Magnetite
Also Lodestone, Loadstone, Magnetic iron ore
Opaque black with a submetallic to metallic shine and a black streak. Crystals are often sharp octahedra. The same mineral in sand-sized grains is what makes some beaches grey and clings in beards to a magnet dragged through them.
- Crystal system
- Cubic
- Hardness
- 5.5-6.5 Mohs
- Handling
- Iron again, so it rusts: keep it dry, out of salt water, and do not make an elixir by immersion. Its magnetism is the other hazard. A strong lodestone will wipe a bank card or a hotel key, upset a mechanical watch or a compass, and should be kept well away from a pacemaker. It also collects filings and grit until it looks furred; brush that off dry with an old toothbrush.
- In water
- No
What it is held to be for
Magnetite is the one common mineral that is magnetic by itself, and lodestone is the rarer thing again: a piece that has been permanently magnetised in the ground, most likely by a lightning strike. Claudian describes a temple where an iron Mars was drawn across to a lodestone Venus and the priests called it a wedding. Folk practice feeds a lodestone iron filings to keep it drawing.
Claudian, Magnes; Pliny XXXVI, on magnes; Agrippa, Occult Philosophy I
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Mars, Saturn
- Element
- Earth
- Signs
- Aries, Virgo, Capricorn
- Chinese phase
- Metal
- Year animal
- Dog, Rooster
- Centre
- Root Muladhara
- Sephirah
- Geburah
How it is used
Kept in a dish rather than worn, since it picks up grit and wipes cards. Set where money or work arrives: by the till, the front door. Fed a pinch of iron filings when it is asked for something.
Today
Hold a paperclip near it until you feel the pull. Say what you want to come, once, then set the stone down facing the door.
A longer working
On a Thursday, put the lodestone in a dish by the door with a scattering of iron filings; steel wool teased apart will do. Each morning for a month, add one filing and say the same sentence naming what you are drawing: work, a buyer, a letter back. Do not change the wording. At the end of the month, if it came, tip the filings out of the door. If it did not, change the sentence, not the stone.
Works with
- Herb
- Cinquefoil
- Incense
- Bay