Like many people, I’ve always vaguely wondered how the alchemical ‘code’ worked: that is, how the abstruse (and indeed playfully indirect) language of alchemy mapped onto actual things and processes in the real world. Even though the early 20th century saw a succession of natural philosophers and historically-minded empirical physicists who attempted to decode the rather confused alchemical canon, a century later the quest to reveal meaning in its alembics, retorts and green lions seems somewhat quaint to most people.
And so it is with great pleasure that I can point you to a modern document that I suspect may well have done just that (to a certain degree, at least). The Book of Aquarius‘s 56 chapters claim to reveal the answer to many long-standing open questions about alchemy, perhaps none more central than: “What Is The Stone Made From?”
You may, as I was, already be generally familiar with some of the puzzling and paradoxical riddles around this mysterious prime material, a number of which the Book of Aquarius’s anonymous author gleefully quotes in Chapter 14:-
“This Matter lies before the eyes of all; everybody sees it, touches it, loves it, but knows it not. It is glorious and vile, precious and of small account, and is found everywhere.” The Golden Tract Concerning the Stone of the Philosophers, by An Anonymous German Philosopher, 16th – 17th Cen. (?)
“Know that our Mercury is before the eyes of all men, though it is known to few. When it is prepared, its splendour is most admirable; but the sight is vouchsafed to none, save the sons of knowledge. Do not despise it, therefore, when you see it in sordid guise; for if you do, you will never accomplish our Magistery—and if you can change its countenance, the transformation will be glorious. For our water is a most pure virgin, and is loved of many, but meets all her wooers in foul garments, in order that she may be able to distinguish the worthy from the unworthy.” The Fount of Chemical Truth, by Eirenaeus Philalethes, 1694 AD
“When you shall be acquainted with the causes of this disposition you will admire that a Matter so corrupt should contain in itself such a heavenly like nature.” Verbum Dismissum, by Count Bernard Trevisan, 15th Cen.
“Our substance is openly displayed before the eyes of all, and yet is not known. […] our water that does not wet the hands.” The New Chemical Light, by Michael Sendivogius, 17th Cen.
“There is something which everyone recognizes, and whoever does not recognize it will rarely, perhaps never find it. The wise man will keep it and the fool will throw it away, and the reduction comes easily to the man who knows it.” A Magnificent and Select Tract on Philosophical Water, by Anonymous, 13th – 17th Cen. (?)
What, then, is “our water”, this curiously familiar substance that is openly displayed everywhere (for Sendivogius was no fool) and that does not wet the hands, yet the fool will see it as corrupt and discard it? The book’s rather surprising answer: urine. In fact, to make the Philosopher’s Stone, you should – it claims here – start with a litre of early morning urine, and progressively reduce it down in a sequence of stages over a period of months.
Now, even though I happen to think (for example) that Fulcanelli was a literary hoax (however highly cultured and well-informed) and that almost all alchemical texts after Michael Sendivogius fall closer to a kind of gold-crazed Ponzi scheme, I do actually find a lot of the information presented in the Book of Aquarius deeply satisfying and historically sensible (well, up to chapter 30, anyway).
[And in fact chapter 31 on perpetual lamps also covers a lot of interesting historical material collected by Ellen Lloyd I hadn’t previously seen, even though I’d blogged about them here, here and here before. It has to be said, of course, that Lloyd’s assessment that these are “alien technology” may well turn out to be a tad strong. But I digress!]
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying “omg this works” or anything: but rather, that the book’s surprising rationalization of how alchemy was supposed to work within its historical context does chime well with an awful lot of what I’ve read and thought about the subject over the years.
If you want to know more, or even fancy trying to use urine to create your own Philsopher’s Stone, I should perhaps point out that there’s a reasonably active online forum of people trying to do just this. Though I personally doubt that Nicolas and Peronelle Flamel are lurkers there, perhaps the Comte de Saint-Germain occasionally drops by for a chat, who knows? Eternal life can be such a bore… 😉