Anachitis: The Mysterious Stone of Ancient Magic
In the modern day, Anachitis is a fairly obscure stone. However, it has a long history in the ancient and medieval world, associated with rich folklore and supernatural powers.
A stone used to conjure spirits from water and trap them until the conjurer is finished with them. The stone has a long history with ancient naturalists and scientists.
Pliny the Elder dismissed the stone and its powers, though it would later be associated as a diamond-like stone under the writings of Martin Ruland the Elder, who explained it would protect one from incubi and succubi. Pliny also describes a stone called “synochitis” that would ensure these water spirits are bound.
Oddly, as time went on, synochitis and anachitis would seemingly be flipped. As Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa writes that synochitis conjures the spirits. However, anachitis would manifest godly images.
Anancitis in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History
Anachitis appears in Book 37 of Pliny the Elder’s Natural History. Pliny records, according to tradition, Anachitis was used in divination. In particular, the divination involved water and was said to cause divine apparitions to appear.
However, the stone is followed by another — Synochitis.
Synochitis was said to have a different yet seemingly complementary power: it could bind or hold the dead after they had been summoned. So, with this pair, at least according to legend, one stone would make the spirits appear and another would bind them,
However, the distinction between these two stones was not consistent across later literature.
Did Pliny Believe Anancitis Had Magical Powers?
Not at all.
Pliny was generally quite skeptical of magickal claims. Even if he recorded countless stories and supernatural legends, he generally maintained distance or didn’t accept them. Pliny’s wording on Anachitis and Synochitis is fairly intense in how he rejects them, going as far to say they are part of the false claims of the Magi, saying all these supposedly magickal stones were actually ordinary, not supernatural or magickal, and worthless for magick.
Anachitis and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
More than a thousand years after Pliny, Anachitis would appear in Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim’s writing. Agrippa was a German Renaissance polymath and occult writer, and it is no surprise Anachitis would appear in his works, as Agrippa believed natural objects could possess hidden or occult virtues.
In his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Agrippa explains that that Synochitis has the power to summon ghosts, and Anachitis causes images of the gods to appear.
Martin Ruland and the Diamond Called Anachitis
Moving on in history, Anachitis’s meaning took another turn. This time, we can look to the work of German physician Martin Ruland the Elder.
Ruland’s Lexicon Alchemiae has an entry diamond, or adamas. He gave an account of physical observations, medical uses or beliefs, folklore, and, of course, the claimed magick said to rest with the diamond. Ruland records diamonds were wards against incubi and succubi. He also said it would make the one who holds it more courageous.
Was Anachitis a Real Stone?
Officially, we have no known modern mineral species called “Anachitis.”
We are looking at a wide variety of physical descriptions of stones said to possess magickal powers. It doesn’t help that the record for the stone is not super consistent. Plus, names could shift over time or be corrupted, or it could be a misidentification of another stone.