Antimony and the Philosopher's Stone

Good day dear Hive Community, I hope you are all doing well and you have a day that has brought one or the other interesting experience into your life! In this article I would like to discuss alchemy and hope you are able to expand your knowledge.

Antimony had an important meaning for the old alchemists and in ancient writings, it was also associated with chaos and materia prima and it was considered a miraculous element with which it was possible to create medicine against any disease or even the mystical philosopher's stone, which is considered one of the main goals of alchemy. According to traditions, there would be different possibilities to produce the philosopher's stone from it and one is also referred to as the dry path which is full of dangers and begins in chaos or the earth and in old alchemical works, this is also often referred to as a path that leads from the interior of the earth and is full of different hurdles and the other way is also referred to as the wet or dark one. It must be mentioned in this context that antimony is toxic and if you choose the dry and dangerous path, it is no longer so dangerous after a few completed work steps and the hurdles that accompany someone on the way become more and more harmless and this process is also considered a metaphor for the step of distillation. This was also associated with the purification of gold and the old alchemists used the element for the purification and in the dry path one needed fire to melt it then this was mixed with gold and thus one should be able to clean it and bring it into a better condition and in this context with melting processes in which antimony was used, there were similar experiments with other metals. In old works of art, antimony is also associated with the gray or black wolf who had devoured the king which was a metaphor for gold and after melting this mixture again, a purer end product was created and thus comes very close to the preparation of the well-known philosopher's stone which is also referred to as a substance with which it is possible to transform other metals into gold and in these experiments, antimony was very important.

Many thanks for stopping and I hope you could learn something new about alchemy! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.