What is the Philosophers Stone? Introduction to Alchemy - History of Alchemical Theory & Practice

The Philosopher Stone strikes me as the first "ideal" concept for early scientists. Just liie know we study the "ideal transistor" or "ideal capacitor" in electronics, which of course are just abstract concepts that don't exist in real life but help us measure a device's efficacy by comparison. Very interesting stuff.

Many many years ago I had a friend who was an analytical chemist who was also interested in esoterica. He got into reading some of the (translations of) old alchemical texts. He found there was a mixed bag of works, and the earlier works and many of the later works were in a sort of private code which you could translate into modern chemistry any assay chemist would understand. It just was not written in modern chemical terms, and they lacked an atomic theory so they spoke of transmutation and not a separation. For instance, if you look at the parts of the vein of mineral they esteemed, the weathered portions nearer to the surface were most esteemed, and anybody with a modern understanding of mineralogy and the weathering of mineral veins would understand why. There is nothing magical here, just the explanations in terms of the understandings of the particular alchemical author. So there was no uniform language for explaining things like you would find today, so you had to translate each author a bit differently from another author--each was explaining his own understanding of how the alchemical processes worked. After all, they did in fact know how to refine gold in great antiquity. Also, a lot of the imperfect science of alchemy got corrupted later by the gentlemen of the more for me now school, and there was also a lot of spiritual mumbo jumbo that got accreted on the works describing the works of ordinary working chemists of the day. There was also some guile in there. So the working alchemist might store his gold tied up in fulminate of mercury. To get the gold out of it when needed he would very gently roast it and the mercury would distill (sublimate) off and leave the gold behind. A thief who broke into his lab would be a bit too hasty roasting the fulminate and get an explosion and a cloud of mercury vapor in his face resulting in madness at the very least and a slow miserable death otherwise. Hence, do not mess with wizards. You will also learn that the most esteemed source of nitrate for their nitric acid was pig manure, which also figured large in the manufacture of gunpowder.

20 videos in 2 days. Your works on the topic are absolutely gripping, and the references along the way are much appreciated. Cheers

Dr. Sledge has the Midas touch because everything he releases is alchemical gold.

It is perhaps a subtle implication (and perhaps others have already commented on this; I can’t read all the comments before trying to express this thought)… The subtle implication is that the original alchemists were hampered by a less informed, less sophisticated, understanding of the physical world and the lack of standardized language or measurement techniques, but otherwise working diligently and rigorously and empirically to achieve their goals. I suspect that in 1,000 years time, our descendants may have the same opinions or assessments of our modern efforts related to quantum mechanics, particle accelerators, etc. Where Aristotle and his contemporaries modeled the world as being composed of 4 events, we have the Standard Model (fermions and bosons). Nils Bohr said it best: no models are true or real, but some models are more useful or more convenient than others. I try to apply this notion to all notions. Everything I “know” is predicated on a subtle internal model of reality I have learned (or been taught) in tiny steps. One model of this is that my neural pathways have become hardwired to immediate apprehend signals according to my previous or preconceived experiences and expectations effectively bypassing the true raw perception; I’m no longer experiencing the world as it is; I am experiencing the world through a layer of cognitive abstractions. It’s a fast and efficient mechanism for survival and participation in the daily activities proscribed by the culture in which I seem to live, but… … it can be an impediment to epiphany, revelation, or enlightenment (“sure, I’d like a mint”) So, thanks for the reminder. By contemplating the beliefs of other cultures past or present, I hope to more consciously regard my own as simply convenient or useful models, maps, or menus, rather than absolute truths or “reality”; I strive to remain a devout “maybe-ist”

I had never seen the material explanation for the sulphur-mercury theory. Seems so strange to us now but once we reconstruct their experiments it seems very intuitive. Great lecture as always, Professor!

It's wonderful to find someone who's fascinated by this stuff while also being deeply skeptical of it.

I’m not sure Jung meant that they were consciously trying to be spiritual, but that their understanding of physical and spiritual were less separate than our own and thus would naturally overlap. But obviously I cannot speak for Jung or the alchemists. Regardless your videos are great, keep it up!

Love your videos! I'm studying everything I can on alchemy for a fantasy novel I'm writing, so this helps a lot!

Never get tired of lectures on alchemy, especially by you Dr. Sledge

Such a dazzling distillation of things I have been reading about, trying to make sense of, for years!

Love when you cover alchemical topics!! do more please

14:33 Whenever this Brabant Thaler was shown in a previous episode, I went online to find out more about it. I didn’t find much, but I DID see it was for sale, so I bought it. It’s a very cool coin, and the gold tint is far more apparent in person than the images can do justice.

As always, I am in awe of the depth of your knowledge and how you are able to explain such a dense and often baroque body of philosophical work in such an engaging way. Thank you.

Never thought of the etymology of "hermetically sealed" before😯

I think this has been my outmost favorite video on your channel. So deep and clear!! Thank you so much!!

Liked for "Good Hermetic Fun" in the future PLEASE!!!!

When your favorite YouTuber makes a reference to your favorite band.... priceless

Magnificent episode, really enjoyed it. I've always been curious about the concepts and history around the philosophers' stone and here it was, in a nutshell a lot of info about it, in such a short time. Thanks a lot Dr.

Even if there is an anachronism in projecting Jungian Psychologized spiritualism, or New Age movements onto Alchemical beliefs, I do not think it is quite right to say they were solely concerned with proto-chemistry. Their chemistry theory and assumptions about the nature of the world feels very Platonic/Neo-platonic and I can see where people are coming from when they say there is a Hermeticism influence on it beyond a certain point. I don't think they'd have perceived a separation between science and metaphysics/spiritual exploration, and you could argue the very nature of their assumptions about reality, ontology, etc evinces a kind of "classical spiritualism" not really seen as hip today, but never the less present in their project.