An alchemical term for a mysterious substance that is capable of transforming other substances. It is also known as the Philosopher’s Stone. It comes from an Arabic word that means mercury, resulting in the common confusion that it refers to “mercury”. It is also symbolic of a mystical factor that brings about transformation in the human consciousness.

Paracelsus, through whom this Arabic term became popularized in the West, also referred to Azoth as the Astral Light. Helena P. BLAVATSKY states that Azoth is “the creative principle in Nature, the grosser portion of which is stored in the Astral Light” (TG).

This mysterious thing is the universal, magical agent, the astral light, which in the correlations of its forces furnishes the alkahest, the philosopher’s stone, and the elixir of life. Hermetic philosophy names it Azoth, the soul of the world, the celestial virgin, the great Magnes, etc., etc. Physical science knows it as “heat, light, electricity, and magnetism”; but ignoring its spiritual properties and the occult potency contained in ether, rejects everything it ignores. (IU I:507-8)

© Copyright by the Theosophical Publishing House, Manila