Alchemy has sparked an intense interest, both positive and negative, for over four thousand years on several continents. When many people think of Alchemy, they think of the transmutation of base metals into gold. Others recall the relentless quest for the Philosopher's Stone, said to cure all diseases and to prolong life. Most people understand very little about the Alchemist's work, and dismiss it as ancient history that seems irrelevant in today's world.
Modern physics has enabled scientists to transmute certain elements into gold in small quantities using an atomic reactor, a device that the Alchemists lacked. Modern medicine has advanced greatly since the middle ages and yet there are many diseases that currently elude cure such as the Zika virus and its relative, the Dengue virus.
Were the ancient Alchemists's able to cure or alleviate any diseases whose cure is still out of the reach of modern medicine? Was the transmutation of vast quantities of lead or silver into gold actually performed hundreds of years ago by the Alchemists? These are very broad questions, each of which could consume volumes to help answer.
In the work of Ruesenstein, available as Volume 47 in the R.A.M.S. Library of Alchemy, the Baron speaks of a Universal Medicine as follows:
The Round Root, a
Universal Medicine.
These things are called round roots and they grow between stones
on the shaded side where lots of moss grows too. They can be found in the middle
of the moss. They have leaves like those of a carrot, but they are very small
and you can hardly tell the difference between them and the moss. The root is
as big as a hazelnut and formed just like a normal root. It is so precious that
3 grains of this root can help cure all illnesses.
Schulz once said: My tincture is not in the regulus, nor in
another metal; it is in Nature herself, for it is in the May dew, rain or snow.
For the nature of metals is fixed, but these are open and nature is hidden in them
in a natural way. The <symbol for philosophical salt> can be brought out through putrefaction or through
the skill of our artists. This is both the beginning and the end of all things.
The R.A.M.S. Library of Alchemy is published with permission from the Estate of Hans W. Nintzel.
