Philosophical star

The fifth element may also be thought of as Ether, the incorruptible substance that the planets and stars were thought to be made of. Because they are so illusive the Quinta Essentia and the Philosopher s Stone are usually depicted as a mystical diagram called a mandala. 

STAR [Astrum], This is a term employed by the Alchemical Philosophers to signify one particularly great virtue, power or property this is acquired by the act of prepartation which confers it onto some thing. 

Levi, Transcendental Magic, chapter V, The Pentagram, 63-70 for very much the same alchemical interpretation of such a Star, see also Pemety, 59 Astre, Astrum 123 Etoiles des philosophes. ... 

The French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was wary of speculations—he did not like ideas with little support from scientific experimentation or observation. In his multivolume work Cours de Philosophic Positive (Course of Positive Philosophy), published in 1830-42, Comte cited an example of a question that he felt would be forever speculative. Because the planets and stars are so distant, Comte believed that people would never gain firm knowledge of the composition of these astronomical objects. Yet only a few years later, scientists learned about spectroscopy and how to determine the elements that compose stars and planets by analyzing emitted or reflected light. Comte s prediction was soon proven untrue. 

Beginnings of cosmochemistry (and geochemistry) Philosophical foundations Meteorites and microscopy Spectroscopy and the compositions of stars Solar system element abundances Isotopes and nuclear physics Space exploration and samples from other worlds New sources of extraterrestrial materials Organic matter and extraterrestrial life ... 

Rocks, stones, formed of Water and of Earth, are baked in the earth as in a potter s oven, this is why they incline to the earth as if making parts of it. But the precious stones and metals are more favored by celestial influences the first are as the tears of Heaven, and a congealed celestial dew for this reason the Ancients attributed them so many virtues. The sun and the stars seem to have also a particular care for the metals, and one would say that Nature leaves to them the duty to give them their form. The soul of metals is, we may say imprisoned in their material envelope the Philosopher s Fire can draw it from this envelope and make it produce a son worthy of the sun, and an admirable quintessence, which draws Heavens near us. 

St Thomas Aquinas is more commonly known as the leading Scholastic philosopher of the thirteenth century, and was Albertus Magnus s star pupil. Like his master and Roger Bacon, he devoted some time to the ideas behind alchemy, and is held by some to be the author of Aurora Consurgens, an alchemical reading of the Song of Songs. 

---