Compendium

Gold is the chemical element Au, atomic number 79: in its pure state a bright, metallic yellow metal, dense and soft, the most malleable of all metals and one of the least reactive of the elements. It is often found native, as nuggets or grains in rock, veins and river deposits, usually alloyed with some silver, and gold artefacts appear in Egypt and Mesopotamia from the fourth millennium BC. Cunningham gives gold to the Sun and to fire and calls it projective. He traces its long bond with divinity, above all with solar gods: it was a favoured material for sacred images and altars and the highest of offerings, legend has the Druids cutting mistletoe with golden sickles, and medieval herbalists harvested with gold tools to strengthen their plants. He counts it perhaps the most potent metal in magic, worn to raise and send power and, day to day, to build courage, confidence and will. He uses it for protection, with a gold chain around a white candle as the focus of a rite; for wisdom, by giving it away without conditions; for health and long life; and in money and success rituals, where even a scrap of gold leaf is enough.