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… 😉

17 thoughts on “Alchemy decoded, finally…?

  1. Don Latham on December 22, 2011 at 6:15 am said:

    Ha. I have a tshirt for bear whiz beer bearing the motto “all that glitters is not gold”. Direct contradiction?

  2. Don: certainly, all that glitters is not lead. 😉

  3. Hi Nick! Can you direct a goldbrick like me to a discussion of the relation of alchemy to the development chemistry?
    I find it interesting that the foundation of modern chemical engineering – the unit operations concept, the idea of operations that work for any chemical process and can be studied independently of any specific chemicals – agrees fairly well with the operations of alchemy. Most of the operations of alchemy are also unit operations of chemical engineering, though they may be defined differently.

  4. Dennis: there’s actually a huge – and very contentious – literature on the relationship between alchemy and chemistry. I’ll have a root round for you, maybe post about it in the New Year… 🙂

  5. I’ll have to reconsider my disgust on the story I recently read about a city in China that enjoys urine soaked eggs as a delicacy. After soaking and cooking eggs in the urine of young boys, preferably below the age of 10, they claim the snack has remarkable health properties. Law of equivalent exchange? I’m not so sure.

  6. Chasm369 on October 23, 2012 at 9:32 pm said:

    October 23rd, 2012 at 1:17 pmMy hope is that the existance of the Stone is rediscovered by the multitudes. Social change for better or worse will then surely follow.I am attempting to acquire the Stone myself and was by some strange providence led to BoA. What I want is the medical properties of the Stone. I can attest to the fact that if and only if, one is open minded and blank enough and can break through the obscure codex of the language that the ancients used, will one manage to acquire the Stone.I have personally seen signs described by the ancients that you will not find on the BoA forum.These signs and procedure are so simple that any grade 9er can complete the work.The Author of BoA has been stuck in a never ending maze that he will never escape. He has been blinded by the philosophers.Its unfortunate that the loyal followers are following his lead.With all the combined brain power, no one has accomplished EVER what they call the first stage.The reason for this is because the Author has restricted participation to those who will only adhere to his false premises. As such ALL work is vain.Recently i took pity on a member attempting the work to aid his mother.For my revelations I was booted off the forum. Take a visit.I will state here in all truth that high heat calcinations is false.The true work commences AFTER putrefaction.The premise of ” stage 1 and stage 2 has so messed up the rational thought of students that they are all hopelessly blinded.Please give a read to what is left of the ” single vessel method” . My posts have been deleted but the clues observed remain in some responses.BoA ForumChasm369

  7. Diane O'Donovan on June 7, 2013 at 6:16 am said:

    H. E. Stapleton, ‘Further Notes on the Arabic Alchemical Manuscripts in the Libraries of India’, Isis , Vol. 26, No. 1 (Dec., 1936), pp. 127-131

  8. this is an interesting page, I am glad that I found it. I have been interested in alchemy since 2008. I have been around the block a few times. I published an alchemy dvd. it is called the magnum opus.

  9. Anonymous on February 17, 2014 at 4:07 am said:

    Yes, the Book of Aquarius is a fraud. Does that mean the Stone of the Wise is just a myth? No.

    Mr. Pelling, it’s good to see your post.

  10. Midas Solomon on February 6, 2015 at 12:18 pm said:

    My name, is Midas Solomon and I am an adept. This is the Second posting of this information I will supply.

    The procedure given within the BoA is correct.

    The Only ingredient is Snow.

    I gave you a very plain riddle for he who would have the eyes to see the truth in it about a mountain nearly a year and a half ago.

    I mean not to disrupt what you have going or discredit you in anyway… But it is the Age of Aquarius and I may now unburden myself with this Secret.

    As plain as I can say it. Snow. Hermetically processed and refined, remarried, reborn, fermented into a master tone of ALL of the Noble Gasses (except Niton and a couple before hyrdogen) which harbor the “idea” of all metals within their respective harmonics. This “Tone” or physical fundamental frequency of something much bigger will attune all harmonics and octaves it governs to its perfect pitch. Is the only stable genero-active (opposite of radioactive) material I have come across.

    Fraternally, Humbly and with Highest Regards

    Midas Solomon – Adept and Lover of Truth in Nature

  11. chasm369 on February 11, 2015 at 4:59 am said:

    I would agree with Midas Solomon that “snow” is indeed all that is required, Hermetically speaking of course. The snow must come from Mt. Ararat. What is most interesting is M Sol’s reference to octaves and pitch. It is quite “Keely”. Good to see earnest postings on this most curious and fascinating subject.

  12. El Arca del Alma, los Guardianes del Tiempo, Ancianos de los Días y las Tablas MSAI Sólidos, tienen copyright 2010 No Comercial sin Derivar 4.0 Internacional; que está infringiendo respecto a su obra y descubrimientos asociados: perfecta psicogeometría y exacta gnosismatemática. Con la iniciación completada en el 2010, revestido el Arca del Alma (flor de la vida) con oro alquímico, testamento de evolución infinita tras atravesar el reino de los muertos (seol) y testimonio de revelación eterna tras llegar al reino de los nacidos (sión) en esta nueva Era Acuario. Haga el favor de rectificarlo y si completó su iniciación demostrarlo para participar en su Unificación 4D Duración! Gracias <3
    http://escuelamisteriosarcadelalma.blogspot.com.es/p/aea-pob-msai-2010.html

  13. Midas Solomon nicely written. Contact me.

  14. @Chasm369: As the BoA forum has long since been shut down (there were cries of foul play and, “this isn’t Anonymous!”, in the end), is there somewhere else online where perhaps you might have shared your insights?

    The high heat thing always bothered me, not because I perceived an error by Anonymous, but because I had no idea how I was going to manage such a thing in the first place, so it’s with great relief that I read your comments in here.

  15. Nathan Chance on November 28, 2020 at 5:24 pm said:

    why doesn’t anyone say pyrite and its correct manipulations, faux vini aka tarter the original vinegar dulce and sal ammoniac animal, glass on top mercury underneath, or maybe I’m wrong, arsenic paring and golden chain, compass of the wise Boehme 13 ICH natural path malic acid and marrow ripley and so on, and run!!!

  16. Nathan Chance on November 28, 2020 at 5:58 pm said:

    arsenic vapors come of at 650c or 850c then quench in vinegar, Saturn is earth it eats its children, pyrite or marcasite is found in coal black and ground to black powder, have you found copper pyrite, nope anyways read, read, read, the part in golden chain where they say he’s got the sweetening close but not right is probably because faux vini not vinegar or lees of wine cooked and filtered a bunch also aretiphus has missing paragraphs blood and urine are added since blood is iron sulfate II aka pyrite without the arsenic oil of gold and nitric acid poured back onto its alkaline salt a bunch then distilled off and repeat or marry salt and sal ammoniac with vinegar, sea its kool, crystals growing in vinegar from 650c quenched pyrite, ahhh, shhhh….

  17. Nathan Chance on November 28, 2020 at 6:02 pm said:

    collectaneachymi00phil and arcana divina you have to find the hard ones and make them accessible to others or like the kybalion said…

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