In the biblical account man was created out of the dust of the Earth; in China there was an army made out of clay which the emperor thought he could bring to life; with the “essence of immortality .” So convinced was he; that he sent envoys out into the world; to find and retrieve the essence and bring it back to him in China. His belief was that the essence could be found in gold; and mercury; and his army could be brought to life; only if he knew how to produce it or extract that substance of immortality. The origin of this essence comes from the idea that the River of Life comes from the Tree of Life; and gold is immortal or doesn’t age; so its essence is the substance of immortality.

Humankind, like the Earth, is a composite of all the elements. Iridium for example is found only in the iris of the eyes of the human body. Whereas iron is the nucleus of every drop of blood in the human body and is at the core of Earth’s lava. The ancient doctrine of the micro-cosm; and the macro-cosm; is the idea that mankind’s body is a copy of the Earth’s body. Containing in percentages; the known elements from the universal chart of elements. Man’s body being a copy of the Earth’s dusty composition. The Earth’s elements are the ingredients; just add water; stir with light; and create mankind, or any living thing.

Such was the task of the Alchemist. The exact recipes were the task; the secrets were written out in a code of sorts; using words such as dragons; unicorns; swords ; and symbols representing the stars and planets; along with time projections recorded as positions of the Earth  amid its heavenly cycles and the charted positions of the Sun; Moon and Venus; and the Earth’s locations amid the heavenly bodies as backdrops for operations of the alchemical art.

The artist poses a question:

Here is a strange question for consideration. If a small amount of a clear liquid is sealed up in a glass test tube; and it is warmed slightly; and suddenly goes up as a vapor; through the wall of the clear glass test tube; and it doesn’t break the glass test tube; is it fair to call the substance ” liquid light ” ?

That’s some amazingly thin substance; to make its way through spheres of glass; passing between the atoms of what we normally consider to be a solid container of liquids.

What would have happened if I had smelled the vapor?

The artist might find that the really big questions begin after obtaining the essence; beginning with the all-important: how to use the essence; and not die in the process. Obviously the normal body temperature, it seems, works for human cells to contain life force. If the biblical stories are to be believed; the patriarchs it is writ; lived for hundreds of years. The implication is that they were alchemical artists; and that they had used the River of Life; to achieve those many years of lifespan.

Two more interesting tidbits about iridium; (one): it is one of the so-called platinum group of metals; and two: it can produce all colors of mineral salts. Oddly it is only a couple of elements away from gold on the elements chart; yet its melt temperature is over 2400 degrees C, whereas gold is melting at 1064 degrees C. In my experiments both platinum and gold can be seen to grow in the tree-like dendritic structure. During growth both exhibit the look; of a burning bush.