How to make the Philosopher's Stone -- powered by eHow.com
Tips & Warnings:
For more information I have a website with over 100 photos of my lab work. Alchemy-Illuminated.com
There are a few alchemists who have been doing alchemy for decades and still haven't made the stone because they believe everything alchemy books tell them. And there are far more misinformation books than correct ones. One such person is named Rubellus, and he claims this process won't work and said 'real' alchemists would laugh at this method. Well laugh all you want old man! Real alchemists, or people who've studied alchemy literature will most certainly understand the reality of this method. It is the arrogant people who think they are so well learned who will dismiss this processes as hogwash.
Make no mistake about it -- this a labor intensive process. It takes a lot of work to make enough of the red oil. The zinc ashes can always be reused by dissolving in vinegar again, and starting the distillations over.
Don't despair! Don't have a lab or live in a psycho country that doesn't allow citizens to do chemistry? No problem. Soon I will post the method which can be done indoors for those living in apartments, or those who don't want to mess with poisonous zinc and antimony. It is the VITRIOL path of Paracelsus.
The antimony you use can't be just metal from a store. It needs to be the Star Regulus of antimony because the iron in that process gives it energy. I will have an article posted about how to make it.
Antimony is poisonous, especially when it's smoking and fuming. This process must not be performed unless you are familiar with distillation and you have a fume hood properly installed.
Zinc is also poisonous in free ionic form, and that's exactly what form it's in when you distill the zinc acetate. It can cause permanent nerve damage when inhaled. You must make it impossible for the fumes to ever reach your nose. All fumes must exit through the fume hood and not enter into the space of the laboratory.
Do NOT ingest this tincture unless until you have it assayed to ensure no antimony or zinc is present. All that can be shown on the assay is gold.
DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only. Consume tincture at your own risk. I advise you to test it on plants, then on lab mice first to ensure it's safety.
Step1
Large zinc acetate crystals formed by slow drying PRIME MATERIA:
All american pennies from 1982 onward contain zinc coated with copper. Take a file and score open 4 spots around the edges. Do this to 50 pennies, then put them in a gallon of vinegar. After a few days, the zinc will be dissolved, but the copper casing will remain. Filter and save the vinegar. (The pennies should also be cleaned prior to placing them in the vinegar). You can also just buy some zinc; it's pretty cheap. You then will need to evaporate the vinegar. The slower you evaporate, the larger the crystals will be. Using only 100F is hot enough.
Step2
Zinc oxide forming on the walls of the distillation flask like snow PHILOSOPHICAL MERCURY:
Place the crystals in a distillation flask, and heat until a white fog appears. This is acetone and zinc fumes. If you use too much zinc acetate, more smoke will be created than your condenser can handle, so don't use too much at once. It's essential to keep the condensers cold with ice water. The fog will condense into a golden water, and zinc oxide flowers will form on the condenser walls. After it's all done, the zinc in the distillation flask will be ashes, and will smell aweful. Pour the liquid from the reciever flask back into the distillation flask with the zinc, and redistill. Do this several times. Then wash out the condenser and attachment arm with the golden water solvent. You will see a small amount of red oil form on the surface of the solvent. Collect and save this. It is the Philosophical Mercury which dissolves gold without violence. It is red, just like metallic mercury is when in a vacuum like a thermometer. It is the only chemical which dissolves gold, yet can be touched by the human skin without harm. It's a special form of mesityl oxide created by the condenstation reaction of the acetone fumes. This process was originally published in an alchemy book in the 12th century, but wasn't published in scientific texts until the 19th century. That's just all the more proof of what a treasure this was since they kept is secret for that long.
Step3
Gold dissolving in the red oil (Philosophical Mercury) DISSOLUTION & VOLATILISATION:
Place some gold leaf in this red Philosophical Mercury oil. In less than 4 hours it will dissolve. Distill out the solvent, and some of the gold will go with it into the receiver. Pour it back into the distillation flask and repeat until all of the gold goes over with the solvent. This volatilizes the gold.
Step4
Now distill the out the Philosophical Mercury solvent using very gentle heat of only 120F, and then gold will remain behind as a gum. Take this resinous gum and put it in a fresh clean distillation system, and heat it until it vaporizes and sublimes in the neck of the apparatus. All that sublimes is ready, and all that remains behind must be treated further with the Philosophical Mercury.
Step5
MULTIPLICATION:
You can dissolve the sublimed gold in alcohol and drink a few drops for a powerful elixir. But to multiply it's power further, you must give it more energy. In this case we will use Antimony which is a magnet of astral energy for the mineral realm. We of course will remove the antimony at the end because it's poisonous, but it's energy will remain with the gold.
Step6
DIGESTION:
Powder the antimony, and dissolve it with the Philosophical Mercury, then add your gold to the solution. Now digest this solution in low heat (120 to 130F) in a sealed flask for a few hours. You must then separate the solvent from the antimony and gold by distilling it at low temperature, and a gum again remains behind.
Step7
SEPARATION:
Now you need to get the antimony out. One way to do this is to heat the gum until a white smoke sublimes which is the antimony. With just a little more heat, the gold sublimes, so you must be careful. Sometimes the alchemists would use a hot copper sheet for this purpose. Once you have the antimony removed, you can have the remaining resin assayed to ensure it contains no trances of antimony. If it contains only gold, then you can dissolve it in alcohol to make a tincture.
Step8
TRANSMUTATION:
The antimony multiplies the power of the stone by 10 fold with each uniting and separation. If you consume anything beyond the first multiplication, it will kill you. Even though the assay shows nothing but harmless gold, the tincture contains energy that will burn and 'fire' the body. After the first multiplication, the 2nd and 3rd, 4th etc. are only good for transmutation of metals to gold.
Alchemy-Illuminated.com