What Is the Elixir of Life in Alchemy?

The elixir is the liquid sister of the philosopher’s stone, and the relationship between the two is the first thing to understand about the elixir. Where the stone is the solid agent of metallic transmutation, the elixir is the liquid agent of bodily transmutation. Where the stone turns lead into gold, the elixir turns sickness into health, and old age into something younger. The elixir is what the alchemists called the aurum potabile — the potable gold — when they were being precise, and the elixir vitae — the elixir of life — when they were being poetic, and the modern reader should know that both terms refer to the same family of preparations (Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 2013, pp. 105-115; Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 2004, pp. 200-215; Holmyard, Alchemy, 1957, pp. 110-130; Pagel, Paracelsus, 1958). The family is large, and the family resemblance is one of the most useful things to know.

The nature of the elixir

The elixir of life is, in the alchemical literature, both a literal preparation and a symbolic reality, and the two senses of the term are not in competition. As a literal preparation, the elixir is a liquid, often a tincture or a decoction, prepared by the alchemical operations of dissolution, distillation, and recombination. The liquid is typically red, golden, or white in color, and it is taken internally in small doses.

The alchemists claimed that the elixir, properly prepared, can cure all diseases, restore the body to its original vigor, and prolong life indefinitely. The most ambitious of the alchemical claims was that the elixir can confer physical immortality, allowing the practitioner to live for centuries or even millennia. The most famous of the legendary figures who were said to have achieved this immortality are Nicolas Flamel and the Count of Saint-Germain, both of whom were said to have appeared to witnesses in the centuries after their supposed deaths.

As a symbolic reality, the elixir of life is the spiritual counterpart of the philosopher’s stone. Just as the stone is the symbol of the integration of the human being with the cosmos, the elixir is the symbol of the integration of the body with the spirit. The alchemist who drinks the elixir is drinking the divine spirit that animates the cosmos, and the elixir is the externalization of the inner transformation. The two senses of the elixir — literal and symbolic — are doing different kinds of work, and the alchemists were not confused about the difference. The alchemists were working within a tradition that took the literal and the symbolic together, and the taking is part of the alchemical synthesis.

The relationship to the philosopher’s stone

The elixir of life and the philosopher’s stone are intimately related, and the alchemists often treated them as two aspects of a single perfected agent. The stone is the solid form of the agent, used for the transmutation of metals. The elixir is the liquid form, used for the cure of disease and the prolongation of life. The two are prepared by similar but distinct procedures, and the procedures share the basic spagyric operations.

The alchemists sometimes distinguished the two by color. The white elixir was thought to be capable of curing diseases and prolonging life, but not of transmuting base metals into gold. The red elixir was thought to be capable of all three powers: transmutation, cure, and longevity. The alchemical preparation of the elixir thus went through the four color stages of the magnum opus, with the white and red stages producing the two grades of the elixir. The color distinction is one of the more useful pieces of alchemical taxonomy, and the taxonomy is part of what makes the literature navigable.

The preparation

The preparation of the elixir of life follows the same general pattern as the preparation of the philosopher’s stone, but with a different starting material. Where the stone is typically prepared from a metallic starting material, the elixir is often prepared from a plant or animal starting material, or from a combination of plant, animal, and mineral substances.

The most common starting materials for the elixir were:

Gold, dissolved in aqua regia, precipitated as a fine powder, and recombined with purified mercury and sulfur. The result is the “potable gold” (aurum potabile), the most prestigious of the elixirs, and the one most often associated with the alchemical gold-making project.
Plant materials, particularly the “philosophical plant,” prepared by the spagyric operations of dissolution, distillation, and recombination. The “green lion,” a classic symbol of vitriol (sulfuric acid), also appears in many elixir recipes. The cluster on spagyric alchemy examines the spagyric preparation of plant medicines in detail.
Animal materials, particularly the “philosophical man” or homunculus, prepared by the alchemical operations of digestion and putrefaction. The homunculus long-tail page examines the alchemical homunculus tradition.
Universal solvents, particularly the alkahest or azoth, used to dissolve any substance and to extract its active principles.

The elixir was typically taken internally in very small doses, often a single drop diluted in a large quantity of liquid. The alchemists believed that the elixir was so potent that a small dose was sufficient to produce the desired effect, and they warned against taking too much, since the elixir was thought to be capable of dissolving the body if taken in excess. The warning is one of the more striking features of the elixir literature, and the striking-ness is the point.

The elixir in different traditions

The elixir of life appears in all of the major alchemical traditions, with both similarities and differences in the details. The Chinese alchemical tradition, treated in the cluster on Chinese alchemy, has a particularly rich tradition of the elixir. The waidan (external alchemy) tradition produced a wide range of mineral and metallic elixirs, including the famous “Nine-Times-Refined Cinnabar.” The neidan (internal alchemy) tradition produced the “internal elixir,” the refined qi of the body, which was thought to confer the same longevity and immortality as the external elixir but without the toxicity (Pregadio, Chinese Alchemy: An Introduction and Bibliography, 2006; Needham, Science and Civilisation in China vol. 5 pt. 3, 1976).

The Indian alchemical tradition, treated in the cluster on Indian alchemy, has the rasāyana tradition, which produced a sophisticated pharmacology of mineral and metallic preparations, including the famous kupipakva rasayanas, the pot-finished elixirs that are still in use in some Ayurvedic pharmacies (Meulenbeld, History of Indian Medical Literature, 2000; Wujastyk, The Roots of Ayurveda, 1998).

The Western alchemical tradition has a long history of the elixir, from the Greek and Egyptian sources through the Arabic, Latin, and early modern traditions. The Paracelsian tradition is particularly important: Paracelsus developed a sophisticated pharmacology of mineral and metallic elixirs, and his followers continued the tradition into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The famous elixirs

The alchemical literature describes a large number of specific elixirs, each with its own recipe, its own properties, and its own history. The most famous include:

The potable gold (aurum potabile), a preparation of soluble gold in a sweetened or acidulated liquid, believed to confer the incorruptibility of the metal on the body of the practitioner.
The white elixir, a preparation of purified mercury and silver, believed to cure all diseases and prolong life.
The red elixir, a preparation of purified mercury, sulfur, and gold, believed to be capable of transmutation, cure, and longevity.
The “Five-Flowers” elixir of the Chinese tradition, a preparation of five mineral substances corresponding to the five phases.
The kayakalpa preparations of the Indian tradition, the bodily rejuvenants prepared from mercury, sulfur, and other substances.

The list is necessarily partial. The alchemical literature is vast, and the list of elixirs is correspondingly long. The serious reader of the elixir literature should be prepared to read several hundred recipes, and the recipes will sound remarkably similar. The repetition is part of the tradition, and the tradition is the part that matters.

The elixir in modern practice

The elixir of life remains a central concern of the modern alchemical tradition, and the persistence is one of the more interesting features of the contemporary landscape. The spagyric revival of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has produced a new generation of elixirs, prepared according to the alchemical methods and marketed as dietary supplements, herbal remedies, and esoteric preparations. The Weleda pharmaceutical company still produces a range of spagyric elixirs, and the modern spagyric revival has produced a new community of practitioners (Junius, Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy, 1979; Smith, The Business of Alchemy, 1994).

The elixir of life is also a central symbol of the modern Western esoteric tradition. The Theosophical Society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Anthroposophical Society, and the various modern Rosicrucian orders all use the symbolism of the elixir in their ritual and meditative practice. The elixir is the symbol of the integration of the body with the spirit, the externalization of the inner transformation, the goal of the alchemical life.

The elixir as a symbol

The elixir of life is one of the most powerful symbols in the Western tradition, and the symbol has shaped the modern imagination in countless ways. The Holy Grail of the Christian tradition is the elixir in its most sacramental form, and the grail literature is part of the alchemical inheritance. The elixirs of the Harry Potter series are the elixir in its most popular form, and the popular form is a real part of the contemporary reception. The ambrosia of the Greek gods and the soma of the Indian tradition are elixirs in their respective mythological registers.

The alchemical elixir is, finally, a symbol of the human desire to transcend the limits of the human condition, and the desire is ancient, and it is not going to disappear. The alchemical elixir is one of the most vivid expressions of the desire, and it remains a powerful symbol of the human aspiration to a longer, healthier, and more integrated life. The elixir is a real symbol of a real desire, and the realness of the symbol is the most useful thing the modern reader can take from the alchemical tradition.