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Real astronomy and dated history, with sources. Documented traditions and folklore. Modern lunar astrology · symbolic, not predictive.

Folklore #149 Rituals & practice

Alchemy assigned each of the seven visible planets a metal, and the Moon got silver — luna, which is why silver nitrate was called lunar caustic well into the nineteenth century.

Gold went to the Sun, iron to Mars, copper to Venus, and the pairings ran through pharmacy, heraldry and language for centuries. Silver's association is the obvious one: colour and shine. The vocabulary outlasted the theory — a chemist reaching for lunar caustic in 1850 was using an astrological name for a compound with no astrology in it.

Tradition: European alchemy; the seven planetary metals · checked Sep 2026

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Alchemy assigned each of the seven visible planets a metal, and the Moon got silver — luna, which is why silver nitrate was called lunar caustic well into the nineteenth century.

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Alchemy assigned each of the seven visible planets a metal, and the Moon got silver — luna, which is why silver nitrate was called lunar caustic well into the nineteenth century.

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