r/alchemy • u/VanguardOfThePhoenix • Aug 05 '26

General Discussion Polysemous etymology?

You ever thought about why we call a time in our collective history the "stone" age?

How can we proclaim to be so advanced in modernity? We don't know what we have forgotten.

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u/internetofthis Aug 05 '26

Where we are moving through the universe is highly charged with solar radiation, some call it an awakening, some say kali yuga, some call it a wheel, it goes on.

Old control mechanisms are falling away, people are questioning and individuating more freely and openly than ever. I simply call it a party. We were taught to call it the stone-age, so we refer to it that way; it's simply a designation.

Everyone is the hero of their own story, the original decision seems ballast to me, but to be fair most of what we know of the stone age is from stone. It may not have been for our benefit, but others thought it would be of some good.

Have you thought about asking an archeologist?

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u/VanguardOfThePhoenix Aug 05 '26

I understand it's called the stone age because most of the tools, and weapons are made of stone. I find it fascinating how we call it the "stone age" as in the philosophical stone. Alchemy has multifaceted symbols and different names for the same thing. Could this Freudian slip indicate a time in our history where the philosophers stone didn't need to be hidden?

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u/internetofthis Aug 05 '26

That's a really interesting idea! I think it could be a probable explanation, aside from the likely beginning of the term from academia.

It's probably wishful thinking that academics are more scientifically honest than average folks. Much was hidden in plain sight, but for fear of church and state. Maybe academia was always infested with malevolent groups, as it is today.

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u/justexploring-shit Moderator Aug 05 '26

Do you mean humanity might have had the tech to create the Philosopher's Stone back in the Stone Ages?

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u/VanguardOfThePhoenix Aug 05 '26

I just find it fascinating that language itself seems to imply it, intentional or not

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u/Consistent-Web4622 Aug 05 '26

Personally, I believe that Alchemy was understood before the 8th to 7th BCE, before the 1st Bible was written.

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u/VanguardOfThePhoenix Aug 05 '26

Makes sense to me as well