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Philosopher's
Stone: A substance which enabled adepts in
alchemy to compass the transmutation of metals.
(See Alchemy.) It was imagined by the alchemists
that some one definite substance was essential
to the success of the transmutation of metals.
By the application or admixture of this
substance all metals might be transmuted into
gold or silver. It was often designated the
Powder of Projection. Zosimus, who lived, at the
commencement of the fifth century is one of the
first who alludes to it. He says that the stone
is a powder or liquor formed of diverse metals,,
infusioned under a favourable constellation. The
Philosopher's Stone was supposed to contain the
secret not only of transmutation, but of health
and life, for through its agency could be
distilled the Elixir of Life. It was the
touchstone of existence.
The author of a Treatise
on Philosophical and Hermetic Chemistry, published in
Paris in 1725 says : " Modern philosophers have extracted
from the interior of mercury a fiery spirit, mineral,
vegetable and mutliplicative, in a humid concavity in
which is found the primitive mercury or the universal
quintessence. In the midst of this spirit resides the
spiritual fluid. .... This is the mercury of the
philosophers, which is not solid like a metal, nor soft
like quicksilver, but between the two. They have retained
for a long time this secret, which is the commencement,
the middle, and the end of their work. It is necessary
then to proceed first to purge the mercury with salt and
with ordinary salad vinegar, to sublime it with vitriol
and saltpetre, to dissolve it in aqua-fortis, to sublime
it again, to calcine it and fix it, to put away part of it
in salad oil, to distill this liquor for the purpose of
separating the spiritual water, air, and fire, to fix the
mercurial body in the spiritual water or to distill the
spirit of liquid mercury found in it, to putrefy all, and
then to raise and exalt the spirit with non-odorous white
sulphur-
that is to say, sal-ammoniac—to dissolve this sal-ammoniac
in the spirit of liquid mercury which when distilled
becomes the liquor known as the Vinegar of the Sages, to
make it pass from gold to antimony three times and
afterwards to reduce it by heat, lastly to steep this warm
gold in very harsh vinegar and allow it to putrefy. On the
surface of the vinegar it will raise itself in the form of
fiery earth of the colour of oriental pearls. This is the
first operation in the grand work. For the second
operation ; take in the name of God one part of gold and
two parts of the spiritual water, charged with the sal-ammoniac,
mix this noble confection in a vase of crystal of the
shape of an egg : warm over a soft but continuous fire,
and the fiery water will dissolve little by little the
gold ; this forms a liquor which is called by the sages "
chaos " containing the elementary qualities—cold, dryness,
heat and humidity. Allow this composition to putrefy until
it becomes black; this blackness is known as the ' crow's
head' and the ' darkness of the sages," and makes known to
the artist that he is on the right track. It was also
known as the ' black earth.' It must be boiled once more
in a vase as white as snow; this stage of the work is
called the ' swan,' and from it arises the white liquor,
which is divided into two parts—one white for the
manufacture of silver, the other red for the manufacture
of gold. Now you have accomplished the work, and you
possess the Philosopher's Stone.
" In these diverse operations, one finds many byproducts ;
among these is the ' green lion ' which is called also '
azoph,' and which draws gold from the more ignoble
elements ; the ' red lion ' which converts the metal into
gold ; the ' head of the crow,' called also the ' black
veil of the ship of Theseus,' which appearing forty days
before the end of the operation predicts its success-; the
white powder which transmutes the white metals to fine
silver; the red elixir with which gold is made; the white
elixir which also makes silver, and which procures long
life—it is also called the ' white daughter of the
philosophers.' "
In the lives of the various alchemists we find many
notices of the Powder of Projection in connection with
those adepts who were supposed to have arrived at the
solution of the grand arcanum. Thus in the Life of
Alexander Seton (q.v.), a Scotsman who came from Port
Seton, near Edinburgh, we find that on his various travels
on the continent he employed in his alchemical experiments
a blackish powder, the application of which turned any
metal given him into gold. Numerous instances are on
record of Seton's projections, the majority of which are
verified with great thoroughness. On one occasion whilst
in Holland, he went with some friends from the bouse at
which he was residing to undertake an alchemical
experiment at another house near by. On the way thither a
quantity of ordinary zinc was purchased, and this Seton
succeeded in projecting into pure gold by the application
of his powder. A like phenomenon was undertaken by him at
Cologne, and elsewhere throughout Germany, and the
extremest torture could not wring from him the secret of
the quintessence he possessed. His pupil or assistant,
Sendivogius, made great efforts to obtain the secret from
him before he died, but all to no purpose. However, out of
gratitude Seton bequeathed him what remained of his
marvellous powder, which was employed by his Polish
successor with the same results as had been achieved in
his own case. The wretched Sendivogius fared badly,
however, when the powder at last came to an end. He had
used it chiefly in liquid form, and into this he had
dipped silver coins which immediately had become the
purest gold. Indeed it is on record that one coin, of
which he had only immersed the half, remained for many
years as a signal instance of the claims of alchemy in a
museum or collection somewhere in South Germany. The half
of this doubloon was gold, while the undipped portion had
remained silver; but the notice concerning it is scarcely
of a satisfactory nature. When the powder gave out,
Sendivogius was driven to the desperate expedient of
gilding the coins, which, report says, he had heretofore
transmuted by legitimate means, and this very naturally
brought upon him the wrath of those who had trusted him.
(See Seton.)
In the Tale of the Anonymous Adept we also find a powder
in use, and indeed the powder seems to have been the
favoured form of the transmuting agency. The term
Philosopher's Stone probably arose from some Eastern
talismanic legend. Yet we find in Egyptian alchemy— the
oldest—the idea of the black powder—the detritus or oxide
of all the metals mingled. (See Egypt.)
The Philosopher's Stone had a spiritual as well as a
material conception attached to it, and indeed spiritual
alchemy is practically identified with it; but we do not
find the first alchemists, nor those of mediaeval times,
possessed of any spiritual ideas; their hope was to
manufacture real gold, and it is only in later times that
we find the altruistic idea creeping in, to the detriment
of the physical one. Symbolic language was largely used by
both schools, however, and we must not imagine that
because an alchemical writer employs symbolical figures of
speech that he is of the transcendental school, as his
desire was merely to be understanded of his brother
adepts, and to conserve his secret from the vulgar. (See
Alchemy.)
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