Planet Metal Affinities
by Nick Kollerstrom
https://www.alchemywebsite.com/sevenmetals.html
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Part I
Silver and the Moon
Today, in the delicate chemistry of silver we may trace its Moon-nature. It is a metal which requires darkness for its reactions. A photographer needs darkness in his studio to work with this metal. Special bottles and pipettes made of dark glass are used for solutions of silver, and its salts are quickly spoilt by exposure to the light of day.
Silver and gold are the two metals which show an intimate connection with light in their chemistry, although in opposite ways. The Sun produces the different colours of day, whereas the Moon shining only by reflected light gives the black, white and grey tones of a moonlit scene. Gold itself produces the different colours, one feels its outgoing radiance, whereas silver receives light images passively, it is precipitated from solution by light. The silver images of photography are only in black white and grey, and for colour film salts other than silver must be used.
Astrologers associate the Moon with the faculty of imagination, of fantasy, as for example in imaginative writers or dreamy poets. The same property is seen in the way silver is able to create images. In photography it creates a memory-image of the past, in mirrors it gives an image of what is in present time before it. Today, most mirrors are made by coating glass with silver. When looking at a mirror we never feel we are looking at a sheet of silver. There is a certain receptiveness and passivity here, and similarly when looking at a photograph it never occurs to us that we are really looking at the differential precipitation of colloidal silver. We are not aware at all of the metal but only of the image it provides.
Silver is used by the cinema industry to form its ‘images of the silver screen’. Silver has always been the staple metal used for making films, in colour as well as in black and white, and the film industry is a major drain on the world’s silver reserves. From an astrological viewpoint, one can say that the dreams and fantasies which the cinema manufactures are somewhat lunar in nature, because the Moon is associated with dreams and the imagination. By its delicate and receptive Moon nature, the metal silver, in celluloid, will faithfully record light images.
The metal chromatography techniques developed by Kolisko are another example of the image-forming powers of silver. Here the varying images built up by the precipitation of colloidal silver are produced not by light but by the changing conditions of the cosmos itself. Properly used, this technique is an empirical method of investigating the correspondences here described. Silver’s Moon-quality of receptiveness here manifests remarkably.
A nice point was made by the reviewer of Agnes Fyfe’s work Die Signatur der Venus im Pflanzenreich (The signature of Venus in the plant-realm) (1). This follows on from Fyfe’s previous work, The Signature of Mercury in the Plant-Realm. The reviewer pointed out that Kolisko’s work used ‘above the Sun’ metals, iron, tin, and lead, whereas Fyfe’s work with plant sap uses the ‘below the Sun’ metals, copper and mercury. So all seven of the metals have now been used for recording chromatographically cosmic events of their associated planets. In both cases silver is normally used for manifesting the images, although in the latter case gold can be used if primarily colour rather than form is desired.
Silver is a mirror-creating element: a solution of silver in a test-tube readily precipitates a mirror onto the glass, this being the school chemistry test for silver in solution. As a metal it has the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of them all, as well as being the best reflector of visible light known.
Most of the world’s silver occurs dissolved in the oceans, reminding us of the Moon’s connection with water-processes. Silver iodide is used to make rain, by sprinkling it as a fine dust onto rainclouds, which leads to condensation. Shakespeare called the Moon ‘Pale governess of floods’, and rainfall as well as the tides has been shown to vary with the lunar cycle.
In the 1950s, ionic silver began to be used as a bacteriocide for water purifying systems, in the form of a precipitate on carbon granules. A U.S. Navy study, using ships passing through contaminated waters, found that a silver concentration of ten parts per billion made the water safe for drinking (homeopathically, a D8 concentration), and this method is nowadays used by shipping companies. Good domestic water-purifying systems nowadays contain, as well as an ion-exchange system, a silver tube which acts as a bacteriocide.
It has long been known that water carried in silver flagons stays fresh. Settlers moving across the American West would purify a container of water by leaving a silver dollar in it overnight. At the John Hopkins University of Maryland, researchers kept a community swimming pool clean just with a carbon-silver purifier. A report concluded, ‘During the time the silver-carbon filter was in operation, there were no cases of ear infections or eye irritations. Bathers and, in particular, swim teams enjoyed the clean, crystal clear silver-treated water without the usual disinfectants that sting, irritate the eyes, bleach swimsuits and affect hair colour’.(2) Here we see silver’s bacteriocide action, its action as the Moon-metal upon water, maintaining its quality. But, silver’s Moon-quality of purity can be appreciated in other ways, as in the special sound of silver bells.
From such considerations we see how the following adjectives apply to silver:
Reflective, image-forming (imaginative), receptive, impressionable, sensitive, pure
Are these lunar traits? I think they are. Compare them with a list of traits which the Gauquelins obtained in their attempt to define a ‘lunar personality’:
Doux, impressionable, nonchalant, parle bien, reveur, sensible, spirituel, subtil, sportif (pas) (3)
-a modal personality which they found most pronounced in imaginative writers, poets and dramatists.
Modern Uses
Nowadays, the main growth in silver markets comes from its use in jewellery and ornament – mainly in India. The 1990s have seen tremendous growth in this Indian market, much in the form of heavy-weight investment jewellery – bangles, ankle-rings and necklaces. Virtually every Hindu woman wears an ankle chain, which is nearly always silver. How appropriate that the Moon-metal should be used in these feminine and decorative contexts. Many domestic and decorative utensils, often given at the time of marriage, are silver, as likewise are those used in devotional ceremonies. Muslims use much less silver because of strictures imposed by the Koran, which seems odd considering the lunar symbolism inherent in Islam.
Photography is the main use for silver, despite competition from digital cameras. The firm Britannia Refined Metals in Kent extracts around 500 tonnes of silver from crude lead per annum, using lead shipped over from Australia. It refines the silver to 99.9% purity and then sells it to London bullion markets. The illustration below shows trading at the London Metal Exchange. They are trading silver, as shown by the crescent-Moon glyph! The LME is the world’s largest centre of trading for non-ferrous metals. Metal-dealers have always used the traditional alchemical glyphs.
Silver trading at the London Metal Exchange
Silver’s Healing Powers
The healing properties of silver appear as rather maternal and protective as befits its lunar essence. Here’s a website-testimony of a cure, by ‘Jeana’ who was ill and sore with mastitis – “I was very, very ill and the antibiotics were not helping at all,” and then her father suggested she try some colloidal silver. “Being a sceptic, I drank the glass of silver very slowly, trying to taste any strange aftertaste etc. … By the next morning, my mastitis was completely gone. My breast was no longer red or swollen. My baby had not been nursing well at all during this bout of mastitis; I had to use hot compression to get even one drop of milk from my right breast. But by the next morning my milk was free flowing, and I felt great.” Colloidal silver is regarded as safe to use during pregnancy and lactation.
Silver has a dynamic way of healing injured and damaged tissue. This was pioneered by Dr Robert Becker in “The Body electric” 1973. He found that by using silver electrodes he could stimulate bone-forming cells and stimulate healing of the skin and soft tissue, as described in a recent review by Mr Best: “Partly as a result of Becker’s work silver has been used in bone healing for many years now and is incorporated into bandages to speed up healing … a recent US study reported that silver catheters can prevent urinary tract infections much better then uncoated ones (4).”
There is a resurgence of interest in colloidal silver for combatting colds and viruses, and it could well be that there is no more useful bottle to have available in the family medicine cupboard. To quote Best again, “Ongoing research may eventually restore silver to its once-accepted status as probably the most versatile and effective natural agent against bacteria, fungi and, recently, viruses available – with the hugely important bonus that the latter finds it almost impossible to develop any resistance to it.” Also, colloidal silver is being used in skincare creams for its antiseptic properties, being effective on oily skin which is prone to spots and itches. “Colloidal silver is Nature’s antibiotic and has an antimicrobial effect,” a herbalist at the London Fermacia clinic remarked, adding that it purified the skin.
Doctors are likely to continue opposing these gentle, healing powers of silver, because their theories can’t account for it. As Luna (the Moon) tends to elude the categories of rational explanation, remaining enigmatic in a manner that baffles astronomers, so her metal silver may do likewise.
For medical uses of silver, see: www.silvermedicine.org/links.html
References
1. The Astrological Association Jnl., Spring 1980, p.50.
2. A Brief History of Silver in Water Treatment, p. 10, John D. Collins, Ionics, John Hopkins University.
3. ‘gentle, impressionable, nonchalant, well-spoken, a dreamer, receptive, spiritual, subtle, not the sporting type’, M. Gauquelin, La Cosmopsychologie, Paris 1974, p.155.
4. Caduceus, Autumn 2001, Simon Best’s report on Colloidal Silver pp.31-35
Part II
Quicksilver and Mercury
Mercury appears sometimes in the form of a fluid metal, sometimes in the form of a hard brittle metal, sometimes in the form of a corrosive pellucid salt call’d Sublimate, sometimes in the form of a tasteless, pellucid white Earth, call’d Mercurius dulcis, or in that of a red opake volatile Earth, call’d Cinnabar; or in that of a red or white Precipitate, or in that of a fluid Salt; and in distillation it turns into a Vapour, and being agitated in vacuo, it shines like Fire. And after all these Changes it returns again into its first form of Mercury.’
Sir Isaac Newton (1)
‘A mind like quicksilver’ – how well this image applies to mental processes! It is hardly surprising that astrologers should associate the planet Mercury with mental agility: the shining globules of this liquid metal form and reform so quickly, as fast as thinking. The metal mercury is the one element that one normally sees in the three states of matter – as the fluorescent lamp overhead in the classroom, as the liquid in the thermometer and as calamine the skin lotion; as Hermes was the one deity who could come and go through the three worlds.
Alas, the nimble quicksilver intelligence can end up as the ‘mad hatter,’ whose mind is a-jumping all over the place – remembered in Alice’s immortal tea-party. This was a condition to which hatters were prone in Victorian times, due to using mercury metal to give a shine to top hats.
As Hermes was the messenger of the gods, so mercurial types make good link people. Likewise the metal mercury amalgamates: different metals can be brought together by dissolving them in mercury, it is a solvent for metals. The term ‘amalgamate’ is also used in commerce: different firms amalgamate together. This is a mercury-process, and Hermes was traditionally the god of commerce.
Mercurius in the Air Famae alchymine, Leipzig 1717
The most characteristic chemical trait of mercury is association. It links itself up in the most unexpected ways. The tendency to form complex compounds is very marked in the case of mercury.(2) It combines with nitrogen and carbon compounds which metals normally won’t touch, as well as forming the usual metal salts, and forms complicated ‘organometallic’ mercury compounds, which catalyse the synthesis of a range of pharmaceutical and other organic, man-made products. It forms explosives (e.g. mercury iodide) which detonate at a mere touch. In amalgamating other metals together, it performs this interlinking function.
The Indian word for alchemy was ‘Rassayana’ which means ‘the way of mercury.’ The earliest alchemical texts in the West date from the first century AD, and this is also when the first texts for obtaining mercury from its ore cinnabar appear. Pliny the Roman naturalist gave such a recipe. Heating of the red ore cinnabar causes it to sweat globules of the shining metal; then, careful heating the mercury again yield a red ore (although this is the oxide, no longer the sulphide). This was the classic recipe whereby alchemists impressed their clients, and was the first inkling of a chemical reaction. Mercury’s changeable nature seemed to manifest mysteries of matter. Hermes in his Egyptian form as ‘thrice-greatest’ was the patron of alchemy, in which mercury had the central role. Alchemists who reckoned they could make gold would usually start off with mercury (which is, as chance would have it, next to gold in the Periodic table).
Mercurius in water
The orbit of this fastest-moving of planets was an enigma for a century. The plane of Mercury’s orbit kept ‘precessing’ or shifting about in a way that defied explanation, and Newton’s theory could not account for it. Mercury resisted this materialistic world conception, and it was only explained in the 20th century by the Theory of Relativity. Likewise, the metal mercury resists the solid state. It is the secret, the mystery of quicksilver, that a metal of such enormous density can yet remain liquid. It is not difficult to see why the alchemists credited mercury with a very special inner mobility and vitality.
Ancient Indian texts tell of ‘Vimana’ which were fabulous flying craft (e.g. in the Mahabarata). These texts inform us that the craft were powered by mercury. Clearly, speedy mercury was just the stuff to power these mythic ancient craft! The commonest daily use for mercury sees it in constant motion – the thermometer. Hermes was traditionally the god of medicine, and Mercury was for long given an important role in medical practice. It was for centuries the staple remedy for syphilis, and even today it is still used for skin ointments-calomel-and the sublimate is used as a disinfectant. Mercury amalgams are used in dentistry, and mercurial aids such as the thermometer and blood pressure apparatus aid the doctor. Thus the different aspects of the Mercury-nature are expressed both by the metal and by the planet in the sly, in accordance with the Hermetic maxim, ‘as above, so below.’
Mercury is always on the move, and nowadays it is coming out from circulation: from batteries, from tooth fillings, from gold amalgamation processes, etc, so that Euro- experts have a problem what to do with it. Thousands of tonnes of it might be placed carefully down one or two of the mines whence it was obtained! As Mercury is removed from large-scale use, we may be sure that other subtle properties of this mysterious and elusive element will turn up in due course.
References
1)Newton, ‘Optics’ 1717, Query 30
2) J.R.Partington, ‘A Textbook of Inorganic Chemistry’ 1960 p.795.
Part III
Copper and Venus
Copper in women’s blood serum has a monthly cycle in tune with their menstrual period, peaking a week or so before the period arrives. This is because their serum copper exists chiefly as the protein, ‘ceruloplasmin’, whose metabolism is closely linked to the female sex hormone oestrogen. The Pill works by emulating conditions of pregnancy where oestrogen is high, and this has a drastic effect upon serum copper levels. During pregnancy, copper serum in the mother climbs up to double its normal level, reaching 1.9 parts per million. Conversely, iron in foetal blood also increases as the time of birth approaches, so a copper-iron polarity develops between mother and child. Insomnia, depression and changeable moods towards the end of pregnancy have been related to the raised copper levels. A woman taking the Pill has blocked off her monthly rhythm of serum copper, and instead retains a permanently high level corresponding to the ninth month of pregnancy. Evidence suggests that copper has a dynamic role in the reproductive process, rather than just being a by-product of the raised oestrogen.
In the early 1970s it was discovered that coil contraceptives using copper were much more successful than previous coil designs. The ‘copper-7’ coil became the most popular design and was marketed world-wide, used chiefly by women who have already had one child. Despite intensive research however, no-one had any idea as to the mechanism whereby copper in the coil helped prevent conception. Copper ions have a biological action on the inside of the uterus, preventing implantation of the fertilised ovum. Its modus operandi is thus quite unconnected with that of the Pill, where overall blood serum levels are raised. The sole connection is that in both situations a striking Venus-quality is shown by copper’s behavior.
Having compared copper and iron in the blood, let’s compare them in other aspects – as their two planets are nearest to us, one within Earth’s orbit and the other outside it. Pure copper is a metal of reddish-pink hue, and has a warm, beneficial glow which contrasts with the cold glint of steel. With something made out of iron one may feel ‘how strong’ or ‘how useful’, whereas with something made out of copper, the first impression is more aesthetic. Whether it is a copper bowl, a trumpet, or a green-domed copper roof, it is the visual appearance rather than the utility of the metal which first strikes one. It is such a soft and pliable metal that it needs to be alloyed with other metals, into brass or bronze, before it can be used for a structural purpose.
In an exhibition of mineral ores those of copper first attract the attention, providing a joy to the eye as do those of no other metal. Look at the delicate green-blue hues of malachite or azurite- how different from the massive, solid forms of the iron ores, pyrites or haematite! The pyrite crystals form perfect cubes, expressing Martial power and strength. A contrast to this is the copper ore malachite, often cut and polished for decoration, to disclose its swirling patterns and sea-green hues. The names of the ores of copper point to gentle Venus qualities: azurite, malachite, turquoise, chalcopyrite and peacock ore.
A room in which iron or steel predominates has the atmosphere of an office or a factory. It demands a mood of efficiency from us. A room in which copper predominates, in contrast, has a warm, homely atmosphere, in which we can relax. This is a key concept to the English pub. Americans don’t understand this, and have drinking-bars where the cold glint of steel is evident, as promotes their violent and restless society. The high resonance of copper makes it suitable for a wide variety of musical instruments-in the strings of a string instrument, in the brass section, in percussive instruments, and so forth. Traditionally astrology associates the arts of music with Venus.
No-one has better appreciated the glowing hues of copper than the American artist Maxfield Parrish. His natal chart (25 July 1870) had strong Venus-aspects ( it was conjunct Mars and Moon and in opposition to Saturn). One of his pictures is here shown.
By Maxfield Parrish 1924
To trace the connection of copper with Venus we have to go back to a distant mythological era: back, in fact, to a Mediterranean isle, once ruled by a love-goddess – the island of Cyprus. This island was regarded as the domain of Venus-Aphrodite. Aphrodite was referred to as the ‘Cyprian goddess’. In Botticelli’s picture, The Birth of Venus, she is depicted as being born from the sea on to the shores of Cyprus. It is from the name of this island, Cyprus, that the word copper derives. The word copper comes from the Latin word cuprum and this derives from the Greek work Kyprus. Cyprus was in antiquity the principal source of copper, and so the metal was named after it. Venus was felt by antiquity to dwell just where such large amounts of copper had condensed. Venus was credited with a sea origin, and copper reminds us of this connection with the water element. All copper salts are sea-coloured, blue or green. All the ores and all the salts of copper are hydrated, water containing. Nearly all copper salts are highly soluble in water. The iridescent hues of a peacock’s tail (see picture) derive from green-blue copper complexes.
Venus in Splendor Solis 16th century, used with kind permission of the British Library
In various sea creatures the breathing process is by means of copper, not iron. They do not need the fiery Mars-energy, but have a more tranquil mode of being. A simpler, copper-containing molecule is used instead of the iron-molecule haemoglobin. The conch shell in Botticelli’s picture, always traditionally associated with Venus, comes from such a creature, one which respires by means of a copper-process. The octopus and the scorpion both respire using a copper-molecule in place of the iron-based haemoglobin.
That same polarity functions in an inorganic realm in the principle of the dynamo, where the relative motion of iron and copper generates electricity. Iron creates the magnetic field and copper wires carry away the current generated. The energy powering our civilisation derives from a pulsating Mars-Venus interaction, making alternating current. There was a Mars-Venus conjunction in the sky on the day when Michael Faraday discovered the dynamo principle (17 October, 1831).
As Mars and Venus in mythology were closely related, so are they found bonded together in the depths of the earth: the principle copper ore is in copper-iron pyrites, in which copper occurs together with iron. The darker threads of iron run through this sea-green ore of copper.
Copper Ore
Modern uses of the red metal range from computer microchips to solar power cells, and it remains a key material for telecommunications, even though optical fibres are now preferred for trunk lines. A mobile phone has several grams of copper in it. There isn’t a great deal of it left to mine – another about thirty years’ worth, maybe – which has caused it to become a highly-recycled metal. Architects appreciate its pliability and visual appeal. Copper’s lovely turquoise patina normally takes a few decades to mature, from exposure to the elements, but modern techniques can accelerate this process into a mere couple of months. London’s skyline has some fine copper roofing, e.g. on the Planetarium, Old Bailey and Royal Festival Hall.
Beauty creams use copper powder, notably the ‘Dr Hauschka’ range and Weleda’s Copper ointment: “Copper has a vital role to play in skin repair because of its ability to stimulate the growth of collagen and elastin… products containing copper tend to have good anti-inflammatory effects on the skin.” How pleasant to hear of the Venus-metal’s cosmetic use. After all, it is melanin, the copper-based skin pigment, which gives the bronze hue so vital for beauty’s image – not to mention brown hair colour, also due to melanin.
See www.copper.org for its modern uses, and www.astrology-world.com for the special harmonies of the Venus-orbit.
References
1. The Chemical Theatre, Charles Nicholl 1980, p.15.
PART IV
Gold and the Sun
Twenty years of gold prices, averaged over the course of a year.
Gold prices tend to rise in times of turbulence and uncertainty. Also, the price of gold has a seasonal trend, peaking in midwinter. Then, when sunlight is weakest, people show a greater desire for gold, the sun-metal. The graph shows the trendline I found over twenty years of daily London gold prices. I couldn’t find any other trends apart from this one. Is that worth trading on? Well, write and say!
Traditionally the noblest of the metals, gold expresses the splendour and radiance of the Sun. As the only metal which never tarnishes, it will resist the fiercest fire. Its sun-like nature is evident, for it needs to glitter in the sun to express itself, and has a unique relation to light and colour. The metal can be beaten out so thinly that it has hardly any solidity left, when it appears as gold by reflected light but green by transmitted light. Colloidal gold solutions, in dilutions of parts per 100 million, produce a wide variety of colours. From metallic gold one can obtain, so to speak, any colour under the sun: In gold we see the brilliance of the sun, but other rich colours are also seen in its colloidal solutions, ranging from greenish-blue, through reddish, violet-blue to pure rose – from the gold of a noonday sun to the radiant colours of sunset (1).’
The sun manifests the colour of gold at sunrise and at sunset. The latin word for gold, aurum (thus, the chemical symbol Au), derives from the Greek word Aurora – the golden goddess of the dawn. Rudolf Steiner gave ‘AU’ as the Sun-sound, so try intoning it. The word ‘aura’ comes from the same root, indicating the idea of radiance as associated with this metal.
Sun in Splendor Solis 16th century, used with kind permission of the British Library
Like sunlight through air, so is gold diffused through Earth’s crust: ‘Gold is a remarkable substance. A description of its physical properties can leave one in awe, even disbelief. Gold is present everywhere on the Earth – in the seas, in the highest strata of the atmosphere and in the earth itself on every continent. It exists as the finest dust and dense nuggets. There are however no veins of gold as there are of other metals. The denser deposits are combined with silica, for example, or in iron or sulphur compounds, containing arsenic. Combined with silver, mercury, copper and antimony, however, gold is to be found finely distributed. (2)’ This author described how the gold mines in South Africa descend thousands of metres, to mine gold present in maybe less than one part per hundred thousand of the ore – only to be reburied in bank vaults! The largest deposits of gold are found in Africa. In this continent, whose geography shows so many different sun-influences, and whose music expresses so powerfully the throbbing pulse of the heart, the greatest amounts of the sun-metal have condensed.
The Sun’s position in a birth-horoscope is said to express one’s true being. To help get a grip on this, let’s consider why people spend more to have a pen with a gold nib. This isn’t just because it lasts longer than a steel-nib, but because of something not easy to express, that handwriting with a gold-nib pen better expresses one’s ‘personality’ or inner being than does a steel-nib pen.
Until very recent times gold was used as a heart remedy, this being the organ associated with the sun. Homeopathic doctors still use it in this manner in high dilutions and regard it as a remedy for depressive or suicidal conditions: a ‘total eclipse of the heart’. Its distribution within the human organism reaches its highest concentration in the region of the heart. Gold is used by doctors to diagnose heart problems. As the highest concentrations of gold in the human body occur around the heart, a radio-isotope of gold has been developed (the Au-195 isotope), which can give an image of the blood-containing structures within the heart, a process called ‘heart-imaging’. Gold gives a heart image! In Britain this new technology has been developed in St. Bartholomew’s hospital, London. One expert described the gold used in this way as ‘a very convenient medium for rapid assessment of changes in cardiac function’ (3,4).
Aurora, Dawn-goddess 1808 by Otto Runge, Hamburg
Economically, gold functions as a kind of heart-centre which maintains and guarantees a circulation of paper money. The pulse of the economy is taken by noting the value of gold. In ingots of great density it is stored underground, far from the sunlight; where it acts as it has done throughout history, in a somewhat magical manner, as that which is most to be desired – again, a heart quality held by no other element. After all, would you want a wedding-ring of platinum?
As regards the heart-qualities which gold has, astronomers are discerning ever more clearly how the Sun functions as the heart-centre of our solar system. It has a heart-beat over its eleven-year cycle and thereby circulates material around the solar system. It’s the fiery heart-centre of the macrocosm, and gold is the Sun-metal. Feel the fiercely burning solar corona around, your heart of fire. Gold works as a heart-medicine.
Cows have the highest concentration of gold in their horns. The horns are the one part of a cow that points upwards, which give to the cow its dignity. I recommend visiting a Biodynamic farm, where you will see cows with their horns left on. Naturally, this makes them more resistant to disease, and no UK Biodynamic farms got Foot and Mouth in the recent epidemic, or BSE (mad cow disease). Normally it is said that gold has no biochemical purpose, because it is chemically inert. But, let’s go a little deeper and try envisaging the Egyptian image of the Sun between two horns of a cow. I have a dream: of a laboratory, where the apparatus is simple enough to bring delight to a child. It would have two Perspex models, of a human being and a cow, showing their varying gold-concentration: reaching its highest level around the heart for man, and in the horns for a cow.
Gold is a metal on a journey, shown by its number given in ‘carats,’ which goes up to twenty-four, for absolute purity. A gold ring may be 18 carats, and thinly-beaten gold which needs to be soft could be twenty-two carats. The carat-number indicates how long the gold has been in the furnace, how intensely purified it has been to free it from baser metals. The Sun moves across the sky every twenty-four hours, and around the year in twelve months, so this solar number defines the quality of gold. The weight of gold is measured in Troy, with one Troy ounce of gold equivalent to 480 (24 x 20) grains of wheat. The golden grains of wheat, sun-ripened, are fixed in an equivalence to the solar metal, indicating a healthy basis for currency and wealth (5).
The spiritual development of a culture should be measured by the proportion of gold which it keeps above-ground, to glitter in the sunlight and adorn the beauty of womankind, its sacred temples and places of magnificence – as compared with that buried in vaults and hidden away underground. The former indicates a commitment to communal happiness, and in fact solar glory, while the latter embodies mere private greed and the lust for lucre.
Medicinal Colloidal gold is becoming more widely used as a medicine – a very traditional alchemical concept. It is claimed to work in a quite subtle way as a heart-remedy. Some find that their will-power is enhanced upon taking it, in terms of being able to focus on what one wants to achieve. Especially in America there has been a tradition that colloidal gold is given for ‘dypsomania’ or craving for alcohol. Drug-addicts are said to experience a loss of appetite for their drugs after taking the solution for a few days. Here is a web-testimony: “I have found great benefit personally in the emotional area. My wife will tell you I am a much easier person to live with … My brother who is four years older was in such a bad state the doctors had him on Zoloft, the antidepressant that is like Prozac. He started on colloidal gold almost two years ago and is living a happy life now with no known side-effects.” It is said that the body’s warmth-mechanism may be positively affected by gold, particularly in cases of hot flushes, chills and night-sweats.
One would like to hear more discussion of these effects, as may deepen our insight into how traditional heart-qualities are associated with gold, the Sun-metal. The colloidal gold solution is a ruby-red hue, as likewise the precious ruby is red from homeopathically-dilute traces of gold in the quartz. Besides being a great morale booster and healer, dietary gold is an effective but subtle pain reliever: gold salts are injected into arthritic joints to relieve pain.
For mythology of Aurora, golden Goddess of the Dawn, search for ‘Eos’ or ‘Auos’ on the web. ‘Eos appeared in her flowery cloth of gold’ (Oddesey 10.540), and ‘rosy-fingered Eos.’ The words aura, aurum and Aurora share the same etymology.
References
1.Alison Davidson, Metal Power, the soul life of the planets 1991, p10.
2. C.Budd, Of Wheat and Gold, 1988,p.50.
3. Elliot et al., Physics in Medicine and Biology, 1983, Vol. 28, pp.l39, 147.
4. Dymond et al., Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 1983, Vol. 2, pp.85-92.
5. Ibid, p.47.
PART V
Iron and Mars
Whistle Down the Wind, Lloyd Webber Co, with permission
Mars has two rocky little moons, and one of them is destined to crash in the future, doomed to disintegrate, being too close to its parent planet. By meditating on these things one can experience the being of Mars. The archetype of Mars is fully expressed both in the red planet in the sky and in the metal iron under the ground. Thus, modern space discoveries have deepened our understanding of the primary Hermetic principle, as quoted above by Paracelsus.
Of the seven metals, iron is the ‘earthy’ one, having a stronger connection with the Earth than do the others – for a start, it’s the only one that aligns with the Earth’s magnetic field, in a compass. It’s present in far larger quantities in the earth’s crust than the other ‘classical’ metals. The others – lead, tin, gold, copper, mercury and silver – total no more than 0.01%, or one part in ten thousand of the Earth’s crust. They are in a sense little more than ‘visitors to the Earth’ (the phrase is Dr. Steiner’s), although we use them so much nowadays that we forget their scarcity. Iron makes up about 5% of the crust, being the only one which has built itself solidly into the substance of the earth.
Reddish-looking soil means that iron is present, and, for the same reason, Mars is red. So the symbolism of Iron-Mars is direct and obvious, with nothing subtle about it. Mars has always been associated with blood and war because of this symbolism. But, let’s not forget that that symbolism is also physiological fact: the blood is red because of the iron in it! The main ore of iron is pyrites, ‘fool’s gold.’ Have some of its marvelous cubic-crystal structures on your mantelpiece! The other common ore is haematite, which has a quite different bulbous structure, and a dark reddish hue. ‘Haem’ means blood and ‘pyr’ means fire – blood and fire! These are indeed the Mars-attributes.
Of the seven metals, iron is the one that burns. A falling star is burning iron. A meteorite burns brightly as it falls through the atmosphere. Fireworks use the burning sparkle of iron filings. Some steel wool can be ignited, then plunge it into a jar of oxygen, when it will glow fiercely. Thereby one experiences the fiery energy of Mars. … One is reminded of Vulcan and Ares by such a demonstration, the two Mars-archetypes of antiquity. One was married to Aphrodite the Goddess of Love while the other just had an affair with her. Vulcan or Haephastos was the Smith, who forged the armour and instruments of war. The fiercely-glowing iron is removed from the furnace and then hammered into shape. Haephastos was lame, symbolizing an affliction that could befall Smiths from arsenic-poisoning. As copper and iron are bound together in the Earth, with most copper ores bound up with iron, as copper and iron interact in the blood, copper helping the iron metabolism – so Mars and Venus were mutually attracted. One sees this in the principle of a dynamo, where an iron-copper interaction takes place to produce the throbbing pulse of electrical energy.
Within the human body the fire-energy of Mars is seen in the metabolic process. Iron has a key role in the combustion processes within the tissues of the body, whereby food is turned into energy. Blood becomes red as the iron-containing molecule haemoglobin carries oxygen throughout the body. Thereby foodstuffs can be metabolised, as fuel for the organism. This same iron-molecule then absorbs the product of combustion, carbon dioxide, so the blood becomes blue, and carries it back to the lungs.
In this breathing iron-process, which never ceases while life is present, there is the restless energy of Mars, as the blood rhythmically alternates from red to blue, from oxygen carrying to carbon dioxide carrying, moving away from the lungs then back again. As it does this, the unique iron-molecule haemoglobin continually changes its shape. Iron has the property of readily passing from one valency condition to the other, as connects iron with the rhythmic breathing process.
One is ‘anaemic’ if one lacks iron in his blood; or, equally, it may refer to a lack of Mars-attributes in the character: strength, courage and will. Weleda make a ‘meteoric iron’ remedy as is supposed to help with giving such strength to the will, for persons who feel a bit anaemic, or as if they cannot cope with life’s challenges. According to Mellie Uyldert, ‘If they [anaemic people] eat nettles or spinach, their zest for life returns,’ these plants being high in iron. I suppose that Popeye is a modern Mars-archetype, who gains his strength from eating a tin of spinach.
As the Smith forged iron, with his hammer and anvil, so the development of the blast furnace required control over fire-processes. Iron has been closely involved with human history, as its strength gave men the power to dominate nature: ‘The true Iron Age, led mainly by the peoples of the West, arises as a creation of iron and steel. Iron is harnessed to purely material goals. The shackles by which man has enslaved nature are forged of iron’ (3). As you press down the pedal on the gas, an iron apparatus controls combustion. The Mars-metal iron unleashes masculine power. For the history of warfare, the development of hardened steel was pivotal, and is today today the element from which all weapons are made.
An iron-and-coal girdle surrounds the Earth, through Wales, England, Germany, France, Russia and America. Today we live surrounded by iron and steel, and within this will find no cure for the rising tide of violence. We might however note the mystery of iron. Yes, iron has got a mystery. Comparing the black hue of your wrought-iron garden gate with the gleaming steel of the car bumper, can they really be the same element? A few percent of carbon turns one into the other, as reminds us of Iron’s strong connection with the Earth. Carbon the Earth-element makes all the difference to iron, giving to it the awful strength of steel.
NICKEL
Cobalt, nickel and manganese are metals with iron-like properties. They are ferromagnetic, are used in steel alloys and in fireworks, and have comparable physical properties. Dr Rudolf Hauschka regarded them as being ‘the brothers of iron’. Nickel alloys are vital for the tough, high-performance equipment in today’s planes, trains, cars and boats, eg the turbines of a power-station. Most nickel produced goes into steel alloy, where it adds corrosion-resistance and strength. For example, Japan has a fast, magnetically-levitated train that zooms around Tokyo, and it utilises this alloy in various key roles. Nickel has an ability to absorb kinetic energy in the event of a collision and this contributes to the safety of passengers. These are all fine, Martial qualities.
The Chrysler building, a historic landmark in New York city, was constructed in 1930 using nickel-containing stainless steel, for its roof, spire and gargoyles, and today it is as good as new. In Devon, the Eden Project used a lightweight nickel-steel tubular alloy to make its magnificent bio-domes. In Spain, nickel-containing stainless steel is being used for parabolic solar collectors, which are generating electricity at a lower cost than any photovoltaic system. Modern tidal-power and wind-power systems depend upon this alloy to survive the elements. All nickel products are recycled after use – including the kitchen sink. It has an energetic new use in metal hydride batteries, which are quick to recharge and will deliver give high voltages: they power everything from mobile phones to laptop computers, from digital cameras to cable-free power tools. Electric cars with these batteries can travel a couple of hundred kilometres on a single charge. Nickel is found in certain iron-meteorites. Things have come a long way since the ‘Nickels’ or mountain spirits of mediaeval times gave to this element their name.
PART VI
Tin and Jupiter
A main use of the Jupiter-metal tin is still in the preserving of foodstuffs. Traditionally Jupiter was the preserver, and a well-placed Jupiter in the chart is alleged to preserve youth. Ale used to be drunk from pewter mugs, a tin-based alloy. Theatres simulate the sound of thunder by shaking a sheet of tinfoil, which produces a roar like distant thunder (Jupiter-Zeus was the god of thunder, and astrologers associate Jupiter aspects with rain and thundery weather conditions).
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi (1975) the Italian novelist and industrial chemist, was a book that sketched out the essential being of various elements, in stories. Its chapter on tin alludes to ‘the generous good nature of tin, Jove’s metal,’ and an expansive, jovial character appears: ‘Emilio’s father was a majestic, benign old man with a white mustache and a thunderous voice’, and ‘Emilio’s father looked so respectable and authoritative…’
Tin metal seems only able to give us a poor expression of its Jupiter-nature. … the latter is however quite well-expressed by the planet in the sky: Jupiter’s rich, ‘psychedelic’ colouring derived from continuous lightning-flashes in its atmosphere, and it throws huge storms which reverberate around the solar system. Perhaps we should be content with that, and maybe in the future other relevant tin-properties will emerge.
The last Cornish tin mine closed in 1988, but of late steps have been taken to reopen a one, and it looks as if the oldest Cornish industry is now being resurrected. The Roman deity Jupiter was associated with both the Etruscan sky-god Tinia as well as the Greek Zeus. The supreme Etruscan sky-god “was known variously as Tin, Tini tinia or tinis. This supreme sky-god was depicted with lightning-bolts, a spear and a sceptre. Basically he as the complete prototype for Jupiter” (web comment). The Etruscans lived on the Italian peninsula from the eighth to the first century, B.C. There were early trade-routes to Cornwall from the Mediterranean to obtain Cornish tin It’s been argued that ‘Jupiter rules tin, and our tin came from the Anglo-Saxon tin… These and similar words must have travelled along the great trade routes’ (R.H.Oliver, Phenomena 1978 2:5:26).
Bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, has been used to make sculptural objects as early as the seventh millennium BC. Pewter was introduced into Britain by the Romans in the 3rd century AD, being made from Cornish tin and Welsh lead. Pewter tableware was once commonplace, but gave way in time to porcelain and other materials; is now becoming popular again for decorative materials, but without lead (antimony is used instead). The worshipful company of Pewterers launched a Millenium pewter collection, extolling its traditional virtues – solidarity, lustre, practicality of use and handling, no tarnishing – which do sound quite Jovial. Tin wine-capsules, wrapped around the necks of wine-bottles, now account for some 4,000 tons per annum of tin production, a growing market, and this seems Jovial enough. The Oscar-award trophies are made from tin, coated with gold. Use of tin solder is growing in electronics, especially computer hardware, and modern laptop liquid crystal screens have a tin-oxide film for their panels.
PART VII
Lead and Saturn
‘Saturnism’ was one of the first industrial diseases to be recognized, so named because its symptoms – headaches, fatigue, irritability and depression – seemed reminiscent of a ‘saturnine’ humour. From brewing cider in pewter vessels, to using lead paint on houses, and lead solder in water supplies, the addition of lead to petrol was just one more link in a long tradition. In the 1970s, scientists finally became able to measure reliably the level of lead in the normal-population bloodstream, at around one or two-tenths of a part per million (That’s D7 in homeopathic terms). The idea that this could be impeding child intelligence and promoting hyperactivity seemed like science fiction.
I was then working in the government’s Air Pollution Unit in London, measuring city air lead levels. It dawned on me that these symptoms had a ‘Saturnine’ character – as, equally, did the reason for putting the lead into petrol, which was to slow down the combustion-process and make it more regular. I participated in the great British lead debate which then erupted, and wrote a book on the subject, then finally apprehended that this debate had entirely revolved around the triple Saturn-Jupiter conjunction of 1980 (such triple events being very rare). The issue soon vanished from public debate, once the conjunction was over!
Do we have a generation of ‘heavy metal kids,’ with a witches’ brew of heavy metals a-jangling in their bloodstream, impeding their mental concentration? The prime culprits nowadays are aluminium, lead and cadmium – and, conversely, a deficiency of vital elements such as zinc, selenium, chromium and calcium. Any child growing up in an inner-city environment and showing a difficulty in concentrating, should be tested via hair, tooth or blood for such. This should be routine, and especially for any crime of violence where lack of self-control is involved. Yes it really, really is the case that a mere one or two tenths of a part per million of lead in the human bloodstream impairs central nervous system development in a growing child. Such things should be part of pre-conceptual care for responsible couples, who want a nice child. This basest of metals needs to be removed from the general environment. The trouble is, it’s so useful!
Lead stores in the bone tissue. If you could see only that part of a person where lead was, you’d see – a skeleton. Saturn-Chronos as ‘old Father Time’ was traditionally a skeletal figure. It takes about thirty years to flush out bone lead, so it’s a fairly permanent affair. However one should not view this with ‘leaden-eyed despair.’ No other metal tends so much to form insoluble compounds. It is a heavy, dark, sluggish metal, and of the seven it is the slowest conductor of electricity and the least lustrous or resonant.
Lead exists as a boundary or limit of heaviness. To see this we need to look at the Periodic Table of elements, and there we notice that the elements above lead are radioactive, i.e. they are too heavy to remain stable. They decay, until they reach lead, then they stop. So various lead isotopes can be present in a rock, that are the end-products of radioactive decay. Broadly speaking, the more of these isotopes there are, the older the rock is likely to be. Scientists measure age by lead! They may take a ratio of uranium to lead, and from this proportion they will infer billions of years of age. This indicates Saturn’s connection with Time, though whether such inferred eons of ‘lead time’ are real or illusory is another matter. When scientists looked at the moon rock, the most distinctive ‘fingerprint’ they found was that of the lead-isotopes, from which they inferred its enormous age.
The Saturn-archetype is associated with the notion of a boundary or limit, which reminds us of this lead-property. Also, Saturn holds an hourglass: use of lead in paint is now banned, but no other white paint can last through the years like a lead-based paint. But, lead paint is still used for painting the yellow lines along the kerbside (lead chromate). Only a lead paint is tough enough! Here the lead sternly prohibits one from parking, over certain limited hours, which seems Saturnine enough. The planet Saturn displays a strong vertical axis, with its magnetic and rotation axes coinciding within one degree, and at a right angle to these are the rings, exactly level and circular. A plumb-line holds the vertical, lead’s earliest use (plumbum, lead Latin). Saturn’s gravitas is sometimes required to hold one’s balance in life.
Lead levels in human blood have been plummeting over the last two decades, right across Europe. The three ‘p’s piping, paint and petrol have all seen lead phased out and mean levels in blood are well below the one-tenth of a part per million (milligram per litre). So does that mean we’re in the clear? Alas no – being so insoluble, lead takes a long time to leave the environment. Anyone committing a crime of violence is likely to have something like four times more lead and aluminium in their hair then a normal person – that’s a staggeringly large differential*. There is a very dark, negative side to lead poisoning and we need to understand this.
Lead has one of the highest recycling rates for all materials, with 90% recycling for lead in batteries for many European countries. Demand for lead continues to grow. The lead industry has been struggling to counteract negative public perception of this metal and an enormous body of legislation has developed to limit releases of lead into the environment. TV sets and computer monitors use cathode ray tubes and to protect viewers and operators from harmful X-rays, the glass used for the cathode ray tubes contains 23% lead oxide.
By far the biggest use of lead worldwide is for the car battery, needed by every vehicle in the world – about three-quarters of total demand. This represents a huge increase in recent years. Experts are looking at ways of recharging these in minutes rather than hours. Lead-acid batteries are nowadays helping the two billion persons not connected to any power supply. They are maintenance-free, and can connect to renewable sources such as photovoltaic cells. In California, zero-emission electric buses can be recharged up to 50% in five minutes and such fast recharging is crucial for the bus’s viability
* Neil Ward (U. of Surrey) Heavy metal Status of Incarcerated Young Offenders , in Heavy Metals in the Environment Vol.2, Hamburg, 1995, 277-80.
PART VIII
Plutonium and Pluto
Pluto’s turning-point
The new planet Pluto appeared in 1930 conjunct its own node. Its orbit makes a steep angle to the ecliptic so this was quite a pronounced event; therefore its appearance was enormously powerful, as if some Hades-type principle had emerged into the light of day. In 1932 artificial transmutation began, and then in 1942 atomic energy was unleashed. In politics unheard-of horrors appeared, as if underworld principles had emerged: the victors of World War II somehow acquired the assumption that it was OK to target missiles on the cities of other nations. For the dreadful new weapons, Pluto’s element was the trigger. Tension heightened until, in the 1980s, a majority of Britons were expecting the thermonuclear conflagration – remember? The necro-technocrats seemed to be in control. Hidden missiles deep in their silos, which we never saw, threatened to emerge into the light of day, and ‘cruise missiles’ were wheeled around Europe.
The ’80s were stressful because Pluto had entered within the orbit of Neptune. It came nearest in 1989. Its orbit is strongly elliptical, so this nearest approach (its ‘perihelion’) was quite marked. Once that distant sphere started to recede, the tension abruptly vanished: we could all forget about the terror of annihilation, and the shadow of the Bomb faded into yesterday’s memory. The plutonium-crazed history of the nuclear arms race thus appears as framed by two events: Pluto crossing its node in 1930, then reaching its perihelion in 1989.
A New god of darkness
The Bard surveys plutonian history from midnight,
Lit with Mercury Vapour streetlamps till in dawn’s early light
He contemplates a tranquil politic spaced out between Nations’ thought-forms
Proliferating bureaucratic & horrific arm’d,
Satanic industries projected sudden with Five Hundred Billion Dollar Strength …
Ginsberg, Plutonian Ode (2)
When Uranium was discovered in 1789, it was named after the new planet Uranus, found in 1781. No further elements beyond Uranium were discovered until after Pluto’s appearance. Uranium was the ninety-second element in the Periodic Table of elements, and when the next two elements in this sequence turned up, elements 93 and 94, there was a kind of inevitability about their naming. They had to be named after the next two planets, and so were called neptunium and plutonium – both found at Berkeley using the new cyclotron. Glen Seaborg who named the new element had (it hardly needs saying) no inkling of the awful symbolic appropriateness of the name he was giving. He would have guessed it would be fissile, that’s about all.
Within the core of nuclear reactors, a transmutation-process goes through the sequence of the outer planet-names:
The problem of who had what plutonium was an exciting government secret, labyrinthine in its deceptions. Pluto’s domain gained its ‘plutocratic’ wealth from minerals, especially precious stones and metals, underground: advocates of a plutonium economy foresaw an era of cheap energy that would ensue from using it. The trouble was that a mere microgram (millionth of a gram) can kill, if lodged in the lungs. The dream (or nightmare) of plutonium-based reactors, called ‘fast-breeder’ reactors, seems to have died, around ‘Pluto’s turning-point’ of 1989, due to world uranium costs dropping.
Pluto Rising
What new element before us unborn in nature? Is there a new thing under the Sun?
At last inquisitive Whitman a modern epic, detonative, Scientific theme
First penned unmindful by Doctor Seaborg with poisonous hand,
Named for Death’s planet through the sea beyond Uranus…
Ginsberg, Plutonian Ode
Chart for the Creation of Plutonium: Berkley cyctron, 8pm. Dec 14, 1940
There was a definite moment, when the endeavour to create a sample of plutonium began: in Berkeley, California, Glen Seaborg switched on the beam of the big cyclotron onto a sample of uranium. Seaborg’s diaries give us the exact moment of this event. The previous summer neptunium had been made, and Seaborg’s team decided to have a go for element 94. A beam of deuterium was focussed upon a uranium sample from 8.00 hours until midnight, on December 14th, 1940 (5). The chart for this moment has Pluto rising within half a degree. Sun, Moon and Earth are aligned (at Full-Moon) with the Galactic Centre at 27° of Sagittarius. That’s our local black hole, which could be symbolically quite appropriate. Also in line is Seaborg’s own Pluto, i.e. its position when he was born, at 27° of Gemini.
The Plutonium-creation chart is bristling with pentagram-symmetries which astrologers call ‘quintiles.’ There was a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction chiming and Pluto was square to this, and also it was in quintile to (72° ) Uranus. That quintile between Pluto and Uranus met and re-met altogether five times (due to the retrograde motions), and Plutonium was created at the last of these five quintiles. The Moon was on the midpoint of this aspect i.e. in a decile (36° ) aspect to them, and right on the position of Seaborg’s natal Pluto (within 5′). Thus Pluto had moved a decile (36° ) since Seaborg was born.
Plutonium has five different crystal-type conditions or ‘phases’ that it can be in, and has five possible valencies (6). These are abnormal and surely unique properties for a metal. In addition it seemed to me that it could exist as five possible isotopes that were important, though others were also feasible. Its markedly fivefold character was expressed by the pentagram-geometry in the heavens at its birth.
I found and published the chart for plutonium in 1984, then more recently in 2000 its striking connection to the earlier chart for Pluto’s appearance was noticed (7). The ‘ascendent’ of the plutonium chart was four-and-a-half degrees of Leo, i.e. this was the degree rising when the cyclotron beam was switched on, and Pluto was then at four degrees of Leo. When Pluto was discovered a decade earlier (by Clyde Tombaugh at Flagstaff, Arizona, at 4.00 am on Feb 18th, 1930), the ascendent at Flagstaff was three-and-a-half degrees of Leo: the genesis-moment for plutonium had Pluto rising and on the ascendent degree of its own discovery! Such synchrony rules out the possibility of chance, and indicates that the new metal is in some sense ruled by the new planet. Also, Taylor noticed, a straight line between Berkeley, where the new element was made, and Trinity where the first plutonium device was exploded, passes right through Flagstaff in Arizona.
Pluto and its large moon revolve around a center of gravity which is outside them both, rather like some fission product. Thus the given position of Pluto is pure nothingness, mere empty space…
References
1.Allen Ginsberg, Plutonian Ode, 1982 City Lights Books San Fr.
2. K. McLeish, ‘Myth,’ 1996 Bloomsbury p.236.
3. In Canada, nuclear reactors have remained unlinked to any military program.
4. The Plutonium Story, The Journals of Professor Glen T. Seaborg 1939-46, Ohio 1994, p.14.
5. N.K., Pluto and Plutonium The Astrological journal Autumn 1984 p.4. I obtained the relevant page of his then-unpublished diaries via a letter from Seaborg. The genesis-moment is 4.00 am GMT on Dec 15th 1940.
6. Plutonium ‘undergoes no less than five phase transitions between room temperature and its melting-point.’ Also its ions are commonly ‘in the III, IV,V & VI oxidation states, but also VII’: J.Katz and G.Seaborg, Chemistry of the Actinide elements 1957 p.265.
7. Brian Taylor, The discovery of Pluto in: Orpheus, Voices in contemporary Astrology Ed S.Harvey 2000 247-330.
MORE RESOURCES
The archived version of this site www.anth.org.uk/science/Kolisko examines whether these traditional associations can work today.
In medicine: www.colloidalgold.com
In medicine: www.silvermedicine.org/links.html
Its many other uses: www.copper.org
Lead and Saturn