September 20, 2025 • 8 mins
Jabir Ibn Hayyan, known as the father of chemistry, was an influential Arab alchemist and scholar in the 8th century. He is credited with significant contributions to the development of alchemy, including the introduction of experimental techniques and the classification of substances. His works laid the foundation for modern chemistry.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back. Everyone, Ready to dive into something really cool
today we're tackling alchemy, but not the airy potter kind.
We're going deep into the alchemy Gabriel erevs. Which is,
you know, a collection of writings from the famous alchemist
Jumir Ibinhayan, or as many know him, Gaber.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, and get this, We're going to see a side
of alchemy you might not expect. Forget bubbling cauldrons, think
meticulous lab work. Gaber was obsessed with detail in a
way that was way ahead of his time.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Okay, gotta ask. We're working with excerpts here, right, Yeah,
And the thing that just jumps out is how crazy
detailed Gaber is about every single thing lab set up.
He's writing entire chapters on it materials. He doesn't just
say use sulfur. He's like, here's how you purify it,
where to find the good stuff. It's like an ancient
lab manual. Yeah, way more intense.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Exactly. You almost have to see it to believe it.
Think about when this guy was working, most people figured
things just sort of happened, Like spontaneous generation was a
hot topic back then, right right. But Geber's over here
giving deep by step instructions on like how to make
a specific glass vessel. He's got the dimensions, the shape,
even what kind of glass to use.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
It's nuts, so he wasn't just trying to like make
something work once. He's trying to figure out how to
make it work the same way every time exactly. That's
setting the stage for modern science right there. Yeah, and
this meticulousness it really comes through. And how he talks
about purifying substances.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh, absolutely, he goes on and on about it. It's
pages and pages, like with salts, for example, I'm paraphrasing here,
but he says something like dissolve it, filter it seven times,
then heat it until it's whiter than snows seven. He's
not messing around. It shows the difference between like actual
alchemy and just kind of wing in it. He's trying
(01:44):
to get to the purest form of everything so he
can really understand it. And that's such a modern concept,
even if his methods were a bit different.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It makes you appreciate the groundwork these guys late. You know,
it wasn't all magic and spells. It was about observation, repetition.
Even if they didn't have the same chemistry knowledge.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
We do now totally. And you see how seriously he
took it in how he talks about those he calls
Charlatan's people who destroy the art by being careless. It's
like you can almost picture him on like ancient social
media ranting about these wanna be alchemists. Haha, I love it.
He wanted to separate the real deal from the fakers.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It's like he's saying, look, this isn't some parlor trick,
this is serious business. He even mentions he's got other
books with even more detail, like Hidden Secrets for the
truly dedicated. But uh, maybe we should save that rabbit
hole for another time. What about his ideas about.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Metals, Yeah, let's get into that, because that's where it
gets really interesting. It's this blend of super precise observation
and well some pretty creative interpretation.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So we've got this super meticulous alchemist, right, but what's
he actually trying to do? Oh with all this knowledge,
what I'm getting from these excerpts is this idea that
Geber was really focused on metals, but not just like
how to use them for you know, making stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oh. Absolutely, he was after something way deeper than just
practical applications.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's like he thought metals had some kind of deeper meaning.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
You know, you're right on the money. This is where
it gets really interesting, because the line between the actual
physical stuff and the symbolic starts to get kind of blurry.
With Gepper, he really believed that metals, just as you
find them in nature, weren't in their ideal state.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Oh interesting, what like they were incomplete or something?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah, like a rough draft. He talks about fixing and
completing metals through alchemy, and get this, he thought he
could bring them closer to like the perfection of celestial bodies.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, hold on, are we talking stars and planets?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Now we are? He's always using this language of sun properties,
moon properties when he's describing metals. And it wasn't just
like flowery writing either, right. It all connected to real
things they were observing about how these metals behaved.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
It's like how even now we still talk about like
lunar cycles or whatever, we still connect those things even
if we don't think about them the same way.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Exactly. Forget gold that was connected to the sun incorruptible, right,
like how they thought the Sun's fire was eternal. Silver
that was the moon cycles change reflecting the moon's phases.
But it's deeper than just comparing them. It's about how
they understood what these metals really were deep down.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Okay, so it's not just him being poetic about shiny stuff.
So how did he think you could actually change a
metal's essence? I mean, is that even.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Possible through alchemy? Of course? And this is where all
that meticulous work comes in. He lays out these crazy
detailed procedures heating, melting, combining metals, treating them with all
sorts of substances. He even talks about like how long
to keep something at a certain temperature. How finally you
have to grind something down. It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So he's thinking by messing with a metal's physical properties
you can change. It's more that's spiritual side or I
don't know, symbolic qualities.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I guess, yeah, you got it. Don't forget the way
they saw the world. The lab was like a mini
version of the whole cosmos. Oh right, So if he
could replicate the heat of the sun in his furnace
in his mind, he was using those same cosmic forces
to act on the metal itself.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
That's kind of a mind blowing idea, even if the
science behind it seems a little shaky to us. Now,
is there like a specific example of this how he
connected what he was doing in the lab to these
big ideas about you know, metals and planets and all that.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Oh, for sure, Remember how obsessed he was with purity.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, seven washes, all.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
That exactly, impurities in the metal. He saw those as
like hiding the metal's true nature. I'm pretty sure he
actually says, just as the sun's light is hidden by clouds,
so are the noble qualities of metals veiled by impurities.
So all that purifying it wasn't just about cleariness. He's
trying to remove the clouds to reveal the perfect form underneath.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Okay, now that is just cool. But I gotta admit,
for all the talk of perfection in celestial bodies, some
of this stuff just goes right over my head. Like
when he starts talking about spirits and souls and inside
these materials, it's like, did we wander into a seance
all this time?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, that's where I have to a minute, I kind
of get lost to Like one minute we're talking about
building furnaces, and the next metals have souls, it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
It definitely takes them getting used to.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You have to remember with alchemy, symbolism was huge, eating
They weren't always going for a literal like chemistry textbook explanation.
So when Geber's talking about the spirit of a metal,
he doesn't mean there's a ghost floating out of the crucible.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Right, not exactly, No, think of it more like potential energy.
But on a cosmic level. They believe everything was connected,
you know, and these spirits were like the fundamental force
is driving everything, both the physical stuff and the spiritual
side too.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Okay, So less about an actual ghost, more about the
hidden potential inside something, right.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Like instead of just a lump of gold, Geber saw
something connected to the sun, something you could tap into
transform to unlock what it was really capable of.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So the lab was almost like a sacred space where
the everyday stuff met with these bigger cosmic forces.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You got it. And that's where that famous line comes in,
sick mundus creatist, Thus the world was created. Geber looked
at what he was doing, the heating, mixing, purifying all
of it as a reflection of creation itself.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
That's kind of a heavy thought. Yeah, it makes you
think about those Charlatans he was always going on about.
Maybe it wasn't just him being picky about lab technique.
Maybe he thought people could really mess things up if
they didn't know what they were doing.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Oh totally, like, Hey, this stuff is powerful. You can't
just throw it all in a pot and see what happens.
He saw alchemy as this path to knowledge, to becoming
a better person, not just a way to get rich
or show off easy.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Think about how we see things today, right, Yeah, Gaber
might have had some out there ideas, but he was
serious about it. He wanted to understand the universe.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
And he did it all through observation, experimenting, writing everything down.
Those are the foundations of science, even if his theories
were a bit different from what we accept now.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
So maybe he wasn't just some mystical weirdo. Maybe Gaber
was like a bridge between the ancient way of thinking
and the scientific method that was starting to.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Emerge, exactly using what he had available to try and
figure out how it all worked. And to be honest,
there's still a lot we don't know about the universe.
Who's to say some of Geber's ideas, even the ones
that sound strange now won't be proven right someday that's true.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Things change what we think is impossible, maybe it isn't.
I guess that's the coolest thing about jabiir Iv Naiyon.
He reminds us to never stop questioning, experimenting, exploring the unknown,
even if it seems a little weird at first.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Couldn't have put it better myself.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
There you have it, everyone, Jabir ibn Hayan, particulous, ambitious,
and who knows, maybe even a little bit of a visionary.
Keep those minds curious and we'll see you next time
for another deep dive.
Welcome back. Everyone, Ready to dive into something really cool
today we're tackling alchemy, but not the airy potter kind.
We're going deep into the alchemy Gabriel erevs. Which is,
you know, a collection of writings from the famous alchemist
Jumir Ibinhayan, or as many know him, Gaber.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, and get this, We're going to see a side
of alchemy you might not expect. Forget bubbling cauldrons, think
meticulous lab work. Gaber was obsessed with detail in a
way that was way ahead of his time.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Okay, gotta ask. We're working with excerpts here, right, Yeah,
And the thing that just jumps out is how crazy
detailed Gaber is about every single thing lab set up.
He's writing entire chapters on it materials. He doesn't just
say use sulfur. He's like, here's how you purify it,
where to find the good stuff. It's like an ancient
lab manual. Yeah, way more intense.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Exactly. You almost have to see it to believe it.
Think about when this guy was working, most people figured
things just sort of happened, Like spontaneous generation was a
hot topic back then, right right. But Geber's over here
giving deep by step instructions on like how to make
a specific glass vessel. He's got the dimensions, the shape,
even what kind of glass to use.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
It's nuts, so he wasn't just trying to like make
something work once. He's trying to figure out how to
make it work the same way every time exactly. That's
setting the stage for modern science right there. Yeah, and
this meticulousness it really comes through. And how he talks
about purifying substances.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Oh, absolutely, he goes on and on about it. It's
pages and pages, like with salts, for example, I'm paraphrasing here,
but he says something like dissolve it, filter it seven times,
then heat it until it's whiter than snows seven. He's
not messing around. It shows the difference between like actual
alchemy and just kind of wing in it. He's trying
(01:44):
to get to the purest form of everything so he
can really understand it. And that's such a modern concept,
even if his methods were a bit different.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It makes you appreciate the groundwork these guys late. You know,
it wasn't all magic and spells. It was about observation, repetition.
Even if they didn't have the same chemistry knowledge.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
We do now totally. And you see how seriously he
took it in how he talks about those he calls
Charlatan's people who destroy the art by being careless. It's
like you can almost picture him on like ancient social
media ranting about these wanna be alchemists. Haha, I love it.
He wanted to separate the real deal from the fakers.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
It's like he's saying, look, this isn't some parlor trick,
this is serious business. He even mentions he's got other
books with even more detail, like Hidden Secrets for the
truly dedicated. But uh, maybe we should save that rabbit
hole for another time. What about his ideas about.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Metals, Yeah, let's get into that, because that's where it
gets really interesting. It's this blend of super precise observation
and well some pretty creative interpretation.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
So we've got this super meticulous alchemist, right, but what's
he actually trying to do? Oh with all this knowledge,
what I'm getting from these excerpts is this idea that
Geber was really focused on metals, but not just like
how to use them for you know, making stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Oh. Absolutely, he was after something way deeper than just
practical applications.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's like he thought metals had some kind of deeper meaning.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
You know, you're right on the money. This is where
it gets really interesting, because the line between the actual
physical stuff and the symbolic starts to get kind of blurry.
With Gepper, he really believed that metals, just as you
find them in nature, weren't in their ideal state.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Oh interesting, what like they were incomplete or something?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Yeah, like a rough draft. He talks about fixing and
completing metals through alchemy, and get this, he thought he
could bring them closer to like the perfection of celestial bodies.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Well, hold on, are we talking stars and planets?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Now we are? He's always using this language of sun properties,
moon properties when he's describing metals. And it wasn't just
like flowery writing either, right. It all connected to real
things they were observing about how these metals behaved.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
It's like how even now we still talk about like
lunar cycles or whatever, we still connect those things even
if we don't think about them the same way.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Exactly. Forget gold that was connected to the sun incorruptible, right,
like how they thought the Sun's fire was eternal. Silver
that was the moon cycles change reflecting the moon's phases.
But it's deeper than just comparing them. It's about how
they understood what these metals really were deep down.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Okay, so it's not just him being poetic about shiny stuff.
So how did he think you could actually change a
metal's essence? I mean, is that even.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Possible through alchemy? Of course? And this is where all
that meticulous work comes in. He lays out these crazy
detailed procedures heating, melting, combining metals, treating them with all
sorts of substances. He even talks about like how long
to keep something at a certain temperature. How finally you
have to grind something down. It's incredible.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
So he's thinking by messing with a metal's physical properties
you can change. It's more that's spiritual side or I
don't know, symbolic qualities.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
I guess, yeah, you got it. Don't forget the way
they saw the world. The lab was like a mini
version of the whole cosmos. Oh right, So if he
could replicate the heat of the sun in his furnace
in his mind, he was using those same cosmic forces
to act on the metal itself.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
That's kind of a mind blowing idea, even if the
science behind it seems a little shaky to us. Now,
is there like a specific example of this how he
connected what he was doing in the lab to these
big ideas about you know, metals and planets and all that.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Oh, for sure, Remember how obsessed he was with purity.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Yeah, seven washes, all.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
That exactly, impurities in the metal. He saw those as
like hiding the metal's true nature. I'm pretty sure he
actually says, just as the sun's light is hidden by clouds,
so are the noble qualities of metals veiled by impurities.
So all that purifying it wasn't just about cleariness. He's
trying to remove the clouds to reveal the perfect form underneath.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Okay, now that is just cool. But I gotta admit,
for all the talk of perfection in celestial bodies, some
of this stuff just goes right over my head. Like
when he starts talking about spirits and souls and inside
these materials, it's like, did we wander into a seance
all this time?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, that's where I have to a minute, I kind
of get lost to Like one minute we're talking about
building furnaces, and the next metals have souls, it's a lot.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
It definitely takes them getting used to.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
You have to remember with alchemy, symbolism was huge, eating
They weren't always going for a literal like chemistry textbook explanation.
So when Geber's talking about the spirit of a metal,
he doesn't mean there's a ghost floating out of the crucible.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Right, not exactly, No, think of it more like potential energy.
But on a cosmic level. They believe everything was connected,
you know, and these spirits were like the fundamental force
is driving everything, both the physical stuff and the spiritual
side too.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Okay, So less about an actual ghost, more about the
hidden potential inside something, right.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Like instead of just a lump of gold, Geber saw
something connected to the sun, something you could tap into
transform to unlock what it was really capable of.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So the lab was almost like a sacred space where
the everyday stuff met with these bigger cosmic forces.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
You got it. And that's where that famous line comes in,
sick mundus creatist, Thus the world was created. Geber looked
at what he was doing, the heating, mixing, purifying all
of it as a reflection of creation itself.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
That's kind of a heavy thought. Yeah, it makes you
think about those Charlatans he was always going on about.
Maybe it wasn't just him being picky about lab technique.
Maybe he thought people could really mess things up if
they didn't know what they were doing.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Oh totally, like, Hey, this stuff is powerful. You can't
just throw it all in a pot and see what happens.
He saw alchemy as this path to knowledge, to becoming
a better person, not just a way to get rich
or show off easy.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Think about how we see things today, right, Yeah, Gaber
might have had some out there ideas, but he was
serious about it. He wanted to understand the universe.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
And he did it all through observation, experimenting, writing everything down.
Those are the foundations of science, even if his theories
were a bit different from what we accept now.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
So maybe he wasn't just some mystical weirdo. Maybe Gaber
was like a bridge between the ancient way of thinking
and the scientific method that was starting to.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Emerge, exactly using what he had available to try and
figure out how it all worked. And to be honest,
there's still a lot we don't know about the universe.
Who's to say some of Geber's ideas, even the ones
that sound strange now won't be proven right someday that's true.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Things change what we think is impossible, maybe it isn't.
I guess that's the coolest thing about jabiir Iv Naiyon.
He reminds us to never stop questioning, experimenting, exploring the unknown,
even if it seems a little weird at first.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Couldn't have put it better myself.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
There you have it, everyone, Jabir ibn Hayan, particulous, ambitious,
and who knows, maybe even a little bit of a visionary.
Keep those minds curious and we'll see you next time
for another deep dive.
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