chinese cult of longevity and the making of alchemy

ABSTRACT

Ancient life being unhygienic death rate was high and life-span short. Then arose the idea of drug which could make the body though and immune to diseases and independently prolong the life-span. On the theory that like makes like, gold as an everlasting substance would constitute drug of longevity. Then blood was soul and redness its active principle. Accordingly red-gold would be the proper drug of longevity. Red gold was prepared by incorporating a plant juice rubbed into granules of gold. According to its make-up it was gold-plus-plant juice. In Chinese this would be Chin-1. In Ningpo dialect it would be Kim-Iya. Pre-Islamic Arabs appeared in Ningpo as it was the centre of silk-production. Kim-Iya entered Arabic as Al-Kimiya and became the drug of longevity. However, it was only brick-red. On the contrary blood as soul is bright-red. Then looking out for such a substance the Chinese found cinnabar to be as red as blood. This however would represent a soul which prolongs life. It then ignores the body. Then if cinnabar was to incorporate gold, this would make the body tough and immune to diseases while redness as soul would independently prolong life. Cinnabar gold was prepared by taking mercury, sulphur and gold and subjecting all three to sublimation. The product was cinnabar with traces of gold. It is made in India and is called Makaradhwaja. It is a panacea curing chronic and incurable diseases particularly sexual disability. Then a panacea is as good as any drug of longevity. While cinnabar was synthesized and there was no idea of gold being an element, it appeared that gold was only a yellow form of cinnabar. At a certain stage something like an "amalgam of sulphur" was formed and was mistaken for gold. This explains the many reports of alchemists succeeding in synthesizing gold. There is no record of gold having been prepared by the pound. Then what was seen as gold in a crucible could only be what can be called an "amalgam of sulphur" This explains the many reports in the literature of successfully synthesizing gold. Thus while colloidal gold and cinnabar gold are real products what appears to be an "amalgam of sulphur" is what merely appear as gold. While it was explained where alchemy did succeed it had to be shown where it produced a false appearance of gold