Silver in Alchemy

Hello dear Hive Community, first of all I hope that you had a day that was full of positive experiences and that you are all well! In my post today I would like to write something about alchemy and hope you like my post.

Today I would like to write something about silver which was one of the most important metals in alchemy. While gold was often referred to as the great work, the production of silver was often called the minor work or Opus Minor and it was often associated with the moon. In the alphabet of alchemy, silver was often associated with the crescent and gold with the sun and that's why I also integrated some pictures of the moon into the post I took. From a symbolic point of view, the old alchemists often associated silver with wisdom or intuition and it was often associated with femininity, which can also often be found in mythology.

One of the main parts of alchemy was the conversion of ignoble metals into noble metals and so there are also some experiments such as how for example, silver should be produced with the help of lead. Silver has the property to oxidize quickly and of course the alchemists had to take this into account when choosing metals. The metals pewter and mercury could probably also be of particular interest for the experiments and one can only puzzle about this mystical topic and unfortunately there is not much documented about this topic. Purely technically, it is of course possible to coat metals with a silver-containing solution by inserting it into the solution and so there have probably been often incorrectly documented reports in history, producing pure silver is far more difficult.

On the upper picture you can see silver in the pure form, it is not easy to recognize but unfortunately I could not photograph a larger example. There were also some attempts to convert silver into gold in which it was allegedly possible to convert silver into gold with the help of a tincture and this tincture was also called white elixir. Silver was also very interesting for the production of liquid essences and already the well-known alchemist Paracelsus appreciated the anti-inflammatory effect of this metal very much. As always, it is of course important to mention here again that in case of illness you always have to ask your doctor or pharmacist about the right medicine, dosage and possible side effects!

Many thanks for stopping by and watching! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!