The Solar Eclipse, June 29th, 1927
By Lilly Kolisko
Experimental Studies From The Biological Institute Of The Goetheanum With Three Multi-Coloured and Twenty Single Coloured Plates. Orient-Occident Verlag, Stuttgart-Den Haag-London, 1928
FOREWORD
In the essay Workings of the Stars in Earthly Substances, published a few months ago, the attempt was made to show by means of scientific experiments that the stars in the heavens play a very real part in happenings on Earth. The experiments were carried out with the metallic salts of silver, iron and lead. The workings of these metals, in normal conditions, both by day and by night, in full daylight and also in a dark chamber, were illustrated by a series of pictures. We were then able to show that fundamental changes occur at the time of a conjunction of Saturn and Sun. Indeed the activity of salts of lead appears to be wholly suspended at the time of the conjunction.
In this present essay, we shall show, again by means of pictures painted by the Cosmos itself, how the total eclipse of the Sun on June 29th, 1927, was mirrored in the metallic salts of gold, silver and tin.
Gold, the physical representative on Earth of the Sun, and silver, the physical representative on Earth of the Moon, are obviously the sub-stances most suited to present in picture form, the darkening of the Sun by the Moon.
Once again we must emphasize that his essay represents merely a tiny fragment of extensive work. Unbroken study of many years has enabled us to create a basis which justifies us now in placing the results of our research before the world. May the minds and hearts of men be open in order that the Sun may shine into them when the physical Sun is darkened.
Stuttgart, September 29th, 1927. L. Kolisko
Before we can speak of the reflection of the solar eclipse in earthly substances, it is necessary to say something about the particular substances that were used as a basis for the experiments.
EXPERIMENTS WITH GOLD
It is curiously interesting to experiment with gold. The first experiments we carried out with gold some years ago, consisted in dissolving it in aqua regia (nitric acid / hydrochloric acid mixture) and evaporating the superfluous acid so that we finally had gold in solution as chloride of gold. This solution of chloride of gold was rhythmically diluted — that is to say, raised to a higher potency — and then the different potencies were sprinkled on grains of wheat. For a fortnight, the wheat germinated and grew under the in-working forces of the gold potencies and the result of the measurements was a wonderfully harmonious curve. To begin with, then, we investigated the effect of gold on the growth of plants. Simultaneously, we tried to produce evidence of the effect of very highly diluted substances by means of the capillary-analytical method, inserting strips of filter paper in small glass vessels each containing one of the different potencies. Through the course of the year we investigated in this way different plant extracts and metallic salt solutions of silver, quicksilver, copper, gold, iron, tin, lead, antimony and so forth.
Apart from the study of the effect of the potency, we observed the pictures produced by gold, silver, copper, iron and how the pictures changed in the course of a month, a year and, finally, in the course of several years. The results of these investigations will have to be dealt with in greater detail in an essay devoted entirely to the subject of gold.
For the sake of explaining the experiments described in this present book, however, we add these few very brief remarks about gold.
We use chloride of gold (aurum chlor. cryst. fuscum) as applied by E. Merck of Darmstadt for industrial purposes, dissolving 1 gramme in 100 ccm. of distilled water. Gold dissolves very rapidly and the water becomes at once a golden-yellow colour. We pour 10 ccm. of this solution into a glass vessel and insert a strip of filter paper.
In the case of the pictures of silver we find that the wealth of forms is so great that it is impossible to present one picture only of silver. Hundreds of pictures would have to be shown before any conception can be gained of the wealth of the forms. In the case of gold, the colours are so rich that many pictures must be observed before we can realise the nature and character of the metal. The colours that make their appearance vary between pure yellow and dark violet. We find every shade of yellow up to brown, also shades of rosy pink, purple, blue, light to dark violet. Plate I is a coloured picture of gold in so far as the colour can be reproduced.* It was taken on December 25th 1926, in a dark chamber, and proves that light has no direct influence upon the manifestation of the colours.
Plate I Gold Chloride, 25.12.26
When we have gold in a state of solution, the Sun — according to the indications given by Rudolf Steiner — is working in it. The time of a solar eclipse is therefore highly favourable for observing the changes appearing in gold.
For Stuttgart, the time of the eclipse was given as 5.19 a. m., June 29th. I decided, therefore, to insert filter paper in a solution of gold on June
29th at 5.19 a. m. and to allow the picture to form under the influence of the solar eclipse. The usual picture of a solution of gold was familiar to us as the result of many experiments. In order, however, to discover the appearance presented by gold immediately before the solar eclipse, it was necessary to carry out experiments with chloride of gold several days before, at 5. 19 a. m. — that is to say, at the same moment when the eclipse would occur on June 29th. On account of the high cost of reproduction it has unfortunately been impossible to print in colour all the pictures of gold.
