Alchemy & Electricity

It is heard that electricity should never be employed in alchemical work, meaning electric stoves. It is intuitive to understand that behind the reason for this prohibition, there could be the fear of ion exchange: those interested in cooking know that foods cooked with an electric stove have a substantially different flavor and taste from those cooked with a wood fire.

Chemistry is an electrical phenomenon involving electron clouds and ions around (?) atomic nuclei. One aspect in which Alchemy resembles chemistry is that, like chemistry, it is a phenomenon that regards and involves the electronic cloud. Otherwise, explaining Mercurius and its need for movement would be challenging.

Another non-negligible aspect is the electromagnetic effect, although it may appear minor to some. And finally, don’t underestimate the constant buzzing around the electric cables: Alchemy doesn’t like to be disturbed by intrusive noises.

But if we were to ask an alchemist of the pre-electric age, he would answer that there was something peculiar about the changes of state produced in and near fire. In short, changes in the composition of the air.

However, electricity – albeit high voltage – can completely dissipate metals, such as pure metallic gold. This would lead to an exceptional Mercurius – a sublimation product – although the insurmountable problem of collecting this kind of Mercurius in a form that could be handled, managed, and subsequently worked.

Electricity also causes displacements in the surrounding air.

Archeologists have found small devices capable of generating extremely low electrical voltages – which they have called Leyden jars or primordial bulbs – in unthinkable places, such as temples. These devices also had a bottle appearance.

Sure, but more than from the sun itself, from the extreme daily temperature difference ranges in these places—a well-known phenomenon.

Indeed. Otherwise, the role of the proximity of watercourses to the most ancient sacred places would not be explained.

A well-known quote from Die Sonne von Osten 1783 states: “That is why the Hermetic Philosophers say that their Materia is being born like the thunder and leaves behind similar signs”. Mind, they said thunder, not lightning. There is a substantial difference.

in any case, there is no such intrinsically ionizing phenomenon on the surface of our tranquil planet as lightning.

It could be. But, in reality, we still do not know what happens in the so-called “bowels of the earth”. An intense alchemical magnetization process could take place.

Alexander von Bernus openly compares Mercurius to the electron. Canseliet calls the series of phenomena that occur after the accidental breaking of the philosophical egg “aurora borealis” (and he was also very concerned about electromagnetic radio and television signals). Fulcanelli followed with interest the experiments of the Curie brothers on the piezoelectricity of quartz.

They were very concerned about it, to the point that many declared that the last alchemical arcanum had been revealed. Others claimed that the “electric ferment” left behind the seeds of matter.

Today, when we think of electricity, we think of Tesla and his huge voltages, which cost him his career. Yet we know that small voltages are a world apart, with separate scientific models, and not just a matter of scalar forces. The tiny variations of electronic buoyancy are in fact a world apart from Tesla’s electric floods. Small electronic variations do not require large furnaces but only nature, which works on low voltage.

High voltages are involved in lightning discharges. And lightning produces a huge blast of air, called thunder. We know that thunder, or the great displacements of atmospheric molecules, also held great importance for alchemists.

Both low and high voltage can dissolve some calcined metals.