Alchemy

[guthrie]

Anybody interested in Alchemy?
I am, obviously. I need to think some more about what to put in this thread, but will start with an observation, namely, that it looks ratehr like the esoteric part of alchemy has grown as the actual practical real life side has shrunk, ie the focus of the search for gold etc has moved from the "real" world into the alchemists head.

 

[Circe]

Guthrie,

How do you know that the search for the actual gold was really the true goal of the alchemists? It could have always been a metaphor for something else.

 

[Urson]

From all that I've read on Alchemy (addmitedly, not a lot, cause not much in print about it) I thought that the actual goal of the Alchemist was to create the Philosopher's Stone, the item which could not only turn Lead into Gold, and Iron into Silver, but prodce an elixer that could give you extremely long life?

 

[Fafnir665]

If I understand the book correctly... Dumbledor and Hagard were protecting such a stone, maybe you should ask them?

 

[Mephura]

Originally posted by Circe
Guthrie,

How do you know that the search for the actual gold was really the true goal of the alchemists? It could have always been a metaphor for something else.

I recall reading somewhere that this might have indeed been the case. Call it alchemy's philosophic side. The belief was that if you can learn mastery of the baser elements, that a better understanding of the world around you and yourself be the result. Yes, lead to gold would be possible, but it had a double meaning in that you would take your basic knowledge and world view (lead) and turn it in to some thing much more precious (gold). That being a glimpse at the truth of reality.

This would, in hand, grant you a better understanding of the mystical forces at work and thus make something like the philosopher's stone possible.

 

[guthrie]

Mephuras already answered Circe well enough. Theres essentialy exoteric and esoteric alchemy, and it seems to me, with what surfing I have done and couple of books read, that alchemy has turned more to the mermetic mystical side of things over the past 400 or more years, and less from the lead into gold side, especially since the search has been going on for so long.

Alchemists also tried to create all sorts of liquors and essences, to impart the characteristics of one thing to another, preferably of course lead into gold but also prolong life. The wholething with the philosophers stone coems into it in various ways. If your interested in mankinds fetish for symbolism and so on, alchemy is a good place to look into.

It seems there were ways of making counterfeit gold, ie coating otehr materials witha sheen of gold, such that its hard to tell them right, especially becuase the sort of smear test they often did back then would rub off some of the surface gold, leaving a golden streak, which was gold, never mind the rest of the material wasnt. There were also methods to adulterate gold, with copper and stuff, so that it still looked yellow, but was slightly lighter. It seems that they still thought of that as gold, nto having knowledge of the elements back then. Mind you, it was essentially alchemists who discovered distillation, (the greek ones 2,000 years ago did I think) and that was popular for obvious reasons in medieval europe from the late 13th century onwards.

As for hermetiscism, which is what alchemy was related to and I think intertwined with, something that seems apparent by the modern websites about it all, its hard to say exaclty who thought which way worked/ was best, the search for gold, or the search for internal harmony and god etc.

 

[Circe]

On alchemy:

"The essential thing is not the transmutation of metals, but that of the experimenter himself."

("The Morning of the magicians" L.Pauwels, J.Bergier)

 

[guthrie]

Yup, and?
Like I said, there seems to be two strands, intertwining all the way through history, from the greeks to the present day, or manipulating matter, and of manipulating your own mind. In the earlier period, it seemed that each substance had its own spirit, such that you could fiddle about with it and create a different substance.

Chinse alchemy was more concerned with longevity of life, gold, or alchemcial gold, was thought of as a special means of doing that. Westerners often seemed more concerned with the gold, as a route to worldy riches. Then let us not forget the references to Hermes trismegistus etc, and the curious way in which alchemy seemd to not quite be christian in practise.

Jung apparently suggested that the alchemists, in studying matter symbolically, were also symbolising their own mental content.

 

[Circe]

Like I said, there seems to be two strands, intertwining all the way through history, from the greeks to the present day, or manipulating matter, and of manipulating your own mind

Again, it's really one and the same issue, both strands, in the mind of an alchemist, are not to be separated.

Westerners often seemed more concerned with the gold, as a route to worldy riches

Lust for gold has nothing to do with alchemy

Then let us not forget the references to Hermes trismegistus

That is to be expected. Are you familiar with The Emerald Tablet?

and the curious way in which alchemy seemd to not quite be christian in practise.

Why does that surprise you?

 

[guthrie]

"Again, it's really one and the same issue, both strands, in the mind of an alchemist, are not to be separated."

Well, it looks like historically, they were sometimes separated, and also since they had different ideas about the world back then, its harder to talk about them all now in terms that make much sense. It also seems that you are taking a stricter definition of alchemy than many other people would, including myself.

"Lust for gold has nothing to do with alchemy"

Looks like it did, unless you mean "real" alchemy has nothing to do with it, whereas it seems a lot of people did go into alchemy looking for gold.

"That is to be expected. Are you familiar with The Emerald Tablet?"

I've come across that somewhere, ahh yes, one of the early source texts of medieval alchemy. I've only really started to get more interested in all this recently, so havnt had a chance to look deeper into the main source texts, and they're not exactly easy to come across either.

"Why does that surprise you?"

It doesnt. If you look at all the diferent streams going into it, and the way it was sometimes condoned, sometmies prevented, well, its all very confusing.

 

[guthrie]

Well,I know they can make gold in reactors, but I dont think its from lead, more the element below gold or something, so the neutron bombardment takes it up an element.

AS for monatomic gold, i'd have to have a sample analysed properly before commenting. It sounds kind of odd.