But what about other planets? I tried putting Uranus, Neptune and Pluto
into the list, but it doesn't work; with an even number of planets, counting
alternate ones won't catch every planet however many times you go round.
Four extra planets gives iron (26) - copper (29) - silver (47) - (Pluto) -
(Uranus) - tin (50) - gold (79) - mercury (80) - (Eris) - (Neptune) - lead
(82), which doesn't work either; more than three planets slower than Saturn
requires more than one metal to come between mercury (80) and lead (82), and
you can't have a fractional atomic number. But adding just Uranus and
Neptune - the two that are definitely planets astronomically, not
representatives of a class of very similar bodies - works. That gives iron
(26) - copper (29) - silver (47) - (Uranus) - tin (50) - gold (79) - mercury
(80) - (Neptune) - lead (82), which would mean that Neptune rules thallium
(81) and Uranus either cadmium (48) or indium (49).
Does this seem plausible to any of you? I suppose it could be tested by
Kolisko's capillary dynamolysis reaction, if that really works, but it's
doubtful whether it does.
--
A. B.
My e-mail address is zen177395 at zendotcodotuk, though I don't check that
account very often.
Very interesting post for an old alchemist like myself, thank you!
I checked what everwise Wikipedia had to say about thallium, and
looking at it from a purely analogical viewpoint, I see no problem in
associating the metal with the planet.
The following factors speak in favour of the association:
Thallium
- is toxic to humans
- is kept stable if kept in oil (does not oxidize)
- is soluble in water and almost tasteless
- has the nicknames "The Poisoner's Poison" and "Inheritance
Powder" (with arsenic)
It has some small medical use, but not as a drug, which if we accepted
the metal for Neptune, could be interpreted to mean that the planet is
predominantly a "malefic" and that perhaps it is not governing
pharmaceutics and medicin at all.
Choosing between cadmium and indium, cadmium seems an almost perfect
choice for Uranus.
Cadmium
- is used for electro-plating -- in the aircraft industry
- is used to control neutrons in nuclear fission
- is used in black and white television phosphors and in the blue and
green phosphors for color television picture tubes
Other uses are (or have been) in batteries (Uranus is connected with
electricity) and electronics.
It can be toxic, but most not be. I would see Uranus as less of a
malefic than Neptune if judging by associating these metals with them.
That's interesting considering that they have been associated with the
greater malefic (Uranus going to Aqurius, ruled by Saturn) and the
greater benefic (Neptune for Pisces, ruled by Jupiter), but that here
the plusses and minuses, so to speak, are inverted.
My personal verdict, if going by analogies, is that associating Uranus
with cadmium is a jackpot and Neptune with thallium is analogically
"OK" but not *exceptionally* so. Uranus/cadmium is really quite
convincing though.
/Kjell
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Thallium
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Indium
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cadmium
I just got the wildest idea (Raymond, are you reading this?). What if
all the basic elements can be associated with heavenly bodies? That
would mean that at the least some 100+ heavenly bodies would be of at
least some importance. I for one would certainly want to have, say,
Regulus and Algol included, but nothing says it would have to be stars
only, we could just as well have Pluto, Eris, Chiron and a host of
others included. Then the classical metals of alchemy would only point
to the most important heavenly bodies, and their order and
relationships, but not be a complete list of correlations between the
earthly and the celestial.
/K
Looking at the periodic table, one sees that iron is on the same row
as copper (both belong to the fourth period), but it does not share
column with any other classical alchemical metal, nor thallium etc, if
we assume them. Copper, however, shares column (group) with both
silver and gold. The rest, including thallium et al., share period
with either silver or gold.
Anyhow, my reflection on this is that it fits with Mars being the
planet liked by none of the others, except Venus. (Noting that this
would be true not only classically but also for Uranus and Neptune.)
/K
> Does this seem plausible to any of you?
As you know, I'm not a big fan of using the outers in any capacity, BUT
this does seem to work out... at least in the case of Neptune & Uranus.
> I suppose it could be tested by Kolisko's capillary
> dynamolysis reaction, if that really works, but it's
> doubtful whether it does.
I don't think I've heard of this.
Todd
Oops, sorry for accidentally posting that twice.
I'd forgotten about the "friendships". I'll check my well-thumbed digital
copy of Lilly...
I think you're on to something. Every planet is a "friend" of those it
shares a row or column with, except: The Sun is the enemy of Saturn, but
Saturn the friend of the Sun; Mercury is the enemy of the Sun, but the Sun
is the friend of Mercury; and the Moon is described as "indifferent" to the
Sun.
It's an experiment where solutions of salts of the planetary metals (e.g.
silver nitrate and iron sulphate) are mixed and allowed to rise up a strip
of filter paper, chromatography-style. The salts react on the way up and
deposit an insoluble precipitate on the paper, forming a pattern.
Supposedly, the pattern is different when the planet ruling one of the salts
is occulted by another planet.
Full details at http://www.science.anth.org.uk/kolisko/index.htm, extra
references are in my alt.astrology FAQs somewhere. It's rather a pet theory
of mine, despite never having been able to try it myself. If it really
worked, it would be an ideal way to settle the question - apart from the
outstanding horridness of both the substances.
Seemed promising to me, too, but you've explained the analogies much more
convincingly than I could - even to myself. Of course there are things that
don't quite fit, like cadmium's use in paints, but then neither does
copper's use in water pipes. There's a slight pun, too - thallium's name
actually comes from Greek "thallos", a shoot, after a green line in its
spectrum, but it's not so unlike Greek "thalatta", the sea.
Now that's an idea! I never thought of that - made a few attempts to find a
regular rule to assign them all to the usual planets, but only gave myself a
headache. If we're using small bodies, I suppose Ceres would be near the
front of the queue, along with those you mentioned. I wonder what she'd
get? Seems presumptuous to give her carbon, but why not after all. Hmm...
Maybe the Lanthanide series ("rare earth" metals) belong to asteroids, and
the Actinide series (radioactive metals, incl uranium and the man-made
elements) to the KBOs. No evidence, just feels right to me. The elements
in each series all fall in the same group and period, so it seems right that
they should correspond to close groups of similar bodies. It could fit the
pattern, too, if you start again at Mars after lead. Of course there are
more asteroids than Lanthanides, so they'd have to share, or just use the
main ones.
There are also the "homoeopathic cell salts", which are often assigned to
Zodiac signs - Ari potassium phosphate, Tau sodium sulphate, Gem potassium
chloride, Can calcium fluoride, Leo magnesium phosphate, Vir potassium
sulphate, Lib sodium phosphate, Sco calcium sulphate, Sag silicon dioxide,
Cap calcium phosphate, Aqu sodium chloride, Pis iron phosphate, and to some
extent the polar signs have each other's salt as well. I can't see any
rhyme or reason to it.