Arcane Alchemy

This might shock you, but in my hand, as I write, I m holding the Holy Grail. I have just made the Philosophers Stone in a crystal wine glass. 

The Melchizedek Priests at the Temple of Jerusalem were adepts in many aspects of the chemistry of gold. It strikes me now how easily they could have made shrewbread, manna or whitebread just as I have, scooping Jordan River water from the Brazen Sea in front of the Temple, then mixing it with alkali from a bowl to create the Philosophers Stone in a golden bowl. Yes, right then and there because it doesn t take more than a few minutes. 

I have the advantage of pure chemicals, but I too use the Jordan water or rather reconstituted Dead Sea. The Jordan River and salts from the Dead Sea are hugely prospective for making the Philosophers Stone. In fact, they are ten times better than other seawater, and considered especially good because they do not seem to have the poisonous heavy metal precipitate called a Gilcrest Precipitate. 

Actually, any seawater, from well under the surface, will also do, especially if you are near an undersea vent. It is said that a skilled alchemist can even make the Stone repeatedly from the same bucket of water. 

I made my Philosophers Stone by heating Dead Sea water and then titrating it with Sodium Hydroxide to form a precipitate at about pH 

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Title-Page Translation Reads A Lexicon of Alchemy or Alchemical Dictionary Containing a Full and Plain Explanation of All Obscure Words, Hermetic Subjects, and Arcane Phrases of Paraclesus. By Martinus Rulandus. . . [With the Privilege of His... 

Arcane Book Company. Arcane formulas or mental alchemy. Kila (MT) Kessinger, 1996. 109p. ISBN 1564598586... 

And then, transcending all the theories of substance, matter, and technique was the vision of alchemy as a spiritual quest. For only a man - and there seem to have been no female alchemists - who had put himself right with God could hope to plumb the depths to uncover the arcane knowledge whereby the... 

Notwithstanding the conciseness of this analytical approach, the reader may correctly perceive the method of Occam s Razor, applied to the arcane characteristics of alchemy, rambles around the subject. The author has tried to keep a traditional approach to the issues but the labyrinth ahead will be a challenge with chapter headings that seem more for convenience than classification. Be of good heart because it promises to be a grand tour of life, death, the universe and everything, at least as far as we know it. 

Ancient sanctuaries such as Harran and Jerusalem emerge as warehouses of arcane knowledge. So esoteric is the knowledge that it is from lone Jewish alchemists, who perhaps knew the least that we learn the most. Jewish scholars persistently worked at alchemy and around tenth century CE translated the great medical and alchemical treatises of the Arabic world. In looking at the Philosophers Stone, we have cause to... 

Massive transmutation of metals to gold by tincture is clearly impractical. We must therefore ask if the real purpose of years of risky and dedicated work was simply to produce a somewhat limited quantity of red powder. There is perhaps a more ancient purpose of compulsive alchemy, in searching for something that was lost that long pre-dates the Aristotelian concept of perfection. In the next chapter, we look at earlier and increasingly arcane meanings in the art of alchemy. 

Philippe rV faced many issues of international incredulity in prosecuting the Knights Templar. However, the secrecy and arcane practices of the Order gave him the ammunition he needed. The Knights Templar learned basic Indo-Hittite philosophy through their contact with mystical Sufis. These ideas extended well past architecture and alchemy to an extended range of esoteric subjects. 

Interest in alchemy was common throughout Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and after Paracelsus the growth of iatrochemistry would have made it inevitable that a good proportion of the physicians seeking their fortune in Muscovy (and many were little more than adventurers) could have pretended to at least some alchemical doctrine, not to mention astrology and other arcane skills - indeed it seems to have been a required part of their qualifications Dr Timothy Willis, who was sent on a diplomatic mission to Moscow in 1599, reported on his return... 

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