The Book of Aquarius – Philosophers Stone Online

“This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.”

– Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In Lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni

The Book of Aquarius Appears Online – Author: Anonymous

Back in 2011 a strange anonymous book about Alchemy appeared online. Specifically a book about how to create the Philosopher’s Stone. That book is The Book of Aquarius.

I wasn’t aware of it at that time so I won’t try to tell the story of its initial appearance. But I have encountered one alchemy influencer who was. He has a channel on Youtube and claims to have been around at this time and to have been involved in a private forum where people were engaging with the author of The Book of Aquarius. His channel is called Steven School Alchemy, and you may find that interesting.

Of course many of you found this site after watching an episode that mentions The Book of Aquarius on The Why Files? channel. It’s worth a watch if you haven’t yet.

And to be honest the book is worth a read too. It’s available online as a free pdf file or if you prefer to hold a real book in your hands it is available in print for a reasonable price.

I Have Some Criticisms of the Book

Don’t get me wrong, I do like this book and I am glad that it was written. But that doesn’t stop me form wishing some things were different about it.

Let’s start with the usage of some referernces, the lack of usage of others and the overusage of them in Chapter 6 especially.

Weird Usage of references

Usually references are used to back a specific point an author is making. While some of the references in this book do work this way, others are simply a vague reach or they make the point but then include way too much additional unrelated text.

Some examples would be:

I find the quotes that are included aare often are too many and too long, while not always proving a point in any concrete way.

But, they are a great way to read text from multiple old alchemy books and decide which of these authors and books you’d like to move on to next. The author tells you where to find these books for free (see below) and suggests a great collection of nooks called The Hermetic Museum as a good place to start. This book/collection is excellent in many ways

Way too much text (and Way too many references), Specifically in Chapter 6: Disbelief

The intention of Chapter 6: Disbelief is to comment on the large amount of disbelief there is about Alchemy woven into our modern culture. In short our collective belief system doesn’t accept Alchemy, especially the Philosopher’s Stone as being real and respectable topics. It’s been pushed into the realm of entertainment (See Paulo Coehlo meets Harry Potter?) and the New Age perspective of inner alchemy only (not as well as) a physically achievable, tangible object.

Writings of old dealt with this cultural doubt too which is made clear by the many quotes in this chapter that expound on the basic idea that criticising something that you know nothing about is not legitimate, but rather, foolish.

And so, these quotes suggest, the only people that should be commenting on the legitimacy of the topic are alchemists. I don’t argue this point but since most alchemists in the past withheld their knowledge and the ones who shared usually it did so with confusing poetic allegory or coded language it easy to see why this conundrum developed. The average person wants proof. Proof was not offered. So by logic it can’t be true.

Compounding this issue seems to be a certain amount of the alchemy writers of old were not actually successful alchemists, but rather writers who used the topics of alchemy to sells books. In the same way many who claimed to be alchemists seem to have really just been poseurs who grifted for monetary supports of patrons or worse yet, their neighbors etc but failed to fulfill their promises to profit these people by creating silver and gold.

Once I was exposed to the sheer volume of texts that have been written about the Philosopher;s Stone my thoughts went from “this must be real, look how many books there are” to eventually “wow, there are so many books I wonder if this was similar to todays internet clickbait where people rewrite old articles to get clicks. Just in this case they read a book then wrote a book similar to it for the profit of selling books.

Be that as it may, this chapter of the book uses very long quotes that I found were eventually tedious to read, all saying about the same thing and with very little or no commentary from the author to tie together the quotes he was referencing.

Because I believe in the stone I was bored by this and I don’t see it convincing someone who is skeptical to read the same arguments endlessly. More likely this chapter loses readers who are doubters. Perhaps this was the point? You never know.

Unnecessary Chapters

Speaking of losing readers, the book also has some unexpected (and to me unnecessary) topic changes with chapters about unrelated things like UFOs and Shambala (as a guess about where all the immortal alchemists disappeared to.

The author also includes chapters entitled “New World Order’, “Mythology”, “Frequencies and Planes”. and “Universes in Universes” which are interesting but don’t have much to do with the rest of the book and its topic. They seem more like the authors pet topics that were included to share with a captive audience or the (hopefully) likeminded? or to add pages, perhaps.

Anyway, these chapters and a few others could easily be skipped by readers who are just intent on learning his prescribed method for creating the stone. You’ll know when you get to them what Imean, don’t worry.

It’s also possible the Universe wants open-minded people to read these ideas so what better place to put them? and inspired the author to embed them here for us to find accidentally. I’d *wink* but I am serious, so…

Is the Method Legit?

The legitimacy of the technique that the author explains is debated to this day on the subreddit r/alchemy and other places I am sure. I can’t speak for his exact method here as I haven’t tried it, BUT I do, however see many similarites between the plan outlined in this book and other methods that have been written about over the centuries detailing what is sometimes referred to as “the dry path.”

And, I can recommend the book to beginners because it speaks in plain modern English while supplying reference quotes from many old books on Alchemy. It also explains the necessary aboratory techniques and supplies in a simple straightforward way.

I do have some issues with the book and way the quotes are used but still it is a great jumping point for finding other authors to read and for getting a general grasp on the concepts, techniques and tools that are mentioned in older writings about the Magnum Opus.

Unfortunately the references he lists are not always directly related to the sections of the book in any coherent way that proves his arguments or his chosen list of steps. Some source for each decision in his process would be nice.

It is helptul though that the quotes he supplies are at least thought provoking enough to inspire further reading from the source of many of his quotes.

So far this book is the only one that, as well as explaining the concepts behind the process of creating the white and the red stones (like many other older texts,) also includes a fairly detailed step by step “recipe” in plain words, not poetic alegory as is typical of the writers from previous centuries.

The Basic Recipe

A basic outline of his method involves:

Separating the prima materia into philosophic sulphur and philosophic mercury (which he explains are coded names not meant to be interpreted as common (aka vulgar) sulphur and mercury through a series of distillations.
Calcining the sulphuric “earth” into ash that is no longer burnable which he then refers to as “salt”.
Imbibing the salt (of the earth) with the distilled philosophic mercury in a specific way
Sealing the resulting mass in the appropriate borosilic glass vial and cooking it in the appropriate way

This is a very sparse breakdown of his instructions but it gives you a basic idea. He also tells you the correct equipment to use.

Why haven’t I tried it?

Simple. It has more than one step that is not possible in my current living situation. I expect that many of you will feel this way.

There are other books that explain even more smelly, potentially toxic and dangerous plans than his, but in a more vague way. These are all out for me too.

There are, however, methods which do work for me, barely, and I have discussed them at length on this site.

Many Old Alchemy Books that are Referenced

The ancient alchemical texts that are quoted in The Book of Aquarius include:

A Magnificent and Select Tract on Philosophical Water, by Anonymous
The New Chemical Light, by Michael Sendivogius
The New Pearl of Great Price, by Peter Bonus
The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius
The Root of the World, by Roger Bacon
The Glory of the World, Or, Table of Paradise, by Anonymous (aka Gloria Mundi)
Man, the Best and Most Perfect of God’s Creatures, by Benedictus Figulus
Book of the Chemical Art, by Marsilius Ficinus
An Anonymous Treatise Concerning the Philosopher’s Stone, by Anonymous
The Chemical Treatise, Or, The Ordinal of Alchemy, by Thomas Norton
Aphorisms of Urbigerus, by Baro Urbigerus
A Magnificent and Select Tract on Philosophical Water, by Anonymous
A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby, by Eirenaeus Philalethes
On The Gold Medicine and On The Yellow and The White, by Ko Hung
Shih Hsing-lin, Disciple of Chang Po-tuan, And Hsieh Tao-kuang, Disciple of Shih Hsling-lin
A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature’s Marvels, by Benedictus Figulus
The Twelve Keys, by Basilius Valentinus
The Sophic Hydrolith, Or, Water Stone of the Wise, by Anonymous
Fama Fraternitatis, by The Rosicrucians
The Book of the Revelation of Hermes, by Theophrastus Paracelsus
The Crowning of Nature, by Anonymous
An Excellent Introduction to the Art of Alchemy, by Peter Bonus
An Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King, by An Anonymous Sage and Lover of Truth
Wu Chen P’ien, Essay on the Understanding of Truth, by Chang Po-tuan
On The Gold Medicine and On The Yellow and The White, by Ko Hung
The Chemists Key, by Henry Nollius
A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature’s Marvels, by Benedictus Figulus
An Explanation of the Natural Philosopher’s Tincture, of Paracelsus, by Alexander von Suchten
A Very Brief Tract Concerning the Philosophical Stone, by An Unknown German Sage
The New Atlantis, by Francis Bacon
Magnalia Naturae, Praecipue Quoad Usus Humanos, by Francis Bacon
A Subtle Allegory Concerning the Secrets of Alchemy, by Michael Maier
The Golden Tract Concerning the Stone of the Philosophers, by An Anonymous German Philosopher
The Metamorphosis of Metals, by Eirenaeus Philalethes
Golden Calf, by John Frederick Helvetius
On the Philosophers’ Stone, by Anonymous
The Golden Age Restored, by Henry Madathanas
The Aurora of the Philosophers, by Theophrastus Paracelsus
A Dialogue, by Alexander von Suchten
Book of the Chemical Art, by Marsilius Ficinus,
Verbum Dismissum, by Count Bernard Trevisan
Compound of Compounds, by Albertus Magnus
A Tract of Great Price Concerning the Philosophical Stone, by A German Sage
The Emerald Tablet, by Hermes
The Fount of Chemical Truth, by Eirenaeus Philalethes
Three Alchemical Poems, by Chang Po-tuan
The Epistle of Bonus of Ferrara, by Peter Bonus
Wu Chen P’ien, Essay on the Understanding of Truth, by Chang Po-tuan
The Secret Book of Artephius, by Artephius
The Secret of the Immortal Liquor Called Alkahest, by Eirenaeus Philalethes
The Mirror of Alchemy, by Roger Bacon
The Dwellings of the Philosophers, by Fulcanelli,
A Short Tract, or Philosophical Summary, by Nicholas Flamell
Of the Nature of Things by Paracelsus, via Sandrovigius

Extensive! Other books are referenced, but these are the old books about alchemy which he quotes usually more than once for each title.

Many of these books are excellent reads for understanding the concept of what the stone is in relation to nature, but none of these books dictate a recipe in the way that The Book of Aquarius does.

Regarding these books, the author of The Book of Aquarius had this to say:

“All of the quotes are from sources which are accessible to read for free online. The sources of all the alchemical books I have quoted from are these sites: sacred-texts.com, forgottenbooks.org, rexresearch.com, alchemywebsite.com.

The latter three sites include alchemical imagery on their sites or in their books, but unfortunately none of them realized the true significance of alchemy. However, all these sites and ramsdigital.com (which is not free) have done a great service to the world by publishing alchemical literature on the Internet.”

For fun I asked ChatGPT to write a review of The Book of Aquarius as I assume some people would rather read that sort of smooth professional writer style rather than my herky jerky style of “prose”.

As usual though what I got was well written very smooth writing style but a mix of some accurate facts about the book as well as a bunch of incorrect information because it was summarizing multiple alchemy sources not related to this book.

I corrected the Ai a few times and the result is worth a read if you are looking for more info about the book.

Even with all my criticisms I do think this book deserves at least one read if you are interested enough to still be here reading. you should probably download the free pdf or buy a copy of the book and give it a read!