In context, then, Arnoldus’ remarks exhibit their character as disguising the “triune Stone” in the context of a strictly Augustinian formulary of the Trinity, since the unity of that Trinity is seen to lie less in the Person of the Father, and more in the impersonal unity of the circle of the divine substance in the middle of the pictogram. Arnoldus is saying much the same thing. The union of the triune Stone in its animal, vegetable, and mineral parts, is the “philosophical Mercury,” the materia prima itself: “the Mercury of the sages,” he says, “is not that common Mercury, call’d by the Philosophers prima materia.” The connection may easily be seen by reproducing the Trinitarian shield and substituting alchemical references for the Trinitarian ones:

The “Alchemical Augustine”: Augustinian Trinitarian Shield with The Triune Stone In the Vertices, and The Philosophical Mercury or Materia Prima As the Unifying Substance

In other words Arnoldus, if one closely scrutinizes his remarks, reproduces the “topological triangulation” we discovered in the much earlier Hermetic texts.

The transmutative medium and materia prima itself receives its own biblical treatment at the hands of some alchemists. For example, Simon Forman interprets the initial creation account of Genesis 1 as an alchemical work, with the primordial waters representing the undifferentiated medium:

Into the darkness then did descend the spirit of God, Upon the watery chaos, whereon he made his abode. Which darkness then was on the face of the deep, In which rested the Chaos, and in it all things asleep. Rude, unformed, without shape, form or any good, Out of which God created all things as it stood… Then out of this Chaos, the four elements were made… The quintessence (that some men it call) Was taken out of the Chaos before the four elements all.

Chaos is the “physical nothing” out of which God fashioned, by differentiating within it, the things of the world. Note also that term “quintessence,” for it will become quite important to the case in part three that alchemy may have formed some of the conceptual basis behind one of physics’ most brilliant, and most unknown, thinkers. Forman expands on what the “quintessence” is in the following manner:

And into every specific thing do put quintessence, To reap such seed thereof; as men do sow, But of themselves. As they are simple and pure in kind.

To put it succinctly, “quintessence” is yet another code name for the Philosopher’s Stone itself, and for the alchemical operation of “embodying” it in a natural substance in order to utilize its powers.

Philippus Theophrastus Areolas Bombastus von Hohenheim, a.k.a. Paracelsus

No survey of alchemy in general nor of alchemy’s peculiar relationship to the Augustinized formulation of the Trinity in the Christian West would be complete without noting the many statements made in its regard by perhaps the most famous and controversial of the late Mediaeval and early Renaissance alchemists, Philippus Theophrastus Areolus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus (1493–1541). One gets some measure of the man in the fact that he was born simply “Philippus von Hohenheim” but later took on all the other names himself. Widely noted in his day as an extraordinary physician and alchemist, much of his written output does in fact concern alchemy, and his own disagreements with other practitioners of the craft, no matter how ancient or venerable:

From the middle of this age the Monarchy of all the Arts has been at length derived and conferred on me, Theophrastus Paracelsus, prince of Philosophy and of Medicine. For this purpose I have been chosen by God to extinguish and blot out all the phantasies of elaborate words, be they the words of Aristotle, Galen, Avicenna, Mesva, or the dogmas of any among their followers.

Paracelsus was anything but modest. To drive his point home, he points a definite finger to those whom he regards as the principal corruptors of the ancient craft, and they are the two patrons we have already encountered: “…that sophistical science has to have its ineptitude propped up and fortified by papal and imperial privileges.” Briefly put, Paracelsus knew full well where the main mechanisms that accounted for alchemy’s survival, and corruption, during the Middle Ages ultimately lied.

On the Paleoancient Very High Civilization and Egypt

Part of the uniqueness of Paracelsus is that he was quite aware, and made no secret, of the implications of alchemy for human history and culture. In his book Concerning the Tincture of the Philosophers, he writes that “I have proposed by means of this treatise to disclose to the ignorant and inexperienced: what good arts existed in the first age…” That Paracelsus means by “first age” something predating Egypt and Sumer will become apparanet.

In any case it is to its possession of the secrets of alchemy that Paracelsus ascribes ancient Egypt’s power: “If you do not yet understand from the aforesaid facts, what and how great treasures these are, tell me why no prince or king was ever able to subdue the Egyptians.” But the alchemical science itself he clearly states came from Adam, whom he calls “the first inventor of arts, because he had knowledge of all things as well after the Fall as before.” Because of this plenitude of knowledge, Adam was also able on Paracelsus’ view to predict

the world’s destruction by water. From this cause, too, it came about that his successors erected two tablets of stone, on which they engraved all natural arts in hieroglyphical (sic) characters, in order that their posterity might also become acquainted with this prediction, that so it might be heeded, and provision made in the time of danger. Subsequently, Noah found one of these tables under Mount Araroth, after the Deluge. In this table were described the courses of the upper firmament and of the lower globe, and also of the planets. At length this universal knowledge was divided into several parts, and lessened in its vigour and power. By means of this separation, one man became an astronomer, another a magician, another a cabalist, and a fourth an alchemist. Abraham, that Vulcanic Tubalcain, a consummate astrologer and arithmetician, carried the Art out of the land of Canaan into Egypt, whereupon the Egyptians rose to so great a height and dignity that this wisdom was derived from them by other nations.

Paracelsus makes two very crucial and significant observations here, whose subtle importance may be overlooked since they are so apparently obvious, but only apparently:

1. That alchemy itself is only a fragment of a once larger, highly unified body of knowledge and science that also encompassed astronomy and, for want of a better word, “metaphysics,” or, to put it differently, hyper-dimensional physics, a physics beyond (meta, from the Greek μετα, meaning “beyond”) the ordinary physical and natural world (physics, from the Greek φυσις, meaning “nature” or, in this case, the natural world). In other words, Paracelsus views the Deluge itself as yet another “Tower of Babel Moment” in which an ancient highly unified scientificreligio-philosophical world- view was further fragmented in what could be taken as a classical guerrilla warfare operation, just like the Tower of Babel: massive interference with an enemy’s communications and science and decision-making processes. Paracelsus is, in other words, thoroughly familiar with the esoteric traditions on this point, and more aware than most of their massive implications, for he states them clearly: prior to the high civilizations of classical antiquity — Egypt and Sumer — there was something even higher and much more sophisticated. A little later on Paracelsus even elaborates this concept a bit more fully, attributing the fragmentation of knowledge to the political fragmentation that occurred after the Deluge: “When a son of Noah possessed the third part of the world after the Flood, this Art broke into Chaldaea and Persia, and thence spread into Egypt.”

2. That Egypt gains its knowledge from Sumer, that is, that there is a relationship between the two to that paleoancient Very High Civilization. Paracelsus, of course, disguises this relationship by a “biblical” reference to Abraham and his journey from Ur in Sumer to Canaan, and thence, via his descendants, into Egypt. But of course, the biblical reference is a mere pietism, for Paracelsus cannot have missed the fact that Egypt was already there by the time of their arrival, and cannot have missed the significance of Moses’ growth in the Egyptian royal court. As indicated above, Paracelsus really attributes the further fragmentation of knowledge to the post- flood political fragmentation of the world. He is suggesting, in other words, that the fragmentation of knowledge is threefold: the Chaldaeans (Sumerians) preserving the predominantly astrological and astronomical component, the Hebrews preserving the predominantly Cabalistic component, and the Egyptians preserving the alchemical component. Thus, the “triune Stone” is also a triune Stone of a lost science, fragmented into three scientific and political cultures of the ancient classical world.

Consequently, Paracelsus uses the alchemical symbol of the “triune Stone” as a sigil of his entire philosophy of a hidden history of science and a paleoancient Very High Civilization predating Egypt and Sumer.

On the Relation Between Astronomy and Alchemy

With Paracelsus’ views on ancient history and science in hand, one may more readily appreciate why he not only insists that there are many valid methods to achieving the alchemical goal, but also why he insists upon “the agreement of Astronomy and Alchemy.” Indeed, Paracelsus was to note — with some frustration — that his many attempts to perform the same experiment were sometimes successful, and sometimes not, depending upon the season or other temporal factors. Bear this point in mind, for it will become extraordinarily crucial, for he anticipated, by no less than four centuries, similar observations made meticulously over several years and in several ways, by a brilliant Russian physicist.

Crystals and Metals: Sapphires and Mercury

So precisely does Paracelsus echo some ancient views of space — and anticipate some very modern ones — that some of his words will seem, from any standpoint, ancient or modern, rather remarkable:

To conjure is nothing else than to observe anything rightly, to know and to understand what it is. The crystal is a figure of the air. Whatever appears in the air, movable or immovable, the same appears also in the speculum or crystal as a wave. For the air, the water, and the crystal, so far as vision is concerned are one, like a mirror in which an inverted copy of an object is seen.

At first reading it would appear that Paracelsus is talking about nothing more than eyeglasses and mirrors, and indeed, on one level, he is. Moreover, he is advancing a wave theory of light that at that time is beginning to become part of optical study.

But such a prosaic reading would miss the true significance of his observations, for “air” oftentimes functions, particularly in alchemical literature, as yet another code name for “space” itself, and sometimes even for the materia prima. Consequently, his association of crystals with their implied latticework to air, that is to space itself, implies a very modern, and indeed topological, view of space being advanced by some modern physicists and topologists. Given his familiarity with biblical texts, and his penchant for interpreting them as referring to a lost paleophysics, Paracelsus could hardly have been oblivious to the biblical reference in Ezekiel which seems to refer to space itself as a crystal, as a lattice structure: “And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above.”

Paracelsus also, somewhat unusually, couples the idea of crystals and gemstones with metals. Metals, like the more familiar gemstones and crystals, also possess a regular lattice structure, so once again, Paracelsus’ views are, in their own way, very advanced for the day. Most importantly, in yet another rather obscure work, the De Elemente Aquae, Paracelsus states that “in the matter of body and colour the Sapphire is generated from Mercury (the prime principle).” This mention of Sapphire in connection with the philosophical Mercury or materia prima is not without its own contemporary significance, for the former Soviet Union undertook experiments to measure minute fluctuations of the Earth’s gravitational acceleration by means of a large artificial sapphire.

By associating crystals with the Philosophical Mercury and the materia prima and implying that alchemy and the Philosophers’ Stone is a technology with the power to manipulate the latter, Paracelsus is also implying that the lattice structure of crystals and of space itself is intimately related to physical forces.

So what do we have?

Paracelsus has outlined the following ideas:

1. That an ancient and highly unified science was fragmented by various means, including political, as a consequence of the Deluge which he interprets as yet another “Tower of Babel Moment,” and that these fragmentations went, in their astrological-astronomical, cabalistic, and alchemical components to Sumer, the Hebrews, and Egypt, respectively;

2. That some alchemical operations are successfully performed only at certain times and seasons.

3. That there is an intimate relationship between the lattice structure of crystals and metals and the primary transmutative medium itself, implying that lattice structures and physical forces are intimately connected, a very modern idea; and,

4. That there is a metaphysical, or to put it into modern terms, a hyper-dimensional physics component always at work throughout all of the above.

But there’s more, and in uncovering it, we once again see the profound relationship between the Augustinized formulary of the Trinity, its deep and unsuspected roots in ancient Hermeticism (and therefore in an ancient paleophysics), the textual metaphors of topological triangulation in ancient Hermetic texts, and the triune Philosophers’ Stone.

The Augustinized Trinity and Alchemy

The connection begins with Paracelsus’ statement that he “will teach you the tincture, the Arcanum 1, the quintessence, wherein lie hid the foundations of all mysteries and of all works.”

According to Paracelsus, this arcane operation is to be accomplished by means of the Holy Spirit. But once one delves into what he says about this Holy Spirit, one perceives the connection:

This is the Spirit of Truth, which the world cannot comprehend without the interposition of the Holy Ghost, or without the instruction of those who know it. The same is of a mysterious nature, wondrous strength, boundless power. The Saints, from the beginning of the world, have desired to behold its face. By Avicenna this Spirit is named The Soul of the World. For, as the Soul moves in all the limbs of the body, so also does this Spirit move all bodies. And as the Soul is in all the limbs of the Body, so also is this Spirit in all elementary created things.

The reference to the Holy Spirit as an It rather than a fully fledged Person, a Him, is one of those consequences of the Augustinized Trinitarian formulary that began to influence Western Christian piety during the Middle Ages and down to our own day.

But the real clue lies in the identification of the Holy Spirit of Christian doctrine with the World Soul of Neoplatonism, for in the latter conception, this World Soul is made to take its origin from the Intellect, which in turn takes its origin from the One. The World Soul is thus caused by two classes of causes, the Uncaused Cause (the One), and the Caused Cause (the Intellect), much like the Holy Spirit, on the Augustinian formulation, takes His origin from an Uncaused Cause (the Father) and a caused cause (the Son). And note, in the Paracelsan version, it is this World Soul-Holy Spirit that is essential to a purely physical alchemical work. In other words, in Paracelsus’ hands the Augustinized Trinity, which began as was seen in a purely physical and topological metaphor in the Hermetica, and after its peregrinations throughout the Western Middle Ages as a theological doctrine and even as a dialectical interpretation of history itself, ends once again by being reduced back into a purely physics-related phenomenon. No better words can summarize this historical process than the words of Thomas Aquinas himself on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit’s double procession within the Western Trinitarian doctrine, for in the hands of Paracelsus, the historical “cycle has concluded when it returns to the very same substance from which the proceeding began,”

This is made more apparent in the following passage: “Eye hath not seen,” says the alchemical author of the Apocalypse of Hermes, “nor hath ear heard, nor hath the heart of man understood what Heaven hath naturally incorporated with this Spirit.” In other words, once reduced to an It, the “Spirit” becomes merely the sigil for the Philosophers’ Stone itself, and its embodiment into physical matter, into the Stone, which has both physical and metaphysical or hyper-dimensional components. One can see the logic of Paracelsus (and other Western Christian alchemists) at work, for the alchemical work of confecting the Philosophers’ Stone by embodying “the Spirit” into matter is the alchemical analogue to the Incarnation, where the Son becomes incarnate. The Son becomes human, the Spirit becomes the matter of the Stone.

Thus, since this “Spirit”-as-transmutative physical medium is the quintessence of the Philosophers’ Stone, the Stone in turn confers not only longevity and even a kind of immortality, but it is also indestructible.

That Paracelsus seems to be quite knowledgeable of the ultimately Hermetic roots of the Augustinized Trinitarian formulary is made abundantly clear in The Aurora of the Philosophers:

Magic, it is true, had its origin in the Divine Ternary and arose from the Trinity of God. For God marked all His creatures with this Ternary and engraved its hieroglyph on them with His own finger. Nothing in the nature of things can be assigned or produced that lacks this magistery of the Divine Ternary, or that does not even ocularly prove it. The creature teaches us to understand and see the Creator Himself, as St. Paul testifies to the Romans. This covenant of the Divine Ternary, diffused throughout the whole substance of things, is indissoluble. By this, also, we have the secrets of all Nature from the four elements. For the Ternary, with the magical Quaternary, produces a perfect Septenary, endowed with many arcane and demonstrated by things which are known.

Even the reference to the “divine quaternary” has its echo in the Augustinized Trinitarian formulation, for in the Trinitarian shield, one counts not three, but four circles, with the center circle representing the undifferentiated medium, the absolute simplicity, of the divine essence itself, which in the hands of the alchemists, has become a symbol of the Philosophical Mercury, the materia prima itself.

The previous reference to Neoplatonism’s World Soul recalls yet another Neoplatonic theme that enters heavily into alchemical texts, and Paracelsus in particular. This is the doctrine that as all things come from the One, a process called emanation (προοδος in the Greek), so everything returns to It (περιαγωγη). The alchemical text, The Aurora of the Philosophers, having outlined the derivation of all from the Divine Ternary, thus reverses the process:

Here also it refers to the virtues and operations of all creatures, and to their use, since they are stamped and marked with their arcane, signs, characters, and figures, so that there is left in them scarcely the smallest occult point which is not made clear on examination. Then when the Quaternary and the Ternary mount to the Denary is accomplished their retrogression or reduction to unity.

But note that the Neoplatonic metaphor of return occurs in an alchemical context. In other words, the conception of return is itself in turn a metaphor for the alchemical operation of confecting the Philosophers’ Stone, for back-engineering the “topological descent” from the primary physical medium. Paracelsus has seen through all the centuries’ misunderstandings of such metaphysical texts, and their misunderstanding precisely as “philosophical” texts, to the underlying metaphor of a hidden and occulted physics. If this seems a constrained reading of the passage, he himself makes it abundantly clear a little further on:

The Magi in their wisdom asserted that all creatures might be brought to one unified substance…by many industrious and prolonged preparations, exalted and raised up above the range of vegetable substances into mineral, above mineral into metallic, and above perfect metallic substances into a perpetual and divine Quintessence.

Thus, as “emanation” functions as a metaphor for the differentiation of the materia prima giving rise to and accounting for the diversity of creatures, so “return” functions, for the alchemist “in the know,” as a metaphor for the process of “back-engineering” that topological descent in order to confect and embody the medium more immediately itself in a creature, in the Philosophers’ Stone.

Whatever else must be said of Paracelsus, one thing perhaps goes frequently unnoticed. If the old Mediaeval adage be true that “philosophy is the handmaiden of theology,” then Paracelsus has seen through the Augustinized Trinitarian formulary to its ultimately Hermetic roots, and alchemically reduced it once again to its original basis in physics and “sensory things” shorn of the theological associations it subsequently came to hold. With that, he has performed the irrevocable divorce of theology and philosophy as it obtained in the Christian West.

The Ultimate Reductio and the Clincher

If all this is not enough to convince the most resistant skeptic, there is an alchemical text where the identification of the Christian Trinity, in its Augustinzed form, with the topological metaphor of the Hermetica of Hermes Trismegistus is clearly made, and the reduction to physics is accomplished in no uncertain terms. This is a small manuscript entitled simply “Place in Space, the Residence of Motion.” The subtitle of this is even more provocative: “The Secret Mystery of Nature’s progress, being an Elucidation of the Blessed Trinity, Father — Son — and Holy Ghost. Space — Place — and Motion.” Notably, the same sort of functional sets of dialectical oppositions are used to distinguish each vertex as were previously shown in the citations from the Libellus II of the Hermetica of Hermes Trismegistus:

Space, Place, Father & Son are inseparable fixed & immoveable. Motion ye Holy Ghost is that which brings all things to the Blessed determination of the Dei, as in the Floria
Patri, Filii & Spiriti Sancti [sic], etc.

In other words, the Spirit is distinguished by functional opposition — motion — from the Father and the Son, each of whom are symbols of Space and Place. The reduction to physics is once again in evidence.

But there is yet more to the mystery of alchemy…

Stories of Alchemical Success

The persisting mystery of alchemy is precisely its persistence. That is, if the possession of the tremendous powers of the Philosophers’ Stone was the goal of alchemy, why then did no one notice, over the several centuries if not thousands of years of its practice, that no one ever actually did it? How does one account for the persistence of the practice in the face of, presumably, the centuries’ accumulated mountain of failures? Ancient and mediaeval man was no less rational than modern man, and repeated failures would, eventually, have led rational people to abandon the whole enterprise as a futility. How does one account for the persistence of alchemy through the centuries when faced with the enormity, and the likely futility, of its quest to confect the Philosophers’ Stone?

Should not the whole enterprise have been abandoned much sooner than actually was the case? One possibility of explaining this persistence is, of course, that the extremity of the power of the Stone itself was a sufficient motivation to continue pursuing it in spite of the presumably large amount of data that said it could not be done.

But there is another possibility, before which one hesitates, given our inbred modern skepticism concerning all that is “extraordinary.” That possibility is that, on occasion, for whatever reason, there were some successes, that they actually did it. In fact, this is what is actually claimed in the historical record, if one reads such accounts at face value. Only a few of the many examples that Holmyard cites in his book are reproduced here.

1. The Swedish General

An intriguing story comes out of eighteenth-century Sweden, when the Scandinavian kingdom was at the height of her power. In 1705 the Swedish general Paykhull

had been convicted of treason and sentenced to death. In an attempt to avert this punishment, he offered the king, Charles XII, a million crowns of gold annually, saying that he could make it alchemically; he claimed to have received the secret from a Polish officer named Lubinski, who had himself obtained it from a Corinthian priest. Charles accepted the offer, and a preliminary test was arranged under the supervision of a British officer, General Hamilton of the Royal Artillery, as an independent observer. All the materials were prepared with great care, in order to prevent the possibility of fraud, then Paykhull added his elixir and a little lead, and a mass of gold resulted which was coined into 147 ducats. A medal struck at the same time bore the inscription (in Latin as usual): ‘O.A. von Paykhull cast this gold by chemical art inStockholm, 1706.”

One has difficulty imagining any alchemical process as being successful. But equally, one has difficulty imagining any king, especially King Charles XII, and a British artillery general, being taken in by a charlatan, especially when the charlatan is on trial for his life, and when Charles XII had potential riches to gain. The Swedish royal courtesans and ministers would have literally hovered over General von Paykhull, scrutinizing his every move.

2. A Provincial Frenchman

Another interesting story is mentioned by Holmyard, this time from provincial France, and again, from the early eighteenth century. On this occasion

An ignorant Provencal rustic named Delisle caused a sensation by claiming, with apparent good reason, that he could transform iron and steel into gold. The news came to the ears of the Bishop of Senez, who after witnessing one of Delisle’s experiments wrote to the Minister of State and Comptroller-General of the Treasury in Paris that he could not resist the evidence of his senses. In 1710 Delisle was summoned to Lyons, where, in the presence of the Master of the Lyons Mint, he made much show of distilling some unknown yellow liquid. He then projected two drops of the liquid upon three ounces of pistol bullets fused with saltpeter and alum, and poured the molten mass out on to a piece of iron armour, where it appeared as pure gold, withstanding all tests. The gold thus obtained was coined by the Master of the Mint into medals inscribed Aurum arte Factum, ‘Gold made by Art,’ and these were deposited in the museum at Versailles. Of Delisle’s subsequent life, history has nothing to relate.

Again, we find the association with a Royal government, this time that of France, and in connection with its Treasury and Royal Mint. And again, reason pauses to make us hesitate over the alleged
success. But similarly, reason also forces one to consider that the possibility of a fraud being perpetrated under the watchful eyes of the Master of the Lyon mint is rather slim, especially since the gold that was produced was subjected to “all tests.” Was Delisle’s success the reason for his subsequent disappearance? Or, conversely, did the Versailles Palace, subsequently determining that it had been defrauded, “disappear” Delisle into the bowels of the Bastille? We will never know.

3. The Hapsburg Emperors Ferdinand III and Leopold I

One of the best known examples of royal or imperial patronage of alchemical practice was the Holy Roman Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand III, of which no less than four examples are known. The first concerns an incident in 1647, when an alchemical adept name J.P. Hofmann allegedly successfully performed a transmutation in the presence of Ferdinand himself in the city of Nuremberg.

From this hermetic gold the emperor caused a medal of rare beauty to be struck. It bears on the obverse two shields, in one of which are eight fleursde-lys, and in the other is a crowned lion. The Latin inscriptions signify, ‘The yellow lilies lie down with the snow-white lion; thus the lion will be tamed, thus the yellow lilies will flourish; and that the metal was made by Hofmann. A further inscription reads Tincturae Guttae V Libram, denoting that five drops of the tincture of elixir transmuted a whole pound of the base metal. On the reverse is a central circle with Mars in it, holding the symbol ♂ in one hand and a sword in the other. Around this central circle are six smaller ones, containing the signs of gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, and mercury, with an inscription claiming that in this case the active agent in transmutation was made from iron.

While this is not the last time we shall encounter an alchemical connection to Mars, it is important to note here that once again, the Philosophers’ Stone is not so much an actual stone as it is an elixir or tincture, a liquid.

The next year Ferdinand was at it again, this time in connection with

A certain Richthausen, who claimed to have received the secret of the Art from an adept now dead, (who) performed a transmutation in the presence of the emperor and of the Count von Rutz, director of mines. All precautions against fraud were taken, yet with one grain of the powder provided by Richthausen two and a half pounds of mercury were changed into gold.

Once again, the Emperor Ferdinand had a medallion struck with a value of “300 ducats,” and whose Latin inscription stated that “the Divine Metamorphoses” had been “exhibited at Prague, 15 January 1648, in the presence of his Imperial Majesty Ferdinand III.”

The mysterious Richthausen was active again in 1650, for in that year Ferdinand apparently performed his own transmutation with some of the adept’s powder, and once again struck a medallion indicating that lead had been successfully transformed into gold. The Emperor’s patronage became “official” when, following another successful transmutation in 1658 when Richthausen gave the Elector of Mainz some of the Stone, a transformation of mercury into gold occurred. In gratitude, Ferdinand raised Richthausen to the ranks of the nobility.

Nor did the Hapsburg interest end with Ferdinand. Ferdinand’s son Leopold I was visited in Vienna by an Augustinian monk in 1675, where, again, a “copper vessel” was transmuted into gold, along with some tin. In commemoration of the occasion, gold ducats were struck from the tin. The monk, Wenzel Seyler, had accomplished the whole operation with a powder, for on the obverse of these coins was a bit of poetry:

Aus Wenzel Seyler’s Pulvers Macht
Bin ich von Zinn zu Gold Gemacht.

That is, ‘By the power of Wenzel’s powder I was made into gold from tin.’

Beyond the patronage and consistent interest in alchemy of the powerful von Hapsburg dynasty, what is of interest in these accounts is that the Stone appears in two now familiar guises: as a powder, and as a liquid. As will be seen subsequently, these are important clues as to what the substance may actually have been. What also interests us is the apparent frequency with which Ferdinand’s adept, (von) Richthausen, was supposedly able to effect the transformation. Not just once, but no less than four times, and on one occasion with the Emperor himself performing the operation. Again, one is confronted with two horns of a very significant problematic: 1) either the Emperor was an incredibly stupid man and easily duped, a very unlikely possibility since, again, Richthausen’s actions would have been carefully monitored and scrutinized by the imperial court, or 2) they actually occurred, which is problematical for obvious reasons.

The Alchemical Reading of Particular Texts

Throughout the foregoing stories of alchemical successes, we were once again confronted with another aspect of the “dual” nature of alchemy and its ambiguous claims and language, for at almost every turn two possible explanations — fraud or actual transmutation — presented themselves, each with its own set of irrationalities and rationalities. Not only can we read these accounts in two ways, so could the alchemists themselves. In fact, they could read almost any text concerning transformations in an alchemical way.

1. Ovid’s Metamorphoses

We have already repeatedly encountered numerous biblical allusions and references in our alchemical survey. But these are not the only kinds of texts in which alchemists were able to discover metaphors for their art.

A famous case in point is the classical Roman poet Ovid, and his celebrated epic poem The Metamorphoses. The fourteenth-century alchemist Petrus Bonus, whom we have encountered before, “claimed that Ovid’s Metamorphoses dealt esoterically with the philosophers’ stone, and that many other ancient poems and myths had hidden alchemical meanings.” In other words, the alchemists themselves believed that ancient texts of a certain type contained a hidden and encoded physics, the hidden and encoded physics of alchemy itself, which was thus an attempt to recover a lost technology and science.

2. The Nine Philosophers, The Enneads, The Council of the Gods, and the Egyptian Neters

A more complex example of the alchemical reading of ancient texts and motifs occurs in a tenth-century Muslim alchemical text known as The Book of the Controversies and Conferences of the Philosophers, compiled by the Muslim alchemist Uthman ibn Suwaid of the town of Akhimm, in other words, Panopolis in Egypt. In the Latin version of this work,

Nine philosophers take part in the preliminary discussion, with the names Iximidrus, Exumdrus, Anaxagoras, Pandulfus, Arisleus, Lucas, Locustor, Pitagoras, and Eximenus. ‘Anaxagoras’ and ‘Pitagoras’ seem to indicate that the remaning seven names are mistransliterations of Greek names, and by transcribing them back into Arabic characters Plessner was able to show that the list should read Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Archelaus, Leucippus, Echpantus, Pythagoras, and Xenophanes — thus solving an age-old mystery.

These nine philosophers are all pre-Socratic, and Plessner demonstrates that in their speeches (in the work) they are reciting theories that, from classical sources, they are known to have held.

But why nine philosophers?

Beyond the work’s own obvious Egyptian provenance, there are deeper Egyptian esoteric connections to be considered, for one has only to recall that the famous Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus, regarded by many as the actual founder of the school, wrote his version of the unfolding differentiation of creation from an underlying undifferentiated, or “simple” (απλως) medium of The One (το εν) and The All (το παν) in his well-known philosophical treatise The Enneads, or quite literally, “The Nines.” And this in turn, according to many interpreters, is but a “public popularization” of the ancient nine primordial Egyptian neters or “gods,” the first nine differentiated entities that, in the Egyptian cosmogenesis, unfold from the first act of differentiation of the prime matter in the primary scission. In point of fact, the first nine Egyptian neters, and indeed the whole concept of neters in the Egyptian cosmology is rather more involved than the mere translation of the term as “gods” would suggest, for as the celebrated “alternative Egyptologist” René Schwaller De Lubicz pointed out, the term actually implies an exact science of the nature of cause and effect:

There exists a bond between cause and effect, and that bond is called the Neter. It is this Neter which the believer hopes to spur into action through his appeal. Further, what this Neter represents as energetic and harmonic activity is consciously evoked by the sage. This conscious evocation must necessarily be a gesture or a word of the same nature as that of the Neter summoned, and by that fact the evocation becomes the cause of the magical effect.

In any case, it is now apparent that the whole alchemical enterprise is suffused through and through with connections to ancient Egyptian cosmological views, views which were operative in their understanding of sympathetic magic, and that gave rise to the more sophisticated, “scientific,” and “technological” attempts of alchemy to recover the science of the ability to manipulate the materia prima.

3. The Alchemical Reading of the Episode of the Golden Calf in the Old Testament

But there is one more alchemical association with, and reading of, an ancient text that in turn has an Egyptian connection, and that, of course, is the Episode of the Golden Calf from the Old Testament biblical book of Exodus:

There are numerous biblical references to being “purified” as for example, phrases that attribute a purifying action “like a refiner’s fire” to God… Alchemical “transmutation” of lead into gold, the “Philosophers’ Stone” was also understood to be a purification process for the soul. Thus, such references in the Bible often have a clear though esoteric meaning within alchemy. But is there any evidence to suggest that the material aspect of this transformation, the technology of transmutation itself, may once have existed?

For (Sir Laurence Gardner), the answer is an unequivocal “yes,” and he points to the Book of Exodus as his evidence. The story is familiar to most of us. In Sinai, while Moses is on the Mount communing with God, Aaron melts down the gold of the Israelites and molds an idol, a “golden calf.” Upon his return from the Mount, Moses became angry with this idolatrous act, and then, according to Gardner, “Performs a most extraordinary transformation.”

“Exodus 32:20 explains: ‘And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.’

“In practice, this sounds rather more like a ritual than a punishment, even though the latter is how the story is conveyed. Aaron had previously melted the gold in the fire to mold the image, but what Moses did was plainly different because firing gold produced molten gold, not powder.”

In the Septuagint Greek Old Testament version of the account, it is stated that Moses “consumed the gold with fire.” This implies “A more fragmentary process than heating and melting*. The Oxford English Dictionary* defines ‘to consume’ as ‘to reduce to nothing or to tiny particles.’ So what is this process that, through the use of fire, can reduce gold to powder?” Put differently, some very extreme heat must be applied beyond the melting temperature of gold in order for it to actually burn and be reduced to a particulate.

Clearly Gardner is correct, and there is more involved in Moses’ melting of the Golden Calf into a powder and consumable liquid than meets the eye of the normal pulpit exegete or standard biblical commentary, not the least of which is the fact that in order to reduce gold to a particulate would require extremities of heat that could only be obtained by some technology. More on this point below, for as will be seen, extreme heat was precisely one of the obsessions of the alchemists.

It is worth noting that according to Gardner, a third-century alchemical treatise entitled The Domestic Chemistry of Moses was actually the origin of the mediaeval alchemical practice of referring to their craft as “the Mosaicohermetic art,” and that Moses himself was considered to be an alchemist by mediaeval alchemical texts.

Finally, a curious reference to the powdered form of the Philosophers’ Stone occurs in a short treatise of the mediaeval alchemist Glauber entitled “How to Make and Prepare the ‘Atoms’ of Gold,” wherein the “atoms” referred to are said to be “most fine and subtle,” and capable of medical uses. This fine powder, which Glauber does not hesitate to call “the whole secret of the thing,” is also of a transparent ruby color.

Yet another alchemical treatise likewise mentions the “ruby-red transparent glass” and that the production of the “calx” or powder of gold “is quite essential to success in the prosecution of our Art.”

Stone, Powder, Elixir, and the Sequence of Colors

Thus far we have encountered references to the Philosophers’ Stone being of a threefold material nature; it exists as

1. a stone or mineral or metal of some sort;
2. a tincture, elixir, or liquid of some sort; and,
3. a powder or particulate material of some sort.

Additionally, the previous biblical references indicate that

4. high heat was involved in its confection;
5. some sort of sequence of colors — from white to red — was the signal of a successful operation.

More importantly, it has also been shown that

6. the Stone involved a manifest “bodily” aspect, and a latent or hidden aspect, the “soul” aspect, that appeared to tie it directly to the assumed properties of the underlying transmutative substrate or prime matter.

But, notes Holmyard, the details of such a simple outline of its properties

are scarcely as simple as this outline would suggest. It is first necessary to purge the original material of all that is thick, nebulous, opaque, and dark in it… Then the extracted body, soul, and spirit must be distilled and condensed together by their own proper salt, yielding an aqueous liquid with a pleasant, penetrating smell, and very volatile. This liquid is known as mercurial water or water of the Sun. It should be divided into five portions, of which two are reserved while the other three are mixed together and added to one-twelfth their weight of the divinely endowed body of gold. Ordinary gold is useless in this connexion, having been defiled by daily use.

When the water and the gold have been combined in a solutory alembic they form a solid amalgam, which should be exposed to gentle heat for six or seven days. Meanwhile one of the two reserved fifths of the mercurial water is placed in an egg-shaped phial and the amalgam is added to it. Combination will slowly take place, and one will mingle with the other gently and imperceptibly as ice with warm water. This union the sages have compared to the union of a bride and bridegroom. When it is complete the remaining fifth of the water is added a little at a time, in seven instalments [sic]; the phial is then sealed, to prevent the product from evaporating or losing its odour, and maintained at hatching-temperature. The adept should now be on the alert for various changes. At the end of forty days the contents of the phial will be as black as charcoal: this stage is known as the raven’s head. After seven days more, at a somewhat higher temperature, there appear granular bodies, like fishes’ eyes, then a circle round the substance, which is first reddish, then white, green, and yellow, like a peacock’s tail, a dazzling white, and finally a deep red. That marks the climax, for now, under the rarefying influence of the fire, soul and spirit combine with their body to form a permanent and indissoluble Essence, an occurrence that cannot be witnessed without admiration and awe. The revivified body is quickened, perfected, and glorified, and is of a most beautiful purple colour; its tincture has virtue to change, tinge, and cure every imperfect body.

The process of confecting the Philosophers’ Stone is thus a rather lengthy and complicated one, one rather more involved than merely superheating gold. The complexity of the process is disclosed by the fact that the spectrographic response of the material, the color sequence, is more than just a transition from white to red. In fact, in this version of the sequence, one has the following progression of colors:

1. Black, to
2. “reddish,” to
3. white, to
4. green, to
5. yellow, to
6. a dazzling white, and
7. deep red, to
8. “a most beautiful purple.”

That this sequence is indicative of reactions of some sort — whether chemical or otherwise–cannot be doubted.

A slightly different sequence is recorded by Petrus Bonus:

At first, indeed, the whole mass is white because quicksilver predominates… when it is ferment, the mass in the second stage of the magistery becomes red in the fullness of the potential sense, while in the third stage, or the second and last decoction, the ferment is actively dominant, and the red color becomes manifest and possesses the whole substance. Again, we say that this ferment is that strong substance which then turns everything into its own nature. Our ferment is of the same substance as gold; gold is of quicksilver, and our design is to produce gold.

While Bonus’ list is not nearly as detailed, nevertheless one again finds the beginning of the sequence denoted by white, and the end by red.

This basic sequence is confirmed by the alchemist Glauber in a treatise entitled “The True Tincture of Gold,” once again indicating that the Philosophers’ Stone is as much a liquid or powder as it is an actual stone. After taking one part gold, three parts mercury, and one part of silver, and putting them into a “philosophical vessel” wherein they are dissolved, Glauber then notes the color sequence:

In the space of one-quarter of an hour these mixed metals will be radically dissolved by the mercury, and will give a purple colour. Afterwards increase the heat gradually, and then the colour changes to a very fine green. Hereon, when taken out, pour the “water of the dew,” to dissolve (which may be done in half-an-hour). Filter the solution, and abstract the water through a glass alembic in balneo, which pour out again fresh and abstract; repeat this three times. In the meanwhile, that greenness will be turned to blackness, like ink, stinking like a carcass, and therefore odious. It behoves sometimes to take away the water, re-affused and digested when the said black colour and stench will disappear in the space of forty hours, and will give place to a pure and milky whiteness, which appearing, remove the water by evaporation to dryness. Diverse colours now appear, and the remaining white mass is to be affused with highly rectified spirit of wine, when the dissolved green gold will impart to it a quintessence as red as blood or ruby.

While significantly different in some respects from other sequences, the broad signatures remain, with purple, black, white, and red being the salient stages.

Yet another treatise of Glauber notes that red is not only the signature of the final stage of the Stone’s confection, but that in its new, powdered state, it “admits not any more melting, nor does it of itself return into a malleable metallic body.” In other words, at the final stage of the alchemical process, the “philosophical gold” has been so consumed and burnt that further melting simply is impossible. Finally, in what is surely one of Glauber’s most curious series of statements, the “gold calx” or powdered gold appears to be produced “by the oil of sand” in a crucible exposed to a gentle heat.

The most famous of the alchemists, Nicholas Flammel, however, recorded a sequence in many respects similar to the detailed sequence noted above, with but one or two significant exceptions. Holmyard summarized his efforts as follows:

Although Flamel now had most of the necessary information, it took him three years of unremitting labour to achieve final success. The penultimate stage was reached: all that was left to be done was to heat the product in a glass flask of ‘philosophical egg’ set in an athanor. With beating heart, Flamel watched for the revealing colours. They came, and in the correct sequence: from grey to black, ‘the crow’s head,’ then from black to white, the white first appearing like a halo around the edge of the black, and the halo then shooting out white filaments towards the centre, until the whole mass was of a perfect white. This was the white elixir, and Flamel could wait no longer: he opened the flask, took out the elixir, called (his wife) Pernelle, and prepared to make the trial. This was on Monday, 17 January 1382. Taking about half a pound of lead, he melted it in a crucible, and to it added a little of the white elixir, whereupon the lead was at once converted into silver, purer than the silver of mines.

Sure at last that he had achieved mastery of the Art, he replaced the rest of the elixir in the flask and continued the heating. Now the rest of the colours appeared one after the other: the white turned to the iridescence of the peacock’s tail, this to yellow, the yellow to orange, the orange to purple, and finally the purple to red — the red of the Great Elixir.

Here the sequence of colors is slightly different:

1. Gray, to
2. Black, to
3. White, to
4. “the iridescence of the peacock’s tail” (blue?), to 5. Yellow, to
5. Orange, to
6. Purple, to
7. Red, the “red of the Great Elixir.”

Notably, it is the last two components, the red and purple (in Holmyard’s first version), and the purple and red (in Flammel’s), which is different, which suggests that the final stage was represented by a reddish-purple, or almost maroon color.

The sequence of colors is, for Flammel as for other mediaeval alchemists, the apotheosis of the Philosophers’ Stone. For Flammel, achievement of the Stone denotes the achievement of the key to all the sciences, the materia prima itself, for it is that “first agent” of all other creations “which is the Key, opening the gates of all Sciences.” Yet, while in many respects the clearest of the alchemists, Flammel, in the midst of detailing how he achieved the confection of the Philosophers’ Stone, once again retreats into obscurity with the following passage:

I must take heed to represent or write where it is that we hide the keys which can open all the doors of the secrets of nature, or to open or cast up the earth, in that place contenting myself to show the things which will teach every one to whom God shall give permission to know, what property the sign of the Balance or Libra hath, when it is enlightened by the Sun and Mercury in the month of October.

Flammel seems to be suggesting once again that astrology plays some crucial and significant role in the successful confection of the Philosophers’ Stone. To put it differently, he seems to be suggesting that celestial geometries are somehow capable of amplifying or damping the effects necessary to achieve the Stone.

The sequence of the colors red and purple is not unique to Mediaeval Latin alchemy. It occurs as well in the writings of the famous Muslim alchemist Al Jabir, who ascribed the power to effect all manner of transmutations to the “grand or master elixir.” The Muslim alchemist Dubai ibn Malik, moreover, records the properties of this “red elixir” as being able to effect transmutations of base metal into gold up to the amount of 500 times its own weight.

The Rosarium Philosophorum produces a similar color sequence. It states that the Great Tincture “hath a clear and bright tincture in itself, white, red, pure, incombustible, stable and fixed, which neither the fire is able to change nor burnt sulphurs [sic] or sharp corrosives able to corrupt.”

The claimed properties of the Philosophers' Stone

1. Longevity and Healing

Intriguingly, it is when one considers the claimed properties of the Philosophers’ Stone or “Great Elixir” that one is confronted with even stranger claims. Some of these have already been encountered, namely, the ability of the Stone to effect “cures” or healing, recalling the biblical account of Moses’ requiring the Israelites to drink the refined gold from the Golden Calf. This claim is not confined solely to Occidental alchemy, for one finds similar claims for alchemical gold being able to prolong life in Chinese alchemy. The famous Chinese philosopher Lao Tse himself composed a treatise entitled, evocatively enough, Document Concerning the Three Similars, whose central subject was “the preparation of the ‘pill of immortality,’ which was made from gold and which is so extremely efficient that it need be only very tiny.” Pills, obviously, suggest once again the other form of the Philosophers’ Stone: powder.

Nor is this the only strange parallel to be found in Chinese alchemy, for there too the role of belief and the proper spiritual preparation of the operator was considered essential to the success of the confection. The alchemist Go-Hung put it succinctly: “Disbelief brings failure.” Even more suggestively, however, Go-Hung states that the alchemical confection must take place “on a famous great mountain, for even a small mountain is inadequate.” Is this yet another version of the association of Mountains with Planets and Pyramids, that occurs so often in the ancient Sumerian texts? It is interesting that China is home to some of the world’s largest earthen pyramids, and that the Communist government of that country carefully restricts access to these sites.

Another curious reference to the powdered form of the Philosophers’ Stone occurs in none other than Albertus Magnus, famous teacher to his even more celebrated student, the mediaeval scholastic philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas. Albertus Magnus stated that he had himself “tested alchemical gold and found that after six or seven ignitions it was converted into powder.” Yet another mediaeval monk-cum-alchemist, Roger Bacon, indicated that one goal of alchemy was “How to discover such things as are capable of prolonging human life for much longer periods than can be accomplished by nature.” Concisely put: from mediaeval China to mediaeval Europe, there is an alchemical consensus that one effect of the Philosophers’ Stone is not only its ability to transmute base metals into gold, but also to effect healing and promote longevity.

2. Occupying No Space

In this respect one of the most unusual claims about the Great Elixir was made by the English alchemist John Dastin, a fourteenth- century alchemist in regular contact with Pope John XXII and Cardinal Orsini, which fixes his period of active writing on the subject rather exactly to the years 1316–1334, the years of John’s pontificate, with a terminus post quem of 1342, the final year of Cardinal Orsini’s life. In Dastin’s writings one encounters the usual references to preparation of the elixir in a clear glass flask through which one can observe the sequence of colors. But with him there is a new claim for the Great Elixir: even though it must be “confined in some kind of matter, for otherwise it could not be manipulated, it nevertheless occupies no space,” an idea, says Holmyard, that is echoed in the ideas of the great Renaissance alchemist Paracelsus. This claim is tantamount to stating that the Philosophers’ Stone has hyper-dimensional properties, i.e., that some part of it exists in a space of higher dimensionality, another manifestation of its non-locality again.

It is not difficult to see where such an idea might have come from if one recalls the fact that the whole preoccupation of alchemy was an attempt to embody the “soul” of the transmutative materia prima, or as much of its properties as possible, in the “body” of the Stone itself. It has already been suggested that in such references that alchemy might indeed be implying a kind of hyper-dimensional component to the Philosophers’ Stone, as we have also seen, as some of Paracelsus’ comments.

3. Ability to Affect Action at a Distance

Closely related to this strange assertion are the claims of the seventeenth-century English alchemist Sir Kenelm Digby. Digby claimed to have confected a “sublime remedy” called a “Powder of Sympathy or weapon-salve,” whose secret formula he claimed he had learned from a Carmelite monk whom “he had met in Florence in 1622.”

This remarkable powder acted at a distance; it was not to be applied to a wound but to a bandage stained with blood from the wound. Digby says that he first employed it to cure James Howell…a Welshman and a prolific author…The powder, which had a great vogue for a time, was nothing but green vitriol (ferrous sulphate) but Digby claimed that a current of particles of the powder and blood somehow found its way to the wound and performed its cure.

While clearly nothing more than an ordinary chemical compound, Digby’s powder greatly impressed King James I. So, could it have been an ordinary compound that, subjected to alchemical processes, somehow acquired exotic properties? Digby’s own suggestion that a “current of particles” somehow found “its way to the wound” is suggestive enough.

4. Indestructibility

Since the Philosophers’ Stone is at least a partial embodiment of the materia prima or the transmutative medium itself, and since the latter is, by alchemical lights, indestructible, very often one finds claims that the Philosophers’ Stone itself partakes of that indestructibility. For example, in an alchemical dictionary published in 1612, Ruland has the following curious entry about the materia prima, the Philosophers’ Stone, and its indestructibility:

Materia Prima et hujus vocabula — The philosophers have so greatly admired the Creature of God which is called the Primal Matter, especially concerning its efficacy and mystery, that they have given it many names, and almost every possible description, for they have not known how to sufficiently praise it.

1. They originally called it Microcosmos, a small world, wherein heaven, earth, fire, water, and all elements exist, also birth, sickness, death, and dissolution, the creation, resurrection, etc.

2. Afterwards it was called the Philosophical Stone, because it was made of one thing. Even at first it is truly a stone. Also because it is dry and hard, and can be triturated like a stone. But it is more capable of resistance and more solid. No fire or other element can destroy it. It is also no stone, because it is fluid, can be smelted and melted.

The indestructibility of the Philosophers’ Stone recalls similar statements from the Sumerian-Babylonian epic The Exploits of Ninurta, in which an inventory of the stones comprising the Tablets of Destinies — over which a horrifyingly destructive “cosmic war” was fought between factions of the Sumerian pantheon — was made. Some of these stones were deliberately destroyed, and others preserved and secreted away. But also observed, there was a special class of a very few stones that could not be destroyed. One of them even has the suggestive name of “the Elel Stone,” and “El” of course, is the ancient Sumerian and Akkadian word root for “god.” The “Elel” stone was, like the alchemical Philosophers’ Stone, a divine stone, divine perhaps for its association with the technologies of the gods, but divine certainly for its indestructibility.

Yet another alchemical treatise, while not directly invoking Sumer or the Tablets of Destinies, makes its own alchemical speculative interpretation of the Urim and Thummim and the stones on the breastplate of the Hebrew high priests, attributing to them an ultimate origin in whatever paleoancient Very High Civilization that may have existed before the Deluge:

That Urim and Thummim were given on the Mount cannot be proved, yet they are potential from the Creation may appear, for they were substances whose name and essence did predicate each other, being convertible terms: the name and essence one, the words signify Light and perfection, knowledge and holiness, also manifestation and truth; even as since and essence make one perfection. It is likely that they were before the Law given, for the Almighty commended Noah to make a clear light in the Ark…

The theme of gems or stones of power is not unique to Sumer or the Hebrews, but finds similar echos in esoteric myths concerning the Egyptian wisdom god Thoth, whose Emerald Tablet was highly prized by alchemists as the most succinct statement of their philosophy and art.

Conclusions

What does one make of all this? What conclusions may be drawn to guide us? Recalling alchemy’s belief in an underlying prime matter or substrate that is transmutative, and recalling that this implies a fundamental condition of non-equilibrium, the following properties of the Great Elixir or the Philosophers’ Stone have been noted:

1. The Stone comes in at least two or, more especially, three “parts,” a material “body” and a more ethereal “soul,” implying that whatever properties were being observed and referred to by the alchemists, that some of them appeared to exist in a state beyond that of the three dimensions of normal matter itself; in short, and in more modern terms, there was a hyper- dimensional aspect to the Philosophers’ Stone;

a. This aspect is made more apparent by the later references in the Middle Ages to the Stone having at least one constituent which “occupies no space,” a peculiar quality easily explainable by reference to higher dimensions;

b. In one very questionable instance, that of the Englishman Digby, it appears to be able to effect action at a distance;

2. The Stone appears to exist in at least three states:

a. As a stone or mineral;

b. As a reddish-purple Elixir, Tincture, or Liquid; and,

c. As a powder or granular particulate;

3. The successful confection of “Alchemical Gold” is signaled by a distinctive progression through the electromagnetic optical spectrum, with the salient points being a progression from white to reddish-purple, the latter of which denotes the acquisition of the Great Elixir;

4. Throughout all versions of the confection of the Stone, an elaborate process is implied, involving the use of heat at every step, and in one case — that of Moses and the Golden Calf — involving very intense heat able actually to consume or burn gold itself, an observation that in turn requires a rather sophisticated furnace or forge technology;

5. It is also claimed that the Stone, Great Tincture, or Grand Elixir is able to effect cures, healing, and to prolong human life far beyond its natural lifespan;

6. It is also claimed that the Stone is indestructible, partaking directly of the indestructibility of the underlying primary transmutative medium;

7. In the suggestive references to be found in the Chinese alchemist Go-Hung, the “Pill of Immortality” must be fashioned on a great and famous mountain, an allusion, perhaps, to the distant connection between alchemy and pyramids;

8. Throughout alchemical literature not only are certain minerals associated with certain celestial bodies but also the very processes of alchemical operations are with those bodies as well, implying that these processes are wrought most efficiently when those bodies are in certain alignments. Moreover, the association of astrology with certain gems — with crystals — also implies an association of lattice structures of crystals with celestial geometries, a significant insight; and finally,

9. As noted in the examination of Paracelsus, some alchemical experiments and operations could only successfully be performed at specific times and seasons.

Names of the Philosophers' Stone

The names of the Philosophers Stone, collected by William Gratacolle, included in Five treatises of the Philosophers’ Stone , London 1652.

Gold, Sol, Sun, Brasse of Philosophers, the body of Magnesia, a pure body, clean, ferment of Elixir, Masculine, Argent vive fixt, Sulphur incombustible, Sulphur red, fixed, the rubibe stone, kybrik, a man, greene vitrioll, burnt brasse, red earth: the water that is distilled from these things, is named of the Philosophers, the taile of the Dragon, a pure wind, ayre, life, lightning, the house, the afternoone light, virgin’s milke, sal armoniack, sal niter, the wind of the belly, white fume, red water of sulphur, tartar, saffron, water, the white compound, stinking water, the filthiness of the dead bloud, Argent vive, a Cucurbite with his Alimbeck, the vessell of the Philosophers, a high man with a Sallet, the belly of a man in the midst, but in the end it is called the fot, or the feet, or on the which feet, or earth is calcined, rosted, congealed, distilled, or made still and quiet: the shaddow of the Sun, a dead body, a crowne overcoming a cloud, the bark of the Sea, Magnesia, black, a Dragon which eateth his tayle, the dregs of the belly, earth found on the dunghill putrefied, or in horse dung, or in soft fire, Sulphur, Mercury, secondly in number, and one in essence, name, in name, a stone, body, spirit and soule; it is called earth, fire, aire, all things, because he contains in him foure Elements; it is called a man or beast, that hath soul, life, body, and spirit, and yet some Philosophers do not thinke the matter to have a soule.

But as it is a stone, it is called the water of Sulphur, the Water of the world, the spittle of Lune, the shadow of the Sun, a denne, Sol, Elephas, white Jayre, eyes of fishes, Beyia, Sulphur, vine sharpe, water, milke, vineger of life, tears, joyning water, Urine, the light of lights, a marvelous Father, Father of Minerals, a fruitfull tree, a living spirit, a fugitive servant, certore of the earth, venome, most strong vineger, white gumme, everlasting water, a woman, a feminine, a thing of vile price, Azot, menstruous, Brazill, in nature Azot, water, the first matter, the beginning of the world; and mark this, that Argent vive, Mercury, Azot, the fulle moone, Hypostasis, white lead, or red, do all of them signifie but one thing, our stone, our brasse, our water, Iron, Silver, Lime, whiteness, Jupiter, Vermilion white, after divers times and degrees of operation.

And note, that the Philosophers washing is to bring again the whole soule into his body, wherefore you may not understand thereby, the common white washing is convenient to be done with vineger, and salt, and such like. Also note, that when blackness doth appeare, then it is called dispensation of the man and woman between them, and that the body hath gotten a spirit, which is the tears of the vertues of the soule upon the body, and the body doth revive the action of the soule and spirit, and is made an Eagle and the meane of natures. And note, that white earth, white Sulphur, white fume, Auripigmentum Magnesia, and Ethell, do signifie all one thing.

Also the Stone is called Chaos, a Dragon, a Serpent, a Toad, the green Lion, the quintessence, our stone Lunare, Camelion, most vild black, blacker than black, Virgins milke, radicall humidity, unctuous moysture, liquor, seminall, Salarmoniack, our Sulphur, Naptha, a soule, a Basilisk, Adder, Secundine, Bloud, Sperme, Metteline, haire, urine, poyson, water of wise men, minerall water, Antimony, stinking menstrues, Lead of Philosophers, Sal, Mercury, our Gold, Lune, a bird, our ghost, dun Salt, Alome of Spaine, attrement, dew of heavenly grace, the stinking spirit, Borax, Mercury corporall, wine, dry water, water metelline, an Egge, old water, perminent, Hermes bird, the lesse world, Campher, water of life, Auripigment, a body cynaper, and almost with other infinite names of pleasure.

John Gower concerning the Philosopher's Stone

AND also with great diligence,
Thei fonde thilke Experience:
Which cleped is Alconomie,
Whereof the Silver multiplie;
Thei made, and eke the Gold also.
And for to telle howe itt is so:
Of bodies seven in Speciall,
With fowre Spirites joynt withall;
Stant the substance of this matere,
The bodies which I speke of here,
Of the Plannets ben begonne,
The Gold is titled to the Sonne:
The Moone of Silver hath hi part,
And Iron that stonde uppon Mart:
The Leed after Saturne groweth,
And Jupiter the Brasse bestoweth;
The Copper sette is to Venus:
And to his part Mercurius
Hath the Quicksilver, as it falleth,
The which after the Boke it calleth,
Is first of thilke foure named
Of Spirits, which be proclymed,
And the Spirite which is seconde,
In Sal Armoniake is founde:
The third Spirite Sulphur is,
The fourth Sewende after this,
Arcennium by name is hotte
With blowyng, and with fires hote:
In these things which I say,
Thei worchen by divers waye.
For as the Philosopher tolde,
Of Gold and Sylver thei ben holde,
Two Principall extremitees,
To which all other by degrees,
Of the mettals ben accordant,
And so through kinde resemblant:
That what man couth awaie take,
The rust, of which they waxen blake,
And And the favour of the hardnes;
Thei shulden take the likeness;
Of Gold or Silver parfectly,
Bot for to worche it sykerly;
Between the Corps and the Spirite,
Er that the Metall be parfite,
In seven forms itt is sette
Of all, and if one be lette,
The remnant may not avayle,
But otherwise it maie nought fayle;
For thei by whome this Arte was founde,
To every poynt a certayne bounde,
Ordeinen that a man may finde,
This Craft is wrought by wey of kinde;
So that there is no fallace in;
But what man that this werke begyn;
He mote awaite at every tyde,
So that nothynge be left asyde.
Fyrst of Distillacion,
Forth with the Cogelacion,
Solucion, Disscencion,
And kepe in his entencion,
The poynt of Sublimacion,
And forthwith Calcinacion,
Of very Approbacion,
So that there be Fixacion,
With temperate hetes of fyer,
Tyll he the perfite Elixer,
Of thilke Philosophers Stone,
Maie gette, of which that many one
Of Philosophers, whilome write,
Of thilke Stone with other two,
Which as the Clerkes maden tho;
So as the Bokes itt recorden,
The kinde of hem I shall recorden.
These old Philosophers wise,
By wey of kynde in sondry wise;
Thre Stones made through Clergie,
The fyrst I shall specifie,
Was cleped Vegetabilis;
Of which the proper vertue is,
To mans heale to serve,
As for to keepe, and to preserve,
The body fro sickness all,
Till death of kinde upon hym fall.
The second Stone I the behote,
Is Lapis Animalis hote:
The whose vertue, is proper and couth,
For Eare and Eye, Nose and Mouth;
Whereof a man may here, and see,
And smell and tast, in his degree,
And for to feele and for to goe,
Itt helpeth a man of both two:
The witts five he undersongeth
To keepe, as it to hym belongeth.
The third Stone in speciall
by name is cleped Minerall,
Which the Mettalls of every myne,
Attempreth, till that thei ben fyne;
And pureth hem by such a wey,
That all the vice goth awey,
Of Rust, of Stynke, and of Hardnes:
And when they ben of such clennes,
This minerall so as I fynde,
Transformeth all the fyrst kynde,
And maketh hem able to conceive,
Through his vertue and receive
Both in substance and in figure,
Of Gold and Silver the nature.
For thei two ben the extremitees,
To which after the propertees,
Hath every mettall his desire,
With helpe and comforte of the fyre.
Forth with this Stone as it is said,
Which to the Sonne and Moone is laide:
For to the Red, and to the White,
This Stone hath power to profite;
It maketh Multiplicacion
Of Gold and the fixacion,
It causeth and of this babite,
He doth the werke to be parfite:
Of thilke Elixer which me call
Alconomy, as is befalle
To hem, that whilome were wise;
But now it stant all otherwise:
Thei speken fast of thilke Stone,
But how to make it now wote none.
After the sooth Experience,
And nathles greate diligence,
Thei setten up thilke dede,
And spillen more then thei spede;
For alwey thei fynde a lette,
Which bringeth in povertee and Dette;
To hem that rich were to fore,
The Losse is had the Lucre is lore:
To gette a pound thei spendeth five,
I not how such a Craft shall thrive:
In the manner as it is used,
It were better be refused,
Then for to worchen upon wene,
In thinge which stant not ast thei wene:
But not for thy who that it knew,
The Science of himselfe is trew:
Uppon the forme as it was founded,
Whereof the names yett be grounded;
Of hem, that first it founden out:
And thus the fame goth all about,
To such as soughten besines,
Of vertue and worthines,
Of whom if I the names call,
Hermes was one the first of all,
To whom this Art is most applied,
Geber thereof was magnified,
And Ortolane and Morien,
Among the which is Avicen.
Which founde and wrote and greate partie,
The practicke of Alconomie,
Whose bokes plainlie as thei stonde,
Uppon this Craft few understonde.
But yet to put hem in assay,
There be full manie now a day,
That knowen litle that thei mene,
It is not one to wite and wene,
In forme of words thei it trete;
But yet thei failen of beyet.
For of to much, or of to lite,
There is algate found a wite:
So that thei follow not the line,
Of the perfect Medicine,
Which grounded is upon nature;
But thei that written the Scripture;
Of Greke, Arabe, and Caldee,
Thei were of such Auctoritee,
That thei firste founden out the wey,
Of all that thou hast herd me sey,
Whereof the Cronicke of her Lore,
Shall stonde in price for evermore.

[Dyslexic_Professor]

Lol the 69 at the bottom right.

[Lawton]

That’s the sign for Cancer bro

[JAAJ]

Everyone who owns this NFT should watch this movie:

"As Above, So Below"

It is really good and based on Dante’s Inferno and the search for the Philosopher’s Stone.

I highly recommend to get familiar with the story behind Dante’s Inferno first before watching it, otherwise one will probably not understand all the analogies hidden in this movie. Analogies are one of the key element of spiritual alchemy. Also helps with conceptual thinking a little bit.

PS:
If you want the proper experience, watch this movie on a big screen in a completely dark room. Movie is not for children!

As Above, So Below (2014) - IMDb

“Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate!”

[Replay]

Blueprint of Love NFT -- (The Divine Lovers Community Project)

ahh didn’t mean to delete the last post. Here it is again: Whoa guys…I’ve discovered this NFT and Philosopher’s Stone are both highly intelligent and their power really can’t be fully known until used this way: As far as for both Blueprint of Love and Philosopher’s Stone, engorging yourself with it body by body is insane! For example, while looking it at you say “activate charge entire energy body, major and minor chakras.”…then wait a bit and say “activate charge astral body.”…”activate charg…

If you’re interest in this field, you really should read the above. It’s probably good strategy for a whole bunch of fields.

[JAAJ]

A stone so rare…

[Replay]

Had a very obvious reaction using @Gnosticmedic27 approach using the PS to activate the cord cutting field. I don’t know whether such activation is just a commitment to active listening or whether the words/thoughts have a triggering effect. I am experimenting with the Philosopher’s Stone, and I do get unexpected reactions on when I named various systems. These Unexpected reactions indicate, to me, at least, something more than suggestion at work.

[Gnosticmedic27]

oh yeah it works. Even Dream himself told me that it is also capable of much more.

[Replay]

I used it to run through the brainwave bands. Some interesting results. Activated “information processing system” on a hunch and had a reaction in my eyes. Going to try to expand the “information” systems Approach —access points, retrieval, networks, archival, etc. I’ll keep you posted.

[shadowhunter176]

It has been a while since I got this NFT. Description is as awesome as the NFT itself, marvelous work @Lawton and for Captain as expected . Lets begin

Just as I got this NFT, concidentally, I began working out again, after 2 years break and this time I am in fitness center, surrounded by A LOT of hot women in sports leggings/bra. After second workout, I became immune to all the desire I would usually feel in these situations.

Example is me sitting and doing an exercise, when this smoking hot girl decides to stand only 2 metres in front of me and do her dumbell flyes, aaaand u guessed it, her ass is facing me directly .

I just closed my eyes, focused on mind-muscle connections and did my set.

I havent kept track on incremental changes/developments in regards to the Stone affecting me, but it is safe to say it is consistently working on me, performing who knows what kind of sexual alchemy, all to produce final result- An ex-horndog becoming true Homo Sapien, being that can look at any girl and decide if he want to allow his urges to activate.

I am at the level now, where someone would say I am on Semen Retention for over a month (not keeping count, not caring tbh), but it is just that I am always more interested in other things, new experiences, tasks and in turn, this has helped me develop new patterns that allow me see true beauty of being alive, having the ability to regulate ur own horniness, depending on ur goals for the moment.

Few weeks ago, I had University Vacation (a lot of students travel to Montenegro for a few days), where 95% of guys at least, spent majority of time trying to seduce girls, in many ways, while girls see themselves as these temptress of desire, mistress that decides which guy is hers (trust me I have seen things and also a lot of my hot female friends acted in this way, to say the least).

There was no dilemma for me when going on that trip. I had no motivation to spend time on seducing some chick I wont vibe with, for the sake of hooking up.

Then, on the second day, I met a certain girl, she was an unexpected gift. We spent 2 and a half hours just talking on the beach, it was one of those rare Mind Gasm moments I get when having mentaly stimulating conversations with girl. I made some good memories with her (not sexual) that were only possible cuz I didnt care if/when we would at least kiss. I was/am just grateful for the times we swam in the sea after 2am, visited nearby island (admired nature there/sightseeing).

There were a lot of synchronisities between the 2 of us there, for example, I started enjoying pure vegetarian diet and she is vegetarian for a long time already, so imagine my surprise when both of us are sitting for a meal in restaurant and our plates are filled with veggies. We were probably the only 2 students that ate exclusively veggies while there (ate some meat for first 2 days).

We started going out once we returned home and we will see what happens from here.

Idea of the story was to show how I got to enjoy/experience things with a girl I havent before, and was 100% open for it, cuz I didnt care if we would hook up. Ofc there is some sexual tension between us, but I am in no rush and she isnt as well.

My years long goal was to overcome my horniness, cuz I was aware that I am missing out on other side of experiencing life.

Facts:
-I have yet to actively work with the stone, try all the options it has

-Started wearing small mandala after 2 weeks of owning it, now not even wearing

-I have A4 printed mandala sticked on my wall, so it is facing my crown chakra while sleeping

-Stone gave me a boost in regards to greater energy vitality, better rest and overall it is supporting my spiritual growth in ways I wont ever know probably.

-Someone will probably see other benefits first, Stone gave me that which I longed for the most.

Disclaimer: Just to clarify, I didnt become asexual lol

[Gnosticmedic27]

@Noesis

I haven’t had this NFT very long and, as yet, I don’t feel much but there is a definite energetic form I can sense from the mandala now. It will be interesting to see how things develop.

A previous post about how I work with it. You will definitely feel it’s power. You can also say things to it like “activate rapid spiritual growth”

ahh didn’t mean to delete the last post. Here it is again:

Whoa guys…I’ve discovered this NFT and Philosopher’s Stone are both highly intelligent and their power really can’t be fully known until used this way:

As far as for both Blueprint of Love and Philosopher’s Stone, engorging yourself with it body by body is insane! For example, while looking it at you say “activate charge entire energy body, major and minor chakras.”…then wait a bit and say “activate charge astral body.”…”activate charge mental body” and so on through all 7 bodies of your being. Also, going system by system…endocrine, nervous, all organs etc. (for the Stone especially)

[Gnosticmedic27]

“Activate charge brain and all organs” is a very powerful command as well. With all verbal commands, the concept should be pinged by the pineal gland simultaneously to the mandala. This should come naturally when you master meditation, but if it’s not natural already practice doing so while using Ego Dissolution, Epsilon Waves, or Vibration of Transcendence. You can also use Animal Empathy/Telepathy, IPF, and Conceptual Realizations to help this become a natural thing.

[Gnosticmedic27]

In my experience, there is nothing so far that this NFT cannot learn guys. I’ve been hearing from some people they aren’t feeling anything from it. It’s very smart and powerful…it learns. Experiment.

[Replay]

I think it pairs very well with Rainmaker redux, which helps actualize what might otherwise be only a potential state. You can simply bring about a better physical or spiritual state more easily because the Philosopher’s Stone makes the such improvements so much easier to contemplate. It also affect the possibilities in the first instance.

[anon14224340]

Would this NFT be better to keep then exchange for Ambrosia, as it has more additions to let’s say Ambrosia, in terms of being far more than just an “immortality” project?

Wanted to get this in memory of Isaac Newton lol

[Violet]

@anon14224340

Would this NFT be better to keep then exchange for Ambrosia, as it has more additions to let’s say Ambrosia, in terms of being far more than just an “immortality” project?

No, no
It doesn’t work like that
Ambrosia is complex in nature as is this,

Each is as fine as the rest, they are all high quality; what one “lacks” it makes up via its other function

It is best not to go about it that way but rather
What is your main perogative.

A seeker that’s seeking? This
Wanting to be invincible ie Hulk? That.

Either or is a great selection though

Also on Ambrosia:
since it is solely based on immortality/ that concept,
It will have a further or say in-depth encompassing of the aforementioned component (immortality).

[anon14224340]

Hey thanks for the explanation Violet,

Yeah my question was a bit out of the left field, but just wanted to say looking forward to getting both. :)

[guggie2000]

Where can i i download these pics

[Noesis]

Uhhh… they’re a bit pricey…

The middle one can be found here:

The Eternal

The others, you would need to check the local NFT market since there was a limited supply.

And you should probably make sure that they’re really what you’re looking for since the price point makes it into a significant investment.

But, if you just think the pictures look neat, you could always do a search in the forum and right click to save as lol

[guggie2000]

what does it do? I am not getting it