Dutch
White was a mixture of one part of white lead to three of barium
sulphate.
Supposedly capable of turning inexpensive metals into gold, the
Philosopher's Stone was also sometimes believed to be a means of
making people younger. For a long time it was the "holy grail" of
Western alchemy.
In the view of spiritual alchemy, making the philosopher's stone
would bring enlightenment upon the maker and conclude the Great
Work.
Alchemists once thought a key element that the stone was made of
was a mythical element named carmot.
Alchemy itself is mostly an original concept and science practised
in the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, and India. However, the
concept of ensuring youthful health apparently originated in China,
while the concept of transmutating one metal into a more precious
one (silver or gold) originated from the theories of the 8th
century Arab alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan (Latinized as 'Geber'). He
analysed each Aristotelian element in terms of the four basic
qualities of hotness, coldness, dryness, and moistness. Fire was
both hot and dry, earth cold and dry, water cold and moist, and air
hot and moist. He further theorized that every metal was a
combination of these four principles, two of them interior and two
exterior.
From this premise, it was reasoned that the transmutation of one
metal into another could be effected by the rearrangement of its
basic qualities. This change would presumably be mediated by a
substance, which came to be called al-iksir in Arabic (from which
the Western term 'elixir' is derived). It is often considered to
exist as a dry red powder made from a legendary stone — the
'philosopher's stone'.
Gold was particularly valued as a metal that would not rust,
tarnish, corrode or otherwise grow corrupt. Since the philosopher's
stone would turn a corruptible base metal to incorruptible gold,
naturally it would similarly transform human beings from mortal
(corruptible) to immortal (incorruptible).
Essentially one of the many theories was that gold was a superior
form of metal, and that the philosopher's stone was even purer and
superior to gold, so much so that if combined with lesser metals
would turn them into superior gold.
A mystical text published in the 17th century called the Mutus
Liber appears to be a symbolic instruction manual for concocting a
philosopher's stone. Called the 'wordless book', this was a
collection of 15 illustrations.
Within the cache is a small grid of letters.
Copy out this grid, you will need it to complete the series
finale.
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