What is the Philosophers’ Stone?

Ultimately, and to get to heart of the matter, the Philosophers’ Stone represents the entry into a “canon” achieved through the synergy of the alchemist and a Philosophical Egg of metallic origin.

At least this is what has been allowed since the name Alchemy appeared, that is, since the time of the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Perhaps in earlier times, the alchemical works described by Baroque alchemists were unnecessary. Or perhaps they were different.

The Philosophers’ Stone represents the union of Heaven and Earth. But since we are alchemists, of Sky and Earth.

I mean the Genesis, in the sense of generation.

Of metal, certainly. But that had already happened with the achievement of the Perfect red.

A metal is an imitation. I believe that it will be enough for an alchemist to know only about the “imitation” function of metals.

Yes, Alchemy is an imitation, as well as working by “imitations”.

You did well to keep the two terms separate.

It is not the alchemist who is limited, but the human being in general. In fairness, we are not limited, we are tangible.

No, I haven’t reached the Philosopher’s Stone. And I won’t even bother specifying the circumstances, because they are closely tied to designed limitations.

No, as do most of those who write about reaching the Philosophers’ Stone. The main evidence is that they never describe what happened next. I mean physical phenomena, I’m not taking into consideration revelations like: “… and all the masters of the past came to congratulate me”. Because if nothing substantially physical happens, there was no point in working so hard. After omitting this crucial detail, they instead boasted that they had lived in excellent health for at least another 300 years. Letting aside that the circumstance lacks the necessary historical documentation, but the question arises spontaneously as to the exact moment in which they thought they had reached the Philosopher’s Stone: perhaps three hundred years before writing their book?

Then there are those I call the “pharmacists”, that is, those who assert that nothing has happened, apart from obtaining a supposed panacea for all diseases. But, generally, at seventy their myth starts to decay.

I’m not even going to refute the legendary biographies of Flamel and Fulcanelli, but I’d like to focus on their circumstance of being part of a “group” of wise people. Therefore, we can, with a reasonable degree of probability, assume that under their names lay entire milieus belonging to social and intellectual context interested in providing testimonies on sacred art. In fact, if you notice, today we continue to talk about Alchemy “leaning” on their names.

Humans love to be told a story. The primary purpose of this learned milieus wasn’t to deceive, I can suppose their actions were driven by a legitimate fear of oblivion for the Sacred Art. Because, after all, and inevitably, there will always be someone who’ll tell us a story about Alchemy, perhaps inappropriately or with shady intentions.

The epithet “sovereign of the seven sounds”, regarding Ostanes, sounds quite reliable. And the choice of a title like “The Open Entrance to the King’s Closed Palace”, for Philalethes, seems to be a good references too. But although Ostanes and Philalethes are recognized by historians as alchemists, the fact remains that they are legendary figures without verified biographies.

“Adepti” is perhaps an even more overused term than “Philosophers’ Stone”. I will not argue about the authority of those who provide the requirements to define an adeptus. However, the Latin-Roman etymology of the word adeptus defines one who has achieved a goal. But, as alchemists enterered the Baroque era, adept simply became the initiate of a Tradition—a generic definition that left room for the imagination of any apprentice. In my opinion, the only way to recognize true adepts today is the fact that they left nothing written.

Historians tell us that Pythagoras was far too contaminated by the political life of his time to be remembered as an elusive adept. And, as far as his character aspect is concerned, for example, we know how he loved to cultivate his own myth. Of course, there can be no perfect people, only those who give their lives to pass on ancient wisdom. And that should be enough for us.

But, back to the question of whether the requirement of elusiveness is sufficient, I must confess that I know of no other.

I confess I know little, but elusiveness is such a challenging aspect for a human being, especially for a successful alchemist, that it occupies a good percentage of references. But perhaps, no, elusiveness could be an aspect naturally related to a “transfigured” alchemist, given that true adepti do not need to tell anyone or write, because, tradition is, they have gained access to a level of communication that in the last century could be defined as “subliminal”, but today, with the knowledge of the world of subatomic particles and their wave function, we can define as “quantum”.

An antenna is something different from a resonator. The mystery of an antenna lies in a property object of converting those nebulous waves into something that strikes our senses. An antenna is ultimately a low-energy resonant system for collecting weak waves, radio waves in this case, and converting them into electrical signals. Instead, a musical resonator is a much more primitive device and does not need to convert into electrical signals. The Philosophical Egg in its final stage of cooking is neither an antenna nor a resonator. Perhaps the “cosmic” attribute places it in the realm of the esoteric. But, actually, the final cooking should allow the Egg to enter that world of “measurement parameters” capable of entering a private channel.

To summarize, yes, the philosophers’ stone could be roughly defined as a repeater of stellar “nature” of “philosophical” events that occurred in time (mythological cosmos). I realize this explanation is a bit too metaphysical. But if we assign the word “nature” to the role of sound or something similar, we understand that ultimately it’s a matter of remaining within a range not too far from the source, or at least convertible. But this explanation is too simplistic and so far from reality that it can be treated only as a metaphor. Anyone interested in music theory may have understood that it is about repetitions, imitations and parameters. We must realize that the “endings” were within the reach of the Neolithic people.

Absolutely. Then the search for the Philosophers’ Stone became a derivative of it. Or, at least, a replacement.

I think it’s better not. The mechanism of cosmogonic roots is a typically theurgic topic. It would be extremely chaotic to introduce it into Alchemy, since the mechanism of cosmogonic roots falls outside the origine and purpose of the alchemical Spiritus Mundi and Anima Mundi, which alchemists typically tend to assign to substances, since metaphysical matters do not exist in alchemical works, only ingredients and tools.

It was a pre-Socratic philosopher, Empedocles, who defined the four elements as cosmogonic roots. This is a topic I have discussed in more depth in The Four Alchemical Elements.

No western alchemical treatise has provided an exhaustive answer yet. We can only infer the purpose from hidden evidence in other disciplines, arts, and literature. Religions and myths. Jean François Xavier Fabre du Bosquet, in his manuscript Concordance Mytho Physico Cabalo Hermétique (1789?), says: “Intellects and Spirit of virtuous beings never communicate with mortals without a special grace of Divinity, i.e., to have the Philosophers Stone”.
It is a matter of whether the egg is the philosophers’ stone. If so, the concentration of the matter and the consequent hisses emitted would lead us to consider the thought of the Orphics and Neoplatonists regarding the egg as a symbol of the unification of principles, placing the time-before-time as the first principle. Lab alchemists should ask themselves what relationships exist between the concentration of matter and time.

For mythologists of sound, the philosopher’s stone can only be a resonator.

For physicists, since heated matter emits photons, there could be some photon/time interaction. See also Alchemy & Light, Introduction.

See Earth Alchemy. In any case, it is possible that the philosopher’s stone had something to do with those ancient priestly practices of guarding and preserving spiritual parts.

No, it is almost impossible that the Philosophical Egg obtained at the end of the Third Work through repeated “washings” of Mercurius (without mentioning the heterogeneous substances used to “lift” the salts in their transitions from solid to liquid or gaseous state and back) could reach upon final cooking in the form of an orderly crystalline lattice. In light of this, the chemical composition of the philosophical egg should therefore be closer to vitreous and colloidal materials than to crystalline ones.

In fact, the Philosopher’s Stone is the output of the Philosopher’s Egg after its impressive increase in weight in the last cooking. See also Third Work.

In Theurgy, it is the lower world that acts and moves the higher. In Alchemy, they say the opposite, that is, that it is the higher that moves the lower. But in Alchemy, as we know, we must always translate into “chemistry”: when alchemists speak of winged dragons embracing, moving, and dragging up wingless dragons, they clearly mean two substances, one of which is capable of moving and volatilizing, or the intervention of a substance-entity arriving from outside the works. Theurgists, on the other hand, speak of the meeting of the two worlds as if it were a resonance. If you have gone beyond the third work, you understand that, at that stage, Alchemy becomes Theurgy.

Indeed, if we are to believe the writings of the Baroque alchemists, the Philosophers’ Stone appeared to them as an object, even quite transportable, among other things. That it’s an object is more than credible, that it’s transportable, much less so: can a quantum atmosphere be transported far from the place where it occurred? Can we really compare the Philosopher’s Stone to those Egyptian statuettes allegedly charged with mana that are said to exhibit a lot of bizarre movements no matter their new location? In any case, they have been seen more lively in the vicinity of where they were extracted. In any case, the comparison does not hold: apparently the Philosophers’ Stone is indeed an object but it emanates a unique and unrepeatable event: the eighth note.

Alchemists call it “divine fabric” and it mainly affects the surrounding air. See also Air Alchemy, the Fabric. As already seen in Alchemy Resounds and Third Work, the alchemist should wait for the arrival of the first note of the upper octave. A “movement of air” that no one knows where it comes from.

There is no mastery that can hold against the non-arrival of that which cannot be controlled in any way.

Only the very few alchemists who have heard it can answer this question. What actually happens cannot even be conjectured. See also The Genesis on a Small Scale.

True. For alchemists, the philosophers’ stone represented the return to the first cause, or first day of Genesis. See The Genesis on a Small Scale.

Traditionally, the alchemists who have reached the end of the Last Cooking, in addition to being “sovereigns of the seven sounds”, they are also defined as “crowned”. It could certainly seem like a simple symbol of reward for the level reached, but no, there is more: being crowned king, in Alchemy, means “having created a new land, having performed a “creation”. See also The Genesis on a Small Scale.

Alchemists took the symbol of fire to indicate something that moved in an uncontrolled and increasing way; Belly refers to something that has the property of “carrying”; Air is the true alchemical ubiquitous medium (see Air Alchemy).

Because, whatever appearance the Philosophers’ Stone may have, the peculiar phenomenon is that it occurs in the surrounding air. On this aspect many conjectures can be made by modern physicists.

I believe that the Hermetic world borrowed this statement from the various books of the dead of ancient Egypt. Actually, the terms were not exactly these, but of an initiation to which we will all be subjected, that is, death, and another initiation called “of the Sun”. In later times, alchemists recognized the initiation “of the Sun” as the achievement of the Philosopher’s Stone.

Some alchemical treatises of the Baroque age, such as Annulus Platonis, propose this representation of the Philosophers’ Stone as the bottom of a chain. It must be said, however, that a chain is characteristically represented downwards and not upwards, as if it were something that sinks and does not rise (while a chain, unlike a ladder, weighs downwards). A representation by means of a chain is not misleading, however: the links in the chains are important for the meeting points, not for the links themselves. See. Doubles, Resonances, Unions, Seeds, Embryos, Births, and Processions.

As for the meaning of the chain, I will repeat what is written in The Four Alchemical Elements: Finally, Earth, in the Philosophers’ Stone, “cages” Fire: the initial “swelled spark” grew in ray, then it moved everything that flows and finally the Stone sounded in the Last Cooking

Those who “hold the philosopher’s stone in the palm of their hand” should have revealed it to us…

I will condense the troubled relationship of the ruling classes with the Philosopher’s Stone by citing an example: in the 14th century, Pope John XXII, who with Spondent quas non exhibent bull banned eveyone from practicing Alchemy, had a secret alchemical laboratory set up for himself.

Alchemists use the projection powder for the purpose, topic leading to the page Transmutation of Metals.

If we assume that the Philosophers Stone has more to do with its surroundings than the object itself, we can somehow say that what happens after the last note is emitted could have the power to “call” or “evoke” something that could have to do with the alchemist’s DNA or perhaps with a more heterogeneous DNA (maybe coming from nowhere).

The Romans called some rituals to be performed with the living person “sacred private ceremonies” because these had the power to establish a bond between a human being and a certain vital force. A similar rite, but performed in reverse, would instead have animated the soul of a post-mortem man. Given that the rites fell within the scope of sacrifices, the moral problems that arose were so controversial and debated that they led to the end of paganism in Rome. Did the Romans take literally what was symbolic? We know that Porphyry and Iamblichus had a very heated debate about sacrifices. However, what these rituals represented was probably lost by the time of the Neoplatonists. Already in earlier times, an imposture was made, and the king-priest replaced his sacrifice with a substitute, an animal. The narrative here becomes very complex and involves the archaic concept of the transition. The alchemists, for example, would have had no hesitations in this regard: they would have sacrificed a metal since, for them, the spirit of life is the same in all kingdoms of nature.

Is it better to risk with metals or in theurgic rituals? I say this because, brutally, and reduced to the bone, the difference between alchemists and theurgists has always run along these lines.

Ultimately, “nourishment” was a kind of banquet with the deities, in which the cosmos was obliged to participate, and from which chaos could not escape. In short, it is a communion in which the two parties eat (otherwise, there wouldn’t be a set table), and in the end, everyone changes shape. 

It is said that Alchemy just eats, but that’s the first step. “Eating” and “swallowing” belong to the transmutative category. Greek mythology starts the creation of the world from the moment Zeus decided to swallow Phanes. He was no longer Zeus, he was no longer Phanes, he was another creation. Alchemists would say that they both took on the attributes of the other in a new substance. 

“Take the body from that which has a body and give a body to that which has no body” – Turba Philosophorum. This is the law of the world, and the sacrifice is mutual. Alchemists know that metals killed in a certain way can germinate again as their forms endure over time in the materials that had made their graves. 

This belief, known as Magisterium Corpi, is what Alchemy is for and, together with the key concept of the Secret Fire, can be extended to realms other than the mineral one. In the Baroque treatises, this strange and ineffable “substance” was handled as “Earthly Sky”. The ancients would have defined it as the receptacle of the memory of metals.

This may seem like a metaphysical disquisition, but the difference between matter and body is crucial even for a physicist. Let us avoid introducing here that Neoplatonic lexicon – such as Hyle, levels of existence, first principle, the many, the One – which has generated anything but univocal meanings. Just as we will try to leave aside myths and symbols. Let us say without hesitation that the exhausting work of the alchemists has made the final product, the philosophical egg, a supreme work of art. However, alchemists cannot be considered as their patrons Hephaestus or Ptah, the demiurges.

True. In the operational sense it makes sense because the Philosophers’ Stone is the alchemical earth under the appearance of the fixed salt resulting from the union of volatile and fixed, also called sky and earth. In a theurgic sense, they mean that the sky is built on earth. But I realize that this is an archaic and too alchemist-like language, for an attempt at explanation according to modern physics, see Alchemy and Modern Physics Particles.

Canseliet states that the Eucharist is the alchemical act par excellence and places it in relation to the Third Work of the Great Work. The question I ask myself is: is the formula that accompanies the Eucharist, that is, “Behold the body of Christ”, to be understood as a body or as a seed? We have seen in Doubles, Resonances, Unions, Seeds, Embryos, Births, and Processions, how an alchemical seed can be defined in modern physics as “here is the wave sequence that will make you become like Christ”.

Actually, the Roman word Sacramentum adds something more than the idea of “ritual nourishment”: Sacrare in Latin means “taking responsibility/pledge/oath”.

If we compare the “tripod” to Raimondo di Sangro’s triangular-based candlestick drawing, we see that the body is a tripod, that is, it is three things at the same time; the body/tripod holds/hosts the candle or spirit of life; the candle/spirit represents the wick/fuel for the soul. If we accept the idea that fire is not individual but something ineffable (certainly more than the candle/spirit) that can appear anywhere without locking itself into a specific individuality, then we can understand Plotinus’ illuminating sentence that wants the body inside the soul and not the opposite. For alchemists it is a simple concept, for philosophers less so.

We saw in Gold & Alchemy, or Adorn with a Star Ray and Transmutation of Metals, how the projection powder drives the common metal to become gold. That is, to assume the same wave frequency. Is this what uniting sky and earth mean?

If I define Alchemy as a private channel, the Philosophers’ Stone should be its attainment. I won’t go further, but surely anyone who wants to delve deeper will get their own idea from these FAQs.

To put it very simply and not at all symbolically: earth, because the stone contains everything the alchemist needs; water, because the stone is an ocean of “waves” ready to be shaken again.

Absolutely, and I will repeat here two examples from Greek mythology already dealt with in Alchemy & Light, Introduction: Hephaestus – a deity connected with the alchemical furnaces – whose main task is to bring the weak “fire” of Zeus to earth; and Vesta/Hestia who brought to earth the weak “fire” of Hera, sister/wife of Zeus.

These are the things that are fascinating to discover for ourselves. In short, the phenomenon of the Aurora emitted in case of serious failures of the philosophical egg, suggests us a channel of investigation: if the Philosophers’ Stone is a small Sun it should emit a kind of “solar wind”, if instead it is a small earth it should possess a magnetic field. One of two things. See also Alchemy and Modern Physics Particles.

The key to the answer is to understand what the alchemists mean by “nature”. I will not add anything else, because the effort to understand what lies behind this word symbol is the only antidote against its trivialization. However, it is not difficult to understand: it is present in all genesis mythologies.

Dismissum does not exist in Latin: it is a translation error by English authors who often rely on Italian to translate Latin. The French are right when they write Dimissum, but they are wrong when they translate it into “La Parole Délaissée”, the Abandoned-Lost Word. Dimissum means “discharged/let it go on its way/released from obligations”. If in the case of “lost word“ it seems to mean “finding the mysterious word“, in the case of “free from obligation“ it seems to mean “free to expand“. A big difference. But now the question is: is the philosophers’ stone, according to Trevisanus – who seems to have reached it – something that is finally free to expand?

Touchstone is a mistranslation from Lapis “Comparationis” or Comparison Stone. Alchemists say that the philosophers’ stone is called the touchstone because the Logos is the parameter of the waves between Sky and Earth. For example, the meaning of Logos in Alchemy can be understood from its position between the Sun and the planets. See also The Subtlety of the Exact Proportions.

In Theurgy it is said that the world is all analogous and the Philosophers’ Stone has “tentacles” with something that is in other worlds and other realms.

Another mistranslation, but this time from the Neo-Latin languages. Even today, “canto” in Venetian means both “corner” and “chant”. See Alchemy Resounds.

My personal opinion is that, yes, the Philosophers’ Stone could produce the same effects attributed to the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid of Giza (of course, when the pyramid was still complete with all its original “contrivances”, i.e., carbonate covering, quartz lenses at the mouth of the “aeration” ducts, intact sarcophagus-tub in the king’s room, intact underground water and other unknown things).

I repeat what you will find in Alchemy & Light, Introduction: This could be the most fascinating aspect, that is, the entry into an unlimited temporal dimension in which past, present and future come together. But so few were able to witness this supreme event that it is only mentioned for the sake of the record. If it is true that the photon, which moves at the speed of light, has no residual energy to move even in time, this means that it does not experience the passage of time but only an eternal present. The phenomenon is plausible because the heated matter emits photons.

The essential difference between liquids and solids is that the molecules are moving away from each other. The contraction of solids, liquids, and gases means that the molecules are moving closer together and the distance between them is decreasing. Every movement within the limits of three-dimensional space is simultaneously a movement in time. So we say that there is more “time” in a liquid than in a solid; there is more “time” in a gas than in a liquid.

Should we think that every mass has its own time? We know that the philosophical egg has an anomalous concentration of mass. Let me speculate: In this sense, could the philosophical egg represent a return to an archetypal time? Or extreme dilution of time?

As we have already seen, in fact, for the ancients there were no voids between objects but only a dense continuum. In light of this, we can conjecture that the alchemists did not consider the philosopher’s stone as a single and separate object but as a dense agglomerate with strong repercussions on the surrounding environment.

That the Philosopher’s Stone may ultimately be a talisman can be a consequence of the fact that in the Middle Ages the modern word “resonator” could ultimately only be translated as “talisman”. In the Picatrix we read that a talisman is nothing other than the force of the celestial bodies which operates through them, providing that the matter is disposed to receive the stellar influences (sixth chapter).

The difference between a resonator, as we know it today, and a talisman is time: a talisman needs time, because it must follow the motions of the stars. See also Stellar and Planetary Alchemy, the Signatures.

A simulacrum does not correspond to reality and is only appearance, or semblance. And here a whole new world would open up: what is a resemblance in Alchemy?

Alchemists approach the subject of embodied light in a very different way from philosophers and theurgists: for those who are primarily interested in physics, it is obviously physics, although a very ancient one. We have already seen in Solar Alchemy, Lunar Alchemy and Stellar Alchemy, the Aerial Ropes how airborne dust plays a primary role in the so-called solar, stellar and lunar dusts, infact, it is acknowledged that astronomical influences must find a material support, such as dust or water.

No, we cannot call the Philosophers’ Stone a simple material support, because the Stone is the final culmination of alchemical works, not the beginning, like solar dust.

Indeed. Placed at the end of the works, as an apotheosis not only of the alchemist’s work but also of his/her “archetypal integrity”, the Philosophers Stone becomes the quintessence of the “light that is seen with the ears”. See also Alchemy & Light, Introduction.

Philosophers call it “archetypal integrity”, alchemists call it “waiting for a response musical note”. Babylonian theurgists would perhaps have said “waiting for the god to reach his goddess”.

Unfortunately, alchemists who believe it’s just a kind of “fight to catch the big fish” have to face the obvious fact that they “must be worthy of being chosen by the big fish”. So, paradoxically, the “tamers of matter” have to fall into the category of priests.

In fact, the ancients defined this liturgical act as “connecting heaven, or sky, to earth”. Or even “indispensable meeting”, understood as a sacred banquet.

I cannot see any other use. Anyway, what do alchemists mean by immortality? Could it instead be some kind of involving time phenomenon? Briefly summarizing what can be read in some alchemical treatises of the Baroque age: “… and the ancient alchemists of whom you had only heard will appear to you, and they will welcome you into their circle of immortals”.

Modern theoretical mathematics on aspects of immortality and perpetuity says: “Among the beings that are totally eternal and the beings that are totally temporal (both in their substance and in their activity), those beings that are eternal under one aspect (that of substance, for example) and temporal under another aspect (activity, for example) align-profile”.

Absolutely. The Golden Fleece, which was the object of the Argonauts’ journey, was the philosophers’ stone. And there is nothing more to say about the voyage of the Argonauts, except to delve into the details of their adventures.

With this question, you are entering the treacherous terrain of Theurgy, where opinions contradict each other. It does not matter what the names of the Neoplatonists are here, but one asserts that Ulysses’ journey represents the passing through of the stages of generation, the other is sure that Ulysses is the very case of someone who failed the first initiation and has only the second one left. But he failed to “remember” so he desperately tries not to get lost in Poseidon’s anger.

In your opinion, could Hermes, the lying trickster of Olympus, take on the task of protecting Odysseus/Ulysses from all adversities on his perilous journey? Yet he will arrive at his “destination” precisely by “remembering” in the end that he was Hermes’ beloved.

Hermes is not the deity of Alchemy, he is Alchemy.

Between being friends with Hermes and enemies with Poseidon, the ancient Greeks would not have known what was worse to choose. But, for the learned, both gods were just different aspects of the same thing. Specifically, “Being a son of Poseidon” meant being worthy of the initiation received.

Nothing is certain in the realm of the “chatterbox of Olympus”, but he, Hermes, is the only way we have. Don’t shy away from Hermes’ chatter, even if it seems “unnecessarily loud” like walking past strangers conversing in their incomprehensible language. But Hermes is the Olympian deity who more than anyone else meddles with nature.

Apollodorus told us the Olympians, weak deities of the air and the seasons, were doomed to succumb to the Titans, overwhelming cosmic forces, unless they asked for the help of mortals (only  Poseidon-seashaker-eartshaker could handle it alone). What rescue could humans possibly bring in this bizarre situation? I honestly don’t know. The Rosicrucians say that humans can make philosophers’ stones, that the gods cannot do (strange, I thought they were born into it). Even stranger is the fact that almost none of the alchemists reach the goal… and it seems precisely because those weak deities prevent them. 

We have already encountered Hermes, the contradictory polymorph and Zeusʼs main servant in First-Preparatory Works. But, more than this news, we must focus our attention here on the verb “invoke”, which implies a “sound emission”. In fact, Hermes was also the deity of “speech”. See also Alchemy Resounds.

I don’t know, I’m not a “sovereign of the seven sounds” (see Alchemy Resounds). And to tell the truth, I would have been terrified: how one can work on the Philosophers’ Stone so lightly, driven only by curiosity, remains a mystery to me. In short, what would have become of me? But I am a daughter of modern culture, had I been born 5,000 years ago, I would have had a much different cultural background.

As we have seen above: “… And when you have reached the final goal you will see the procession of alchemists of the past come to know you. Then you will know who you are…”

However, a modern alchemist will hardly accept to “belong” to a field of action. One should first divest oneself of the syndrome of the super-courageous superhero chosen by fate, or the super-intelligent superhero who solves all the puzzles, or the super-lucky superhero who found the right secret manuscript. Characteristically, alchemists are precisely the people who should be kept away from Alchemy.

Yes, constantly… provide you infuse a sense of significance into your life, there will be a pattern behind everything that happens to you.

I will not answer with my opinion but Fulcanelli’s: Alchemy was born perfect and has deteriorated over the millennia.

It actually reads in Testamentum Fraternitatis that young people should not attend the works because they risk too strong “impressions” that they would not know how to handle. Perhaps they were referring to the Last Cooking. And, in fact, how a young person could manage “The initiation of the passage” with all their normal life still to be experienced in their mistakes and joys is all to be proven? Or perhaps they were referring to the danger of “abortion” of the egg with consequent electromagnetic cataclysm. However, I can assure you from experience that people between 32 and 37 years old encounter ease and “favor from the gods”, perhaps because they do not yet have their spiritual channels closed or simply have not yet severed the “archetypal memory” or their organism is still open to the communication channel or their “light” or transmission medium works at the maximum level. Obviously people in their thirties cannot be considered young, but adults still malleable and moldable by spiritual forces, despite the great strength of mind and resourcefulness typical of that age. For Alchemy, the Chinese proverb that says “he who doesn’t know how to fish goes fishing and brings home fish, he who knows how to fish goes fishing and no longer brings home fish, but he can teach” certainly applies.

The alchemists’ legendary longevity is yet to be proven. For further information, see Gold & Alchemy, Potable Gold.

What will become of the “chain of immortal masters” will depend on the sense of responsibility of their earthly custodians.

Quite certainly, you would like me to answer that it will be up to future generations, but no, the future of Alchemy is up to Alchemy itself, at least as a “parasitic” phenomenon.