- Metallic Generation
The alchemists claim that metals and minerals all grow and develop, and so are life forms, along with plants and animals. Perhaps not life forms in the sense we normally use the phrase, but if we are to define a life form as something which grows and multiplies then we must include metals and minerals in this category.
The alchemists all agree that metals have the same seed, that is to say that they are all of the same species. The different types of metals are just different stages of the same thing, of which gold is the final and complete development. To put it another way: we could say that the different (elementary) metals are stable energy states which a metal moves through in its continued development. However, this development only continues whilst the metal is in its proper environment, which is inside the earth. Once taken out of the ground a metal can only stay at the state in which we found it in. The Stone gives any metal a sudden burst of energy, which will excel it to its preferred and most stable state: gold (or silver with the less-pure White Stone). This is not a far-out notion, in fact lead has already been transmuted to gold in a lab by firing radiation at it (look it up if you don’t believe me), which is a similar but massively less efficient version of what the Stone does.
I will include some long quotes from the alchemical books concerning the development of metals and minerals below. This will be helpful to understand the development of metals and get an idea how Nature works in regards to that.
The alchemists wrote a lot about how metals and minerals are generated in the Earth, which they do so as to indirectly teach the reader how to make the Stone, since the Stone is made using very similar natural processes.
However, the alchemists here are talking in theory and from a time when geology had not been well studied. Geology has come a long way in the past few hundred years, but then again, the science of today does not recognize very obvious natural processes, preferring complicated theories of the scientists’ own invention. I expect the truth to be somewhere in between these two extremes.
the great process of development into silver and gold is constantly going on. This appears from the fact that miners often find solid pieces of pure silver in tin and lead mines, and also from the experience of others who have met with pure gold in metallic veins of iron — though this latter occurrence is more rarely observed, on account of the great impurity of iron. In some silver mines, again, quantities of solid gold have been discovered, as, for instance, in Serbia; at first, the whole appears to be silver, but in the refiner’s crucible the gold is subsequently separated from the less precious metal. Thus it is the teaching of experience that Nature is continually at work changing other metals into gold, because, though, in a certain sense, they are complete in themselves, they have not yet reached the highest perfection of which they are capable, and to which Nature has destined them — just as the human embryo and the little children are complete and perfect as far as they go, but have not attained to their ultimate goal of manhood. Gold is found in different forms, either mixed with a coarse rocky substance, or in a solid condition, or amongst the sand in the beds of rivers, being washed out of the mines by water. Golden sand is also found in the deserts of India, where there are no rivers. Silver is never found mixed with the sand of rivers, but mostly in the shape of ore in mines, or like a vein running through a rock. Lead and tin occur mostly in the shape of ore, and sometimes they are mingled with earth. The same facts have become commonly observed with regard to iron and the other metals. When different metals are discovered in the same mine, the less pure of the two will generally have a tendency to ascend and leave what remains more force to develop in the right direction.
[…] The substance of common metals is the same as that of gold; if, then, the form of gold, or the elixir, be added to them, they must become gold. As the common metals become gold and silver by means of a natural process, it is quite possible that the same result should be brought about by means of the alchemist’s art.
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus, 1338 AD
the generation of metals is circular, that is, one passes easily from one to another following a circle, the cousin metals having similar properties; it is because of this that silver changes more readily into gold than any other metal.
Compound of Compounds, by Albertus Magnus, 13th Cen.
Now, since Nature is always striving to attain perfection, and to reach the goal set before her by the Creator of all things, she is continually at work upon the qualities of the four elements of each substance; and so stirs up and rouses the inward action of the elements by the accidental heat of the Sun, and by natural warmth, that there arises a kind of vapour or steam in the veins of the earth. This vapour cannot make its way out, but is closed in; in penetrating through fat, earthy, oily, and impure sulphureous substances it attracts to itself more or less of these foreign and external impurities. This is the reason that there are seen in it so great a variety of colours before it attains to purity and its own proper colour.
[…] Nature has to purge away the peculiar characteristics of all other metals before she can make gold; as you may see by the fact that different kinds of metal are found in the same metallic vein.
[…] If, however, this pure quicksilver floats upward in a pure mineral earth, without any gross alloy, it is hardened into the pure and white sulphur of Nature by being subjected to a very moderate degree of gentle heat, and at length assumes the specific form of silver. Like all the other metals it may still be developed into gold, if it remain under the influence of its natural heat. But if the same pure, unalloyed quicksilver be subjected to a higher degree of natural heat, it is transmuted into the pure red sulphur of Nature, and becomes gold without first passing through the stage of silver. In this form it remains, because gold is the highest possible stage of metallic development.
[…] Those metals, indeed, which have been torn up by the roots, that is to say, that have been dug up from their own proper soil in the veins of the earth, can no longer proceed in that course of development which they pursued in their native abode; yet, as much as in them lies, they strive to be perfected.
[…] the operation of Nature is progressive, not retrogressive. Hence it is a great mistake to suppose that the work of Nature can be reversed by dissolution in aqua fortis, or by the amalgamation of gold or silver and quicksilver. For if the metal be plunged in a solvent, if water be distilled from it, or if quicksilver be sublimed from it, it still remains the same metal that it was before. The specific properties of a metal cannot be destroyed so as to obtain the first substance.
[…] The metals which we dig up out of the earth are, as it were, torn up by the roots, and, their growth having come to a standstill, they can undergo no further development into gold, but must always retain their present form, unless something is done for them by our Art. Hence we must begin at the point where Nature had to leave off: we must purge away all impurity, and the sulphureous alloy, as Nature herself would have done if her operation had not been accidentally, or violently, disturbed. She would have matured the original substance, and brought it to perfection by gentle heat, and, in a longer or shorter period of time, she would have transmuted it into gold. In this work Nature is ceaselessly occupied while the metals are still in the earth;
[…] First, the earth which was created rich, great, deep, wide, and broad, was, through the daily operation of the Sun’s rays, penetrated to her very centre with a fervent, bubbling, vaporous heat. For the earth in herself is cold and saturated with the moisture of water. At length the vapours which were formed in this way in the heart of the earth became so strong and powerful as to seek to force a way out into the open air, and thus, instead of effecting their object, threw up hills and hillocks, or, as it were, bubbles on the face of the earth. And since in those places where mountains were formed the heat of the Sun must have been most powerful, and the earthy moisture rich and most plentiful, it is there that we find the most precious metals. Where the earth remained plain, this steam did not succeed in raising up mountains; it escaped, and the earth, being deprived of its moisture, was hardened into rocks. Where the earth was poor, soft, and thin, it is now covered with sand and little stones, because it never had much moisture, and, having been deprived of the little it possessed, has now become sandy and dry, and incapable of retaining moisture. No earth was changed into rocks that was not rich, viscous, and well saturated with moisture. For when the heat of the Sun has sucked up its moisture, the richness of the earth still makes it cohere, although now it has become hard and dry; and earth that is not yet perfectly hard is even at the present time undergoing a change into hard stones, through the diligent working of Nature. But the steam and the vapours that do not succeed in escaping, remain enclosed in the mountains, and are day by day subjected to the maturing and transmuting influences of the Sun and the planets.
A Tract of Great Price Concerning the Philosophical Stone, by A German Sage, 1423 AD
all things are produced of a liquid air or a vapour, which the elements distil into the centre of the earth by a continual motion, and that as soon as the Archeus has received it, his wisdom sublimes it through the pores, and distributes it to each place, producing different things according to the diverse places in which it is deposited. Some think that each metal has its own seed. But this is a great mistake, for there is only one seed. The sperm which appears in Saturn is the same as that which is found in gold, silver, copper, &c.; their difference is caused by the place, and by the time during which Nature was at work upon them, the procreation of silver being achieved sooner than that of gold, and so with the other metals. The vapour which is sublimed by heat from the centre of the earth, passes either through cold or warm places. If the place be warm and pure, and contain adhering to it a certain fatness of sulphur, the vapour (or Mercury of the Sages) joins itself to its fatness, and sublimes it together with itself. If in the course of its further sublimation this unctuous vapour reaches other places where the earth has already been subtilized, purified, and rendered moist by previous ascending vapours, it fills the pores of this earth, and with it becomes gold. But if this unctuous moisture be carried to impure and cold places, it becomes lead; if the earth be pure and mingled with sulphur, it becomes copper. For the purer the place is, the more beautiful and perfect will the metal be. We must also note that the vapour is constantly ascending, and in its ascent from the earth’s centre to its superficies, it purifies the places through which it passes. Hence precious metals are found now where none existed a thousand years ago, for this vapour, by its continual progress, ever subtilizes the crude and impure, and as continually carries away the pure with itself. This is the circulation and reiteration of Nature. All places are being more and more purified: and the purer they become, the nobler are their products.
[…] The substance of stones is the same as that of all other things; and their quality is determined by the purity of the places in which they arise. When the four elements distil their vapour to the centre of the earth, the Archeus of Nature expels and sublimes it in such a manner that it carries with it in its passage through the pores of the earth, all the impurities of these places up to the surface, where they are congealed by the air, all that pure air engenders being congealed by crude air, their ingression being mutual, so that they join one with another, since Nature rejoices in Nature. Thus rocks and stones are gradually built up and generated. Now the larger the pores of the earth, the greater is the quantity of impurities carried upward; and thus the earth is most completely purified under those places where there is a great accumulation of stones or rocks at the surface, and in this manner the procreation of metals becomes easier in these places. This explains the fact that metals are scarcely ever found in plains, but nearly always in the bowels of rocky hills. The plains are often moist with elemental water which attracts to itself the rising vapour, and with it is digested by the rays of the Sun into the rich clay which potters use. In places where the soil’ is gross, and the vapour contains neither unctuousness nor sulphur, it produces herbs and grass in the meadows. The precious stones, such as diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, chrysopras, onyx, and carbuncle, are all generated in the same manner as ordinary stones. When the natural vapour is sublimed by itself without sulphur or the unctuosity of which we have spoken, and reaches a place where there is pure salt water (i.e., in very cold places, where our sulphur cannot exist, for could it exist, this effect would be hindered), diamonds are formed. The unctuous sulphur which rises with the vapour cannot move without warmth, and is instantly congealed, when it reaches a slightly cold place, leaving the vapour to continue its upward movement without it.
The New Chemical Light, by Michael Sendivogius, 17th Cen.
All philosophers affirm, with one consent, that metals have a seed by which they are increased, and that this seminal quality is the same in all of them