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     Today’s new sorcerers’ apprentices, by the way, the researchers into Nanotechnology, are learning a similar lesson. A new carbon-based material, nanotubes, has caused severe damage and death in rodents that were subjected to them.[i] Potential side-effects and environmental impact of new and unknown molecular aggregates should at least be assessed before the materials are released. Nanotechnology as it is being practiced officially today produces new and exciting materials, no doubt. My few alchemist friends and I who form a loosely connected network around the globe and who discuss this new and emerging science wish them well, but it is also very clear to us that Nanotechnology as it is being practiced today is an exemplary outpouring of the predominant Western science paradigm of subjugating nature, disconnecting our culture more and more from the original source: Throwing billions of taxpayers’ dollars at the development of new molecular nano-structures of unknown properties, hailed, among other things, as the future of everything to-be-achieved in medicine, seems almost as foolish as burning through taxpayers’ billions in futile hot fusion experiments, when we could have the desired results now and at a fraction of the cost by simply applying what does already work: How little did it take China in comparison to establish a functional health care system, based upon chi gung, tai chi in the park, herbs, acupuncture and moxibustion? And how inexpensive and highly effective in comparison is the Eastern European low-tech approach of utilizing indigenous herbs, hydro- and physiotherapy, steam saunas and some malodorous tar-like poultices to cure almost everything? For the techno geeks, this is of course not sexy enough. Nanotechnology, in contrast, is marketed as the harbinger of a future akin to sci-fi movies. But no matter how convenient the Nanorobots of Naboo may one day be, we do already know one thing for sure: The Force is not with them.

     Returning to our subject of laboratory alchemy, we should take a look at the third and highest level, the Great Work. This is the realm of the miraculous that only few aspiring Adepts have been allowed to enter. Persistence, good personal ethics and prayers to Diana, the Goddess of all alchemists, may eventually lead to success, but practicing alchemy does not come with a satisfaction & money-back guarantee. I do not claim to have entered that realm, so my guess here is as good as anybody’s. Alchemical literature suggests at least two possible paths towards the great Arcanum. One is long and tedious, working either on the decomposition and reassembling of the three alchemical principles[ii] of a particular sulfide ore in Western Alchemy or, in Ayurveda, taking mercury metal as the starting material: Ayurveda recognizes eighteen stages of mercury, which gets solidified after passing through several of the prescribed processes, is made to take up gold without an increase in weight ‘swallowing it’, is then made to take up further metals, sometimes with and sometimes without an increase in weight, until the finished product, the Philosopher’s stone, Vedic style, is achieved.[iii] It should become clear from reading authentic ayurvedic texts that the final product is actually an ultra-heavy, stable and newly created element. Interestingly enough, Russian metallurgists have discussed such ultra-heavy stable elements for some time, and have named one of them preliminarily ‘eka-lead’. Some of the literature regarding this subject was available on the Internet for some time and has now completely disappeared. You tell me why! Western alchemy has a quite similar path to offer, starting with the manufacture of the so-called incalescent mercury, which Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton are reported to have accomplished. Thanks to a group of contemporary alchemists in France [iv], the details of the process became fully understood. Later, Lawrence Principe published the process in his book: “The Aspiring Adept – Robert Boyle and his Alchemical Quest”[v]. I have, of course, made this incalescent mercury in my lab. The production method is to first make a so-called stellar Regulus of antimony, an alloy of antimony with some iron. This alloy gets further alloyed with silver or copper in order to allow it to amalgamate with mercury. The mercury gets distilled off, re-amalgamated with more of the Regulus and distilled off again. This process is called cohobation in alchemy. After seven to nine cohobations, the resulting mercury amalgamates readily with gold dust in an exothermal reaction, which means it gives off heat – hence the name ‘incalescent’. Another test for this mercury at that stage, which you will not find mentioned in the literature, is to weigh out a few grams and drop them into a crucible that has been heated to red heat or orange heat. The incalescent mercury does not evaporate, but solidifies by being transmuted in the fire into pure gold. Mature incalescent mercury solidifies at a conversion rate of 100% while an immature one loses some metal through evaporation and needs to be further cohobated. Modern treatises on the incalescent mercury do not indicate its uses, but my cross-referencing with Ayurvedic literature makes it quite apparent to me that the incalescent mercury is not a finished product per se, but only the highly reactive solvent that needs to be further processed by making it ‘swallow’ or devour other metals, to use the old term. Should you want to attempt this further elaboration, do not email me for advice, for I do not know how to proceed. But I have freely shared with you how to turn mercury into gold, so that the usual question ‘can you make gold?’ is hopefully more than sufficiently answered.

     Besides the tedious mercurial path, sometimes referred to as the ‘wet way’, there seems to be a fast and even more dangerous approach, called the ‘dry path’. In Western as well as Taoist Chinese alchemy we find the discussion of so-called fixed arsenic, fixed cinnabar and fixed antimony. The named volatile and toxic starting materials are transformed into substances that do not evaporate in the fire, hence the term ‘fixed’. Ko Hung lists the uses of the various cinnabars he discusses, and tells us: “The eighth is called Fixed. On the very day you take it you become a genie.”[vi] How this fixed cinnabar is manufactured he tells us not.

     Preciously little can be found in the alchemical literature in general on how to ‘fix’ these metals, and if you find advice such as in the Tan Ching Yao Chueh to use tin for a fixation of orpiment or realgar,[vii] two ores of arsenic, you may be disappointed by the resulting material. I have found a reference to pyrotechnics in Philalaetes[viii], though, and Rudolph Glauber tells us that the term alchemy is derived from hal-khemeia, which stands for ‘salt-fusion’ or ‘cooking with salt’, in contrast to khemeia or chemistry, which stands for cooking only. It is my opinion that this ‘cooking with salt’ refers to a pyrotechnical process of mixing a metal sulfide with a variation of black powder and igniting the substance in a metal container, thus launching an inverse space shuttle in the back yard. The oxidizers used in pyrotechnics, salts such as saltpeter as part of the traditional black powder formula, are many and the permutations that result as possible blends are endless. Fireworks pyrotechnicians and rocket scientists alike tend to keep the exact composition of their fuel powders secret, so we cannot readily expect that an alchemist will step forward and reveal the composition of his formula. But it seems to me that a pyrotechnical reaction is the key to fixing volatile metal salts by the use of the ‘secret salt fire’ or ignis gehennae. As a general rule we could state: We need to keep in mind that laboratory alchemy always aims at going beyond ordinary chemical reactions in order to achieve the miraculous. 

     Our tour de force through the laboratory of alchemy would not be complete if we had not put the lab work or external alchemy into a juxtaposition, but also in context with internal alchemy: Every once in a while at martial arts tournaments today practitioners of the internal martial arts show that by directing their chi they can send an opponent flying across the dojo by a seemingly light touch. Kundalini Yoga, Kundalini Tantra and other techniques from the East that teach to move non-physical energy have made it to our shores, too, and have found their followers. These techniques are applications of principles of inner alchemy. To some extent, the mastery of techniques of inner alchemy is a prerequisite for external alchemy, because we need to be able to focus, direct and project non-physical energies with our mind, as the discussion of stabilizing monoatomic elements has revealed. If this article has achieved nothing else, I hope that you may at least consider the possibility that right within our Western culture, we had and still have a group of people that hold a very unique reality embedded within society that easily matches the far-out reality created and held in place by sages of the East. Plenty of independent third-party witnessed and documented evidence from the Middle Ages recounts transformations of people of old age into young ones and of other miraculous deeds of the few Magisters of alchemy[ix]. This article should also explain why we are using metals and gemstones in lab alchemy and why achieving a transmutation of a base metal into gold is worthy of our time and labor, not for making gold to sell it to the smelter, an unrewarding task given today’s low purchasing power of the yellow metal, but as a starting point to delve deeper into the mysteries of nature in order to eventually gain an understanding how we can turn our own rusty selves into golden ones. If you feel inclined to attempt to become an alchemist yourself, let me extend to you the farewell of one of my own teachers: May the Sun, the Moon and the Stars be with you!