Pyrite
Also Fool's gold, Iron pyrites
Opaque brassy metallic yellow, often in sharp cubes or flat radiating discs; tarnishes with age to a dull brown iridescence.
- Crystal system
- Cubic
- Hardness
- 6-6.5 Mohs
- Handling
- Do not put pyrite in water and do not let it sit damp. It is iron sulfide: moisture and humid air oxidise it, and it can sweat sulfuric acid, crumble from the inside and stain whatever it rests on. Collectors call this pyrite disease. Store it dry, wipe it dry, wash your hands after handling broken pieces, and never make an elixir with it.
- In water
- No
What it is held to be for
Pyrite grows in cubes so square they look cut. Its name is Greek for fire-stone: struck against steel it throws sparks, and both Theophrastus and Pliny record it doing exactly that. That is the whole of its tradition, a stone holding fire in a cold form. It is kept for nerve rather than for luck, and its likeness to gold earned it the name fool's gold.
Theophrastus, On Stones; Pliny, Natural History XXXVI (pyrites)
Correspondences
These are the tradition's ascriptions, not properties of the mineral.
- Planet
- Sun, Mars
- Element
- Fire
- Signs
- Leo, Aries
- Chinese phase
- Metal
- Year animal
- Monkey, Rooster
- Centre
- Solar plexus Manipura
- Sephirah
- Geburah
How it is used
Kept in a dry place, on a desk or a shelf, never loose in a pocket with keys and never in a bag that gets damp. Looked at rather than handled, before work that needs starting.
Today
Set the pyrite where the light catches it. Name the task you have been circling for weeks. Do the first five minutes of it now.
A longer working
On a Tuesday, put the pyrite on a dry saucer beside a sheet of paper. Write on it, in one line, the job you have been avoiding for more than a month. Set the stone on the paper. Work at that job for twenty-five minutes, then stop, whatever state it is in. Repeat on each of the next three days. On the fourth, tear the paper up and wipe the stone dry.
Works with
- Herb
- Cinnamon
- Incense
- Cedar