The Stone Of Ta•rᵊshishꞋ

Χρυσόλιθος  aka Πυρίτης Λίθος 

The "God Stone"

"To the ancients, fire was the most dynamic and powerful of the four [then-known] elements; the other three being earth, water, and air. Philosophers believed that the interactive agency of the four elements could explain nature; such beliefs persisted to the 1600s." 

Today, modern civilization has no awareness of life's daily harsh realities before matches and electricity, washing machines & dryers, dishwashers, gas & electric ranges, rdios, telephones, televisions, microwaves and computers. Yet, for hundreds of millennia, civilizations' chief pursuit was making fire to cook and keep warm—totally dependent on 2 stones: a piece of flint and "gold"—not Au gold as defined by modern science, but the "true" (in the animist mind) flesh of the gods: fire-essence (spark-producing) pyrite! For hundreds of millennia, nothing, NOTHING, was more valuable than flint and pyrite! Au gold was mere wall paper and upholstery imitating god-flesh, bringing "bottled gods-radiance inside, adorning and glorifying powerful rulers.

"Gold" in the ancient world wasn't limited to today's metallurgists' chemical (Au) gold. In the ancient world, gold was any gold-colored rock because it emanated the sun-fire color that animists believed "captured" and bottled yellow sun-fire that was the flesh of gods to carry with them to make fire. Different substances of "bottled sun-fire" were valued according to their capacity to transmit "sun-fire" to fire-making—pyrite alone. Au gold was merely decorative, fake sun-fire. Au gold didn't make fire at all! Au gold excelled not in critical sun-fire-making but, because of its ductility and malleability, its purely decorative utility as "bottled sun-fire" to adorn walls and thrones; bringing "cans" of god-flesh sun-fire inside, illuminating the walls and thrones with simulated animist god-essence sun-fire glorifying ancient rulers.

Even in the U.S., the English equivalent of the modern definition of חַשְׁמַל (electricity) never even existed until the last decade preceding the 20^th century CE. My mom remembered and related to me when electricity arrived in her Florida suburb of Orlando when she was a little girl!

Ancient Israeli fire box (Titus' Arch, Rome)

"Access to fire for early humans whether by Prometheus’ spark, a forest fire ignited by lightning, or a burning flare of natural gas venting from a fissure, was not much use because such sources were not portable as hunter-gatherers moved around."  Much later Israel, and Roman, military carried fire-preserver boxes.

Animism, Pre-Historic "Science" Of The Universe

Persisting in all societies still today, practically everybody, even the most ultra-orthodox Jews (most especially QaꞋbãlists), perceive "God" not as the genderless Existant (Hebrew יְהוָׂה) Singularity of Avᵊrã•hãmꞋ and Mōsh•ëhꞋ, but, rather, still inexcusably and simplistically animistically like the ancients whom even today's animists call "idolaters"! From animist reverence (i.e. fear) of sacred sculptures, paintings and pictures to today's crosses, hamsas, amulets, Ouija boards, crystal balls and misperceptions of mezuzas, kippas, talitot, tephilin and even holy days, rituals and incantations (disguised as carefully "correct" holy "prayers"), animism slickly marketed by institutional religious clergies creeps into modern homes and families. Knowledge decay—cultification, zombification, golemification—displaces education disguised as religious "faith", which persists, pervades and befouls even the most highly educated, sophisticated and technologically advanced societies, tekkies, scholars, and even scientists, today.

Among ancient philosopher, astrology-astronomy scientists, gods were believed to be embodiments of the golden-yellow sun, with blue-sky hair and bones of silver star and moon stuff—their essence-powers animistically strewn throughout the physical world of golden-yellow, blue and silver rocks. This is why animist likenesses (idols)—and commensurate sacred utensils—were (are), de rigueur, made of gold (or simulated gold), lapis lazuli and silver.

Pyrite: Ancient "God Stone"

The values that modern civilization places on metals for their technological utility had no relevance and were largely indiscernible to ancient alchemists (for whom, therefore, such concepts didn't even exist). Any gold-colored rock was a type of gold, lacking modern chemical differentiations. In fact, pyrite—which we know as "Fool's Gold" in the modern world, happens to be one of 2 of the most valued stones in the world for hundreds of thousands of year world (until the mid-19^th century CE introduction of the match), revered by the ancient animist world as true gold, "god-flesh"—because of its color coupled with its capability to emit god-fire! Pyrite was the "God Stone" when our Au gold was merely decorative simulated "God Stone" (pyrite)! What we regard as true gold was merely decorative wall-paneling and upholstery for rulers' palaces, thrones and tombs.

When "precious metals" began to become precious, silver, not gold, led the way. Immediately, the demand of the wealthy powerful for ductile and malleable decorative gold to bring the animist "radiance of the gods" upon themselves outstripped mining of natural gold, igniting an alchemy industry to manufacture synthetic ductile and malleable decorative gold; an industry that endured to modern times!

The "God Stone": Aristotles' Sun-Fire Animist-Alchemist "Origin Of Everything"

Sun-Fire (a single indivisible element) was believed by ancients to be the pure "God-Element", animistically identical with pyrite, from which the remaining 3 elements derived. Ergo, alchemists declared  that the pyrite "God Stone" ("Pocket God-Fire", for hundreds of millennia far more vital (therefore valuable) than gold, which could only simulate sun-fire,) could be "reverse-engineered" from the other 3 elements. And whoever cracked the code and manufactured it synthetically would beceome infinitely powerful—above the gods themselves—and wealthy beyond measure.

Kha•shᵊmalꞋ—coin made of electrum (gold alloyed with silver)

"Aristotelian theory reigned: prime matter and forms interacted to produce the four elements fire, air, earth water which in various combinations accounted for all materials. Changing the proportions changed the material; any substance should be changeable into another substance under suitable conditions. Transmutation was the alchemists’ ambition and pyrites encouraged continuing experimentations to achieve it for it was observed that pyrites could be converted into gold, even if the amounts were small. It is now well known that some pyrite deposits contain microscopic and sub-microscopic grains of gold, invisible to the eye. Crushing and powdering this pyrite (known as pyrites to an alchemist) and then adding mercury causes the gold to form an amalgam which when heated vapourises the mercury and leaves visible gold. So pyrites could be changed to gold, seemingly corroborating the theory of transmutation and boosting hopes of converting base metals into gold if only the right conditions could be found. However, they never were."  Their sole success was electrum.

Pocket sun-fire. Finer-grains of a pyrite nodule produce better sparks, more efficient fire-makers (but modern color photos market larger cubes to animists.)

alloy of gold and silver"; i.e., electrum.

Yᵊkhë•zᵊq•eilꞋ 1.4 (כְּעֵ֥ין הַחַשְׁמַ֖ל), 27 (כְּעֵ֣ין חַשְׁמַ֗ל; 8.2 (כְּעֵ֥ין הַחַשְׁמַֽלָה.

"Pyrite, which sparks under percussion, provided portability (until the Iron Age). Mastery of fire happened perhaps hundreds of thousands or more years ago (the subject is controversial). It was the great instrument of change. Cooking plants and flesh rendered them safer and easier to digest, so a wider range of foods became available. Smaller digestive systems and larger brains evolved (Wrangham 2009). Fire extended the day. At night, fire kept big bities at bay. Around the hearth, or campsite, efforts to express opinions and relay information would surely have contributed to the development of language. So, intelligence flourished. Members of early human groups carried a compact strike-a-spark ignition kit comprising a nodule of pyrite (Moh’s H=6) held in one hand, a rounded rod or piece of harder stone such as durable flint (H=7) held in the other hand (Figure 2), and tinder (dried vegetation) – all could be placed in a leather pouch (Voynick 2018a). Nodular pyrite (Figure 3) has a radiant texture and an irregular surface conducive to optimum shattering and sparking. A fist-sized, coarsely crystalline cube or pyritohedron (or aggregates of them) are not suitable for fire striking. If pyrite and flint were not available by collecting or trading then recourse was had to the frictional wood-on-wood technique." 

Pay it forward! Quote & Cite:

Yirmeyahu Ben-David. PageName (up­date). Netzarim Jews Worldwide (Ra'anana, Israel). https://www.netzarim.co.il/Shared/Glossary/cccc.htm (Access date).

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