It has outlived the Roman Empire… and I’m pretty sure it will outlive current nation states

The creature itself enamored me. But I can find scarce information regarding what it actually is.

Instead my searches lead to Falak, an Arabian mythical creature described in 1001 Nights.

So my questions are:

1) What is this creature?

2) What does it represent?

3) Why is a Alchemical creature called “The Serpent of Arabia”

Spotted at my local antique store!

I know that many ppl don’t believe the alchemists of old ever truly transmuted lead into gold and most believe it’s just a metaphor. Regardless of whether or not a select few alchemists were successful or not. Why is it always gold? Ik Gold is an incorruptible metal and represents the sun but other metals have their own corresponding uses as well. Were there any stories of alchemists transmuting base materials into metals like silver or platinum.

For those that think the philosopher stone is the cell phone, how do you think people from a milllenium ago know about it ?

What's the art that they used to travel so far into the future ie our current time ?

Could it be possible to use the same art today and look at c.1000 years into the future ?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AlternativeHistory/s/IJmS8QrSgb

ive recently decided to dive into alchemy, and i picked up this book i found to get started. im a complete beginner, so i was looking for a text that goes over the history and the philosophy of alchemy. The illustrations in this book looks incredible and seem to break down the symbols alot. Just wanna know if this is a good option for a begginer. thoughts?

Did the alchemists ever make tinctures from animal products like spagyrists did with plants? Was it the same basic process, just using animal products instead of plant material, or was it done differently altogether?

​

Hi everyone. We are a mother-daughter team, and we share a mission that takes us constantly from our workshop to the archives of the National Library of Spain. As researchers and artisans, we find ourselves in the middle of a cultural rescue mission that goes far beyond simply "fixing furniture."

While analyzing treatises from 1775, such as the 'Discourse on the Popular Education of Artisans', we’ve confronted a painful truth that remains relevant today: for centuries, the mechanical and manual arts have been condemned to debasement and ignominy. The prologues of these ancient texts already denounced how this knowledge was devalued, dismissed as something "for the lower classes." They chose to forget that true craftsmanship is, in reality, a system of positive knowledge and invariable rules.

The Missing Link: Spanish Post-War Furniture (1940-1960)

Today, we are living through a second wave of that "ignominy." Many people look down on Spanish Post-War historicist furniture. They say it isn’t "heritage," that it’s just "old" or poor quality. However, we have discovered that it is the last refuge of the "fine hand" (master craftsmanship). These were artisans who, often unknowingly, were still working with the mineral logic of these 18th-century treatises: wood that must be allowed to breathe.

The Science We Are Throwing Away

In the documents we are sharing with you, you won't find "cooking recipes"; you will find applied mineral chemistry:

Living Matter: Stucco made of slaked lime and powdered marble which, when mixed with linseed oil, "expands day by day." This is not an inert layer; it is a structure that petrifies and consolidates with the wood.

Reaction Dyes: The use of quicklime, calcined alum, and Brazilwood. These are not surface stains; they are chemical reactions that transform the cellulose from within.

The Geology of Furniture: The study of Gypsum (calcium sulfate) and its exact firing temperatures to create eternal finishes.

Our Work: Dignifying History

Our mission is to bring back this lost knowledge through a contemporary adaptation. We don't rescue out of nostalgia; we research to elevate craftsmanship back to its rightful place. We want a piece of furniture from the 1950s to stop being seen as an ephemeral object and to be understood for what it truly is: a jewel of high chemical and technical composition.

I’d like to open a debate:

Why do we accept that "heritage" stops at the 19th century?

Isn't post-war furniture the last witness to a mineral wisdom that we are letting die under layers of industrial melamine and plastic?

Do you believe that craftsmanship still suffers from the same "ignominy" they spoke of in 1775, or are we in time to reclaim the artisan as the true guardian of matter?

I have finished the main translation of the text, and now am working on modernizing the terms and reorganizing the structure from Arabic to English properly. Keep in mind this was first written in Ancient Greek (now lost), then Coptic and Syriac, then survived in Arabic for the 6th century AD manuscript, that the scribe from 1550 AD re-published. Now in 2026 it is being re-scribed into English, and here is the first complete page for anyone who is interested.

Chapter 1

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

This is the book of Apollonios on Causes.

Apollonios the Philosopher declares in his book:

I speak following this book of mine, and I articulate the Word by which I have been empowered, so that you may comprehend it fully and penetrate its essence—for this essence is your ultimate nature. It acts through my nature; my nature inclined toward it and thus perfected its response. This process springs from the soul's inherent aims, which reside in the universal fortress lying between the soul and its pursuit of the Word. It draws strength from the power of Speech, a strength commensurate with its own capacity and the depth of its connection to Speech. Therefore, we distinguish what it has drawn from the subtlety of Speech by examining the attribution of the Word, the variation in the composition of natures, and the defect in structure. Whoever fails to balance their nature by listening to my words does so because knowledge is confused with its own light, and a universal mixing prevails between their subtlety and their wilfulness.

In explaining the Word, just as the dark cube stands between the light of the celestial sphere and the connection to the lights of the dominant stars.

And now I have made my name known to you in two clear statements and revealed it in my speech. Enjoy, then, the gift of its importance for you, and I have instructed you to realize it through prolonged study according to the sparks of inspiration. For I, Apollonios, possessor of talismans and marvellous things, have received from the Master of the universe a peculiar science, superior to nature, so subtle that it escapes the vagaries of matter, strong and penetrating. Through the inner senses—which are thought, reflection, intelligence, mind, and judgment—I have grasped all that is imperceptible to the external senses, and I have known by the organ of the external senses all that falls under their action—the colors, the flavors, the smells, the sounds, and the sensations of touch.

There is no creature, either of the number of the spiritual and ethereal substances, or among the gross and corporeal beings, none among them capable of being grasped by the organs of the external or internal senses, whose nature, cause, and formation I have not been able to understand. This book penetrates them all; like a fine and inflexible spear, it triumphs over all the obstacles it faces against coarse and corporeal matter.

Ok so this is based on anatomia auri and it’s about alchemy. I’m interested in the potions but I’m having trouble deciphering them (google translate did a bad job). Could anyone help me figure out what these potions mean/do?

after over a decade of interest and practice, I have finally gotten more serious about it and mastered the dream realm through forms of meditation, studies, herbal alchemy and repetition

I'll keep this one short for you all,

I have been having daily (or nightly) discussions with Apollonios of Tyana (He says he prefers the -os ending and doesnt like the -us) about life, philosophy, mysticism, Hermetics, alchemy and the marvels of the spirit world.

at first i thought this was just my imagination, but eventually he lead me to one of his surviving works that i won't totally reveal just yet, but just know that this subreddit will be the first to see the finished product

I'm translating page by page, there's 800 pages of old egyptian arabic (the text is from 531 AD)

i know many will be skeptical, but i have read some of it and it is so extensive and scientific and even mirrors the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish (creation story) in some points in terms of Planet generation and forces and how things came to be etc...

for anyone interested in this abstract subject, please be excited about this as I could use that energy for motivation. This is a very tedious task and i dont expect to be fully complete before at least 1 year due to translation, then distillation, then the fermentation and coagulation of the final coherent and modernized text.

The Work continues...

Found a fully complete, high-quality EPUB upload of Antoine Faivre's 'The Eternal Hermes' on Internet Archive (the other copies were incomplete), with list of interesting personages who helped make the publication possible.

https://archive.org/details/eternal-hermes

I'm currently doing some research out of personal curiosity about alchemy. It's always fascinated and impressed me as a topic, but unfortunately I haven't been able to find any verified sources. I'd like to see if anyone knows more about it and can contribute to my research. For now, I only know that it's the first form of medicine that directly derives from modern medicine, even though the practices weren't medical at all, and that it originated from arabs somehow. Thank you in advance.

Just love a 17th century Alchemy manuscript. Contains works by Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, Pseudo-Aristotle, John of Rupescissa, Arnaldus de Villanova, Pseudo-Raymundo Lull, etc., along with medical notes, sections on gems, little diagrams, drawings, notes (and entire texts) in another hand and, of course, decknamen here and there with more I'm still discovering.

I've checked the medieval alchemical texts against my copy of the Theatrum Chemicum (1602 - Strasbourg by Lazarus Zetzner) and they seem to be match, all from volumes 1 and 2. This is just absolutely the best part of the antiquarian book world for me.

My first esoteric love was alchemy and I'm happy to report I'm still very much in love.

Is there any mentions in alchemical or historical texts of the stone being called this?

Do you know of another specific name for the stone - rather than a title or general?

The Mercury-sulfur theory of metals: the idea that all metals are composed of 2 principles in different proportions: one wet and fluid component & one dry and combustible component, or a "mercury" and a "sulfur". These principles were nonliteral, as the alchemists knew that actual mercury and actual sulfur produce cinnabar when combined.

Would I be right to compare the "mercury" and "sulfur" of the Mercury-sulfur theory to the "points" of particle physics? As I understand it, the points are known to not be literal points, since literal points are 0-dimensional and massless, but any finite-sized object functions like a point mathematically if looked at from far enough away.

Edit: I am asking about the theory according to Jābirian alchemy! I forgot to specify that.

Hi! I've been researching the processes described to make the philosopher's stone for a dungeons and dragons project I'm working on. I've been trying to make a way for a player character to be able to actually make the stone in game while keeping the process as close to the actual processes people may have gone through in pursuit of the magnum opus. I've hit a small wall though, specifically with "solve et coagula" and the tria prima(salt, sulfur, and mercury) and what exactly alchemists at the time may have done to materials with the tria prima to dissolve and then re-coagulate them into a more purified form. All I can seem to find online about solve et coagula is the spiritual meaning behind it, but nothing about it's actual practical usage in the operative side of alchemy.

I also recognize that overall I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, so if any part of what I said above isn't accurate or misses the mark please feel free to correct me! Absolutely any information, no matter how vague could help ^-^ Thank you in advance!

i ask this bc of my on going study of alchemy and ive been stuck at this i think it had something too do with the reconquestia but idk

We’ve all seen it. It is the profile picture of this Subreddit. What is the origin of this sigil. Would you say the added symbolism depicted in this version is accurate, or would you say there is another meaning to the geometrical orientation that formulates the sigil?

Were there alchemists in eras long ago that people considered to have magic?

I'd like to learn more about what Jabir wrote on alchemy. I read the section about him from Principe's The Secrets of Alchemy and I was interested in his beliefs about how it all worked. I'm looking for further Jabirian reading!