CHAPTER XIX
JACINTH—LODESTONE
JACINTH: JADE: JARGOON: MATURAN DIAMOND: JASPER: THE LYDIAN STONE OF THE ANCIENTS: THE HELIOTROPE OR BLOODSTONE VARIETY: THOMAS NICOLS AND ARTIFICIAL INFUSIONS: ST. ISIDORE ON THE JASPER: LEGEND OF THE CROSS: NUMBER FIVE AND THE STONE OF THE VIRGIN: RARE WORKS IN JASPER: GALENUS ON ITS VIRTUES: THE ANODYNE NECKLACE: THE JASPER AMULET OF NECHEPSOS: THE WHEEL OF EZEKIEL: JASPER SIGILS: TRALLIANUS AND THE JASPER: MOTTLED JASPER, A CHARM TO PROTECT FROM DROWNING: ZODIACAL REFLECTIONS: THE STONE OF VICTORY: VAN HELMONT’S EXPERIMENTS: THE JASPER AMONGST THE JEWELS OF THE ROSICRUCIANS: JET: KAURI GUM: KOLOPHONITE: KUNZITE: KYANITE: LABRADORITE: LAPIS LAZULI: COLOURS AND NAMES: PERSIAN LAJWARD, ITS VIRTUES: ITS PLACE IN THE BOOK OF THE DEAD: COMMANDMENT STONES: LAPIS LAZULI IN CHINA: KATHERINE II AND HER PALACE ROOM: A STONE OF THE ALCHEMISTS: LIMONITE: LODESTONE: PLINY’S STORY OF ITS DISCOVERY: HOW TERMED BY TITUS CARUS LUCRETIUS: THE STONE OF HERCULES: LEGEND OF THE PHOENICIANS: THE AGE OF THE MARINER’S COMPASS: CONSTRUCTION OF ONE BY THE CHINESE EMPEROR HOUANGTI: PAUSANIAS AND THE STONE IMAGE OF HERCULES: A CRAMP STONE: A DIVINATORY INSTRUMENT: THE PLAN OF PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS: PROFESSOR NOAD AND THE POWER OF THE LODESTONE: BARRETT’S “ANTIPATHIES”: STORY OF CLAUDIANUS: MAGNET AND THE ONION.
JACINTH. (See [HYACINTH].)
JADE. See ([NEPHRITE].)
JARGOON. The Jargoon or Jargon, by which name it is known in France, is derived from the Italian GIACONE. It is a greyish or smoky variety of the zircon (q.v.), which so closely resembles the diamond that it is often sold by unscrupulous dealers for the more precious gem. In allusion to this, Sir A. H. Church in his work on “Precious Stones” says: “The diamond and the jargoon do not improve or bring out each other’s qualities for they have too many points in common.” The jargoon, however, is nearly three degrees softer than the diamond and more easily injured. It is usually brilliant and rose-cut. At Matura in Ceylon where it is found in fair quantities it is frequently termed the “Maturan Diamond.” The jargoon is frequently used set as a talismanic charm against plagues and disease, for which purpose it was esteemed greatly in the Middle Ages in the East and in Europe. Worn on the little finger, set in a ring of silver, it was reputed to help the physician to correct diagnoses especially if, when in doubt, he held the stone against his forehead, at a point between the eyes. The jargoon is under the celestial Virgo.
“Jasper stone signifies the divine truth of the Word in its literal sense, translucent from the divine truth in its spiritual sense.”
Swedenborg.
Jasper derives its name from the Hebrew YASHPHEH, Greek IASPIS, Arabic YASB. It is found written as jasp, jaspre, iaspere, iaspar. It is a hard siliceous mineral of dark, dull colours, chiefly red, green, yellow and black. In the variety termed RIBAND the mixed and striped colours form in concentric irregular zones. Ruin Jasper occurs in darker shades of browns and yellows, giving the appearance of venerable ruins. The lapis Lydius or Lydian Stone of the ancients—our basanite, commonly known as Touchstone—is a velvety black flinty jasper, used as much today as ever it was, for ascertaining the fineness and quality of gold and precious metals, and says Bacon, “Gold is tried by the touchstone and men by gold.” Its connection with Mercury is shown in the Greek story of the transformation of the betrayer Battus into Touchstone by the God. The Heliotrope or so-called Bloodstone variety is green with spots of red. Pliny enumerates ten varieties, giving preference to the purple and rose-coloured. Marbodus in the Lapidarium writes of seventeen species all differing in colour, the best of all being the bright translucent green. The jasper was held in high favour by the ancients and Babylonian seals as old as 1,000 years before the Christian era have been found. The THET or Buckle of Isis was made chiefly of jasper. In those times the stone was found in quantities in the vicinity of the historic town of On or Heliopolis. Thomas Nicols, writing in the 17th century, protests that the Egyptians knew how to infuse artificial colours into this gem: “It is ascribed by way of glory to the King of Egypt that the first adulteration of jasper by tincture was from him, but the glory of this praise, if I be not mistaken, doth even become his shame.” St. Isidore of Seville (16th century) writes of the green jasper as “shining with the greenness of glory,” and this variety—commonly known as bloodstone because it is spotted with red specks resembling drops of blood—is regarded as an essentially religious substance, and is associated with the old Easter ceremonies. There is an old legend, frequently retold, that the green jasper lying at the foot of the Cross at the Crucifixion received the blood drops from the five wounds of the dying Christ, which drops were forever impregnated in the stone. Five is the number which in mystic writings is identified with the planet Mercury, and the significance of the blood of the Son of the Virgin in the stone of the Virgin will be understood by those who search for truth beneath the mantle of parable. Mr. William Jones in “Finger Ring Lore” gives an illustration of a Christian octagonal-shaped ring of the 3rd or 4th century, set with a red jasper in which is cut in intaglio a shepherd and his flocks: the import of this is clear enough. A jasper bust of Christ in which the red spots are so manipulated by the skilful artist as to represent drops of blood is mentioned by Professor James Dana as being in the royal collection at Paris. “Some indeed assert,” writes Claudius Galenus, the famous physician of the second Christian century, “that a virtue such as is possessed by the green jasper which benefits the chest and mouth of the stomach if tied upon it, is inherent in precious stones.... I have had ample experience having made a necklace out of such gems (jaspers), and hung it round the neck, descending so low that the stones might touch the mouth of the stomach, and they appeared to be of no less service than if they had been engraved in the way laid down by King Nechepsos.” This is the famous anodyne necklace so valued, especially in England, and the source of which the distinguished physician Dr. William Cullen ascribes to Galenus. Several books are credited to King Nechepsos (circa 600 B. C.). Galenus alludes to this King’s jasper amulet which took the form of a rayed dragon. This dragon form symbolizes the mystery of the three zodiacal signs—Virgo, Libra and Scorpio—known to students of Rosicrucian philosophy as the Wheel of Ezekiel, and personified in Pallas Athene or Minerva, the embodiment of wisdom, sympathy and strength. Galenus carried as his talismanic gem a jasper engraved with a man carrying a bundle of herbs, as an aid to his judgment in indicating various diseases—a power long ascribed to stones under the celestial Virgo. A similar sigil is given by the ancient Israelitish Rabbi Chael: “A man with broad shoulders and thick loins, standing and holding in his right hand a bundle of herbs engraved on a green jasper is good against fevers and if a physician carries it about with him it will give him skill in distinguishing diseases and knowing the proper remedies. It is also good for hæmorrhoids and quickly stops the flow of blood.” The same authority recommends for good luck in buying and selling “Aquarius cut on a green jasper,” which is also termed “a stone of good counsel for traders”[traders”] (all trade is under Mercury, the ruler in astrology of the signs Gemini and Virgo). A man’s head facing and a bird holding a leaf in its beak, cut in jasper, was held to give riches and favour; a hare cut in jasper protected from evil spiritual forces. The green jasper, as before stated, was also known as the Heliotropion (Heliotrope), a word derived from Greek HELIOS, the sun, and TROPOS, a turn—probably in allusion to the planet Mercury which turns nearest the Sun. It is stated that if this stone were placed in water it would reflect the blood-red disc of the sun, and if held before the eyes it would assist in the observation of the Solar and Lunar eclipses. Trallianus, a 6th century philosopher, recommends the jasper for pains of an acute nature in the stomach or bowels—a use for which it was especially esteemed by all ancient scholars. Mottled jasper was worn to protect from death by drowning, or from death whilst on or near the water, and this presents one of the many instances of what astrologers term “sign reflection,” for the water sign of the Fishes (Pisces) is opposite to the earthy sign Virgo and serves as an apt illustration of antipathetic action. Another virtue ascribed to jasper was the calming of uneasy minds and the securing of victory in battle. In this latter connection, Cardanus, physician, philosopher and astrologer of the 16th century, says that it has action on the feelings, causing something akin to timidity which induces caution and the evading of needless risks—a distinctly Mercurial attribute. De Boodt advises the wearing of jasper to check hæmorrhage and relieve stomach pains. The stomach was regarded as the seat of the soul by the remarkable Baptista van Helmont. Deleuze credits him with “creating epochs in the histories of medicine and physiology, and of first giving the name of ‘gas’ to aerial fluids,” adding that without him, “it is probable that steel would have given no new impulse to science.” Van Helmont writes: “In the pit of the stomach there is a more powerful sensation than even in the eye or in the fingers. The stomach often will not tolerate a hand to be laid upon it because there is there the most acute and positive feeling which at other times is only perceived in the fingers.” For purposes of experiment Van Helmont touched a root of aconite with the tip of his tongue—a risky action—taking care, however, not to swallow any of it. “Immediately,” he says, “my head seemed tied tightly with a string and soon after there happened to me a singular circumstance such as I had never before experienced. I observed with astonishment that I no longer felt and thought with the head but with the region of the stomach, as if consciousness had now taken up its seat there. Terrified by this unusual phenomenon, I asked myself and enquired unto myself carefully, but I only became the more convinced that my power of perception had become greater and more comprehensive. This intellectual clearness was associated with great pleasure. I did not sleep, nor did I dream.... I had occasionally had ecstasies but these had nothing in common with this condition of the stomach in which it thought and felt and almost excluded all co-operation of the head. This state continued for two hours after which I had some dizziness.” Van Helmont writes of the “Sun tissue” in the region of the stomach which from the earliest recorded times has been identified with the zodiacal Virgo around which so many myths, parables and legends cluster. Jasper is associated with this part of the body of man, and to dream of it is said to symbolise love’s faithfulness known to the mind before the heart:
“Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,