![Aurora consurgens zurich 044 f-21v-44 dragon-pot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Aurora_consurgens_zurich_044_f-21v-44_dragon-pot.jpg)
Alchemy (from
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
: ''al-kīmiyā''; from
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of
natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science.
From the ancient wo ...
, a
philosophical
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
and
protoscientific
__NOTOC__
In the philosophy of science, there are several definitions of protoscience. Its simplest meaning (most closely reflecting its roots of ''wikt:proto-#Prefix, proto-'' + ''science'') involves the earliest eras of the history of science, wh ...
tradition that was historically practiced in
China,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
, the
Muslim world
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
, and
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
.
In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of
pseudepigraphical
Pseudepigrapha (also anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.Bauckham, Richard; "Pseu ...
texts written in
Greco-Roman Egypt
The history of Egypt has been long and wealthy, due to the flow of the Nile River with its fertile banks and delta, as well as the accomplishments of Egypt's native inhabitants and outside influence. Much of Egypt's ancient history was a myste ...
during the first few centuries AD.
[Principe, Lawrence M. ]
The secrets of alchemy
'. University of Chicago Press, 2012, pp. 9–14.
Alchemists attempted to purify, mature, and perfect certain materials.
Common aims were
chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "
base metal
A base metal is a common and inexpensive metal, as opposed to a precious metal such as gold or silver. In numismatics, coins often derived their value from the precious metal content; however, base metals have also been used in coins in the past ...
s" (e.g.,
lead
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...
) into "
noble metal
A noble metal is ordinarily regarded as a metallic chemical element that is generally resistant to corrosion and is usually found in nature in its raw form. Gold, platinum, and the other platinum group metals ( ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, o ...
s" (particularly
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
);
the creation of an
elixir of immortality
The elixir of life, also known as elixir of immortality, is a potion that supposedly grants the drinker eternal life and/or eternal youth. This elixir was also said to cure all diseases. Alchemists in various ages and cultures sought the means ...
;
and the creation of
panaceas able to cure any disease. The perfection of the
human body and
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest atte ...
was thought to result from the alchemical
''magnum opus'' ("Great Work").
The concept of creating the
philosophers' stone
The philosopher's stone or more properly philosophers' stone (Arabic: حجر الفلاسفة, , la, lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (, from the Greek , "gold", ...
was variously connected with all of these projects.
Islamic and European alchemists developed a basic set of
laboratory techniques
A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratory services are provided in a variety of settings: physici ...
, theories, and terms, some of which are still in use today. They did not abandon the
Ancient Greek philosophical idea that everything is composed of
four elements
Classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Tibet, and India had simi ...
, and they tended to guard their work in secrecy, often making use of
cyphers Cyphers may refer to:
* ''Cyphers'' (magazine), Irish literary publication
"Cyphers" is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Charles Cyphers
Charles Cyphers (born July 28, 1939) is an American actor who is known in the horror ...
and cryptic symbolism. In Europe, the
12th-century translations of
medieval Islamic works on science and the
rediscovery of Aristotelian philosophy gave birth to a flourishing tradition of Latin alchemy.
This late medieval tradition of alchemy would go on to play a significant role in the development of
early modern science (particularly
chemistry and
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
).
Modern discussions of alchemy are generally split into an examination of its
exoteric
Exoteric refers to knowledge that is outside and independent from a person's experience and can be ascertained by anyone (related to common sense).
The word is derived from the comparative form of Greek ἔξω ''eksô'', "from, out of, outside". ...
practical applications and its
esoteric
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas ...
spiritual aspects, despite criticisms by scholars such as
Eric J. Holmyard and
Marie-Louise von Franz that they should be understood as complementary.
The former is pursued by
historians of the physical sciences, who examine the subject in terms of
early chemistry,
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
, and
charlatanism, and the
philosophical
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
and
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...
contexts in which these events occurred. The latter interests historians of
esotericism
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas ...
,
psychologists
A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...
, and some philosophers and
spiritualists
Spiritualism is the metaphysics, metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and Mind-body dualism, dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spir ...
. The subject has also made an ongoing impact on literature and the arts.
Etymology
The word alchemy comes from
old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...
''alquemie'', ''alkimie'', used in
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functione ...
as . This name was itself adopted from the
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
word (). The Arabic in turn was a borrowing of the
Late Greek
Late Greek refers to writings in the Greek language in Late Antiquity and the Early Byzantine period; and in other words, from about the late 2nd century AD until about the late 7th century AD.See the definitions of "Late Greek" aDictionary.comanT ...
term ''khēmeía'' (), also spelled ''khumeia'' () and ''khēmía'' (), with ''
al-
( ar, ٱلْـ), also Romanized as ''el-'', ''il-,'' and ''l-'' as pronounced in some varieties of Arabic, is the definite article in the Arabic language: a particle (''ḥarf'') whose function is to render the noun on which it is prefixed de ...
'' being the Arabic definite article 'the'.
Together this association can be interpreted as 'the process of
transmutation by which to fuse or reunite with the divine or original form'. Several etymologies have been proposed for the Greek term. The first was proposed by Zosimos of Panopolis (3rd–4th centuries), who derived it from the name of a book, the ''Khemeu.'' Hermanm Diels argued in 1914 that it rather derived from χύμα, used to describe metallic objects formed by casting.
Others trace its roots to the
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
name ' (hieroglyphic 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 ' ), meaning 'black earth', which refers to the fertile and
auriferous
The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral.
Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue giv ...
soil of the Nile valley, as opposed to red desert sand.
According to the Egyptologist
Wallis Budge
Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge (27 July 185723 November 1934) was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. He made numerous trips ...
, the Arabic word ''ʾ'' actually means "the Egyptian
cience, borrowing from the
Coptic word for "Egypt", ' (or its equivalent in the Mediaeval
Bohairic
Coptic (Bohairic Coptic: , ) is a language family of closely related dialects, representing the most recent developments of the Egyptian language, and historically spoken by the Copts, starting from the third-century AD in Roman Egypt. Copti ...
dialect of Coptic, '). This Coptic word derives from
Demotic
Demotic may refer to:
* Demotic Greek, the modern vernacular form of the Greek language
* Demotic (Egyptian), an ancient Egyptian script and version of the language
* Chữ Nôm, the demotic script for writing Vietnamese
See also
*
* Demos (disa ...
', itself from ancient
Egyptian
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
'. The ancient Egyptian word referred to both the country and the colour "black" (Egypt was the "black Land", by contrast with the "red Land", the surrounding desert); so this etymology could also explain the nickname "Egyptian black arts".
History
Alchemy encompasses several philosophical traditions spanning some four millennia and three continents. These traditions' general penchant for cryptic and symbolic language makes it hard to trace their mutual influences and "genetic" relationships. One can distinguish at least three major strands, which appear to be mostly independent, at least in their earlier stages:
Chinese alchemy
Chinese alchemy is an ancient Chinese scientific and technological approach to alchemy, a part of the larger tradition of Taoist / Daoist body-spirit cultivation developed from the traditional Chinese understanding of medicine and the body. Acc ...
, centered in China;
Indian alchemy, centered on the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...
; and Western alchemy, which occurred around the
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...
and whose center shifted over the millennia from
Greco-Roman Egypt
The history of Egypt has been long and wealthy, due to the flow of the Nile River with its fertile banks and delta, as well as the accomplishments of Egypt's native inhabitants and outside influence. Much of Egypt's ancient history was a myste ...
to the
Islamic world, and finally
medieval Europe
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
. Chinese alchemy was closely connected to
Taoism
Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Ta ...
and Indian alchemy with the
Dharmic faiths. In contrast, Western alchemy developed its philosophical system mostly independent of but influenced by various
Western religion
The Western religions are the religions that originated within Western culture, which are thus historically, culturally, and theologically distinct from Eastern, African and Iranian religions. The term Abrahamic religions ( Islam, Christia ...
s. It is still an open question whether these three strands share a common origin, or to what extent they influenced each other.
Hellenistic Egypt
![Zosimosapparat](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Zosimosapparat.jpg)
The start of Western alchemy may generally be traced to ancient and
Hellenistic Egypt, where the city of
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
was a center of alchemical knowledge, and retained its pre-eminence through most of the Greek and Roman periods. Following the work of André-Jean Festugière, modern scholars see alchemical practice in the Roman Empire as originating from the Egyptian goldsmith's art, Greek philosophy and different religious traditions. Tracing the origins of the alchemical art in Egypt is complicated by the
pseudepigraphic
Pseudepigrapha (also anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.Bauckham, Richard; "Pseu ...
nature of texts from the Greek alchemical corpus. The treatises of
Zosimos of Panopolis
Zosimos of Panopolis ( el, Ζώσιμος ὁ Πανοπολίτης; also known by the Latin name Zosimus Alchemista, i.e. "Zosimus the Alchemist") was a Greco-Egyptian alchemist and Gnostic mystic who lived at the end of the 3rd and beginning ...
, the earliest historically attested author (
fl. c. 300 CE), can help in situating the other authors. Zosimus based his work on that of older alchemical authors, such as
Mary the Jewess
Mary or Maria the Jewess ( la, Maria Hebraea), also known as Mary the Prophetess ( la, Maria Prophetissa) or Maria the Copt ( ar, مارية القبطية, Māriyya al-Qibṭiyya), was an early alchemist known from the works of Zosimos of Panop ...
,
Pseudo-Democritus
Pseudo-Democritus is the name used by scholars for the anonymous authors of a number of Greek writings that were falsely attributed to the pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus ( 460–370 BC).
Several of these writings, most notably the ...
,
and
Agathodaimon, but very little is known about any of these authors. The most complete of their works, The ''Four Books'' of
Pseudo-Democritus
Pseudo-Democritus is the name used by scholars for the anonymous authors of a number of Greek writings that were falsely attributed to the pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus ( 460–370 BC).
Several of these writings, most notably the ...
, were probably written in the first century AD.
Recent scholarship tends to emphasize the testimony of Zosimus, who traced the alchemical arts back to Egyptian metallurgical and ceremonial practices. It has also been argued that early alchemical writers borrowed the vocabulary of Greek philosophical schools but did not implement any of its doctrines in a systematic way. Zosimos of Panopolis wrote in the ''Final Abstinence'' (also known as the "Final Count"). Zosimos explains that the ancient practice of "tinctures" (the technical Greek name for the alchemical arts) had been taken over by certain "demons" who taught the art only to those who offered them sacrifices. Since Zosimos also called the demons "the guardians of places" (, ) and those who offered them sacrifices "priests" (, ), it is fairly clear that he was referring to the gods of Egypt and their priests. While critical of the kind of alchemy he associated with the Egyptian priests and their followers, Zosimos nonetheless saw the tradition's recent past as rooted in the rites of the Egyptian temples.
Mythology – Zosimos of Panopolis asserted that alchemy dated back to
Pharaonic Egypt where it was the domain of the priestly class, though there is little to no evidence for his assertion. Alchemical writers used Classical figures from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology to illuminate their works and allegorize alchemical transmutation. These included the pantheon of gods related to the Classical planets,
Isis
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
,
Osiris
Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wsjr'', cop, ⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲉ , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, romanized: ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He wa ...
,
Jason
Jason ( ; ) was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He ...
, and many others.
The central figure in the mythology of alchemy is
Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus (from grc, Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος, "Hermes the Thrice-Greatest"; Classical Latin: la, label=none, Mercurius ter Maximus) is a legendary Hellenistic figure that originated as a syncretic combination of t ...
(or Thrice-Great Hermes). His name is derived from the
god
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
Thoth
Thoth (; from grc-koi, Θώθ ''Thṓth'', borrowed from cop, Ⲑⲱⲟⲩⲧ ''Thōout'', Egyptian: ', the reflex of " eis like the Ibis") is an ancient Egyptian deity. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or ...
and his Greek counterpart
Hermes
Hermes (; grc-gre, wikt:Ἑρμῆς, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travelle ...
. Hermes and his
caduceus or serpent-staff, were among alchemy's principal symbols. According to
Clement of Alexandria
Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria ( grc , Κλήμης ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς; – ), was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen an ...
, he wrote what were called the "forty-two books of Hermes", covering all fields of knowledge. The ''
Hermetica
The ''Hermetica'' are texts attributed to the legendary Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. These texts may vary widely in content and purpose, but are usually subd ...
'' of Thrice-Great Hermes is generally understood to form the basis for Western alchemical philosophy and practice, called the
hermetic philosophy
Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical system that is primarily based on the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus (a legendary Hellenistic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth). These teachings are containe ...
by its early practitioners. These writings were collected in the first centuries of the common era.
Technology – The dawn of Western alchemy is sometimes associated with that of
metallurgy, extending back to 3500 BC. Many writings were lost when the
Roman emperor Diocletian ordered the burning of alchemical books after suppressing a revolt in Alexandria (AD 292). Few original Egyptian documents on alchemy have survived, most notable among them the
Stockholm papyrus
The Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis (also known as the Stockholm papyrus) is a collection of craft recipes compiled in Egypt . It is written in Greek. The Stockholm papyrus has 154 recipes for dyeing, coloring gemstones, cleaning (purifying) pearls, and ...
and the
Leyden papyrus X
The Leyden papyrus X (P. Leyden X) is a papyrus codex written in Greek at about the end of the 3rd century A.D.E.R.Caley, ''The Leyden Paprus X: An English Translation with Brief Notes''p.1149 "These two papyri have, however, upon the basis of unqu ...
. Dating from AD 250–300, they contained recipes for dyeing and making artificial gemstones, cleaning and fabricating pearls, and manufacturing of imitation gold and silver. These writings lack the mystical, philosophical elements of alchemy, but do contain the works of
Bolus of Mendes (or
Pseudo-Democritus
Pseudo-Democritus is the name used by scholars for the anonymous authors of a number of Greek writings that were falsely attributed to the pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus ( 460–370 BC).
Several of these writings, most notably the ...
), which aligned these recipes with theoretical knowledge of astrology and the
classical elements
Classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Tibet, and India had simi ...
.
[''A History of Chemistry'', Bensaude-Vincent, Isabelle Stengers, ''Harvard University Press'', 1996, p13] Between the time of Bolus and Zosimos, the change took place that transformed this metallurgy into a Hermetic art.
Philosophy – Alexandria acted as a melting pot for philosophies of
Pythagoreanism
Pythagoreanism originated in the 6th century BC, based on and around the teachings and beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras established the first Pythagorean community in the ancient Greek colony of Kroton, ...
,
Platonism
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary platonists do not necessarily accept all of the doctrines of Plato. Platonism had a profound effect on Western thought. Platonism at l ...
,
Stoicism and
Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
which formed the origin of alchemy's character.
An important example of alchemy's roots in Greek philosophy, originated by
Empedocles
Empedocles (; grc-gre, Ἐμπεδοκλῆς; , 444–443 BC) was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a native citizen of Akragas, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for originating the cosmogonic theory of the ...
and developed by Aristotle, was that all things in the universe were formed from only four elements:
earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
,
air
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...
,
water
Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...
, and
fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames a ...
. According to Aristotle, each element had a sphere to which it belonged and to which it would return if left undisturbed. The four elements of the Greek were mostly qualitative aspects of matter, not quantitative, as our modern elements are; "...True alchemy never regarded earth, air, water, and fire as corporeal or chemical substances in the present-day sense of the word. The four elements are simply the primary, and most general, qualities by means of which the amorphous and purely quantitative substance of all bodies first reveals itself in differentiated form." Later alchemists extensively developed the mystical aspects of this concept.
Alchemy coexisted alongside emerging
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
.
Lactantius believed Hermes Trismegistus had prophesied its birth.
St Augustine later affirmed this in the 4th & 5th centuries, but also condemned Trismegistus for idolatry. Examples of Pagan, Christian, and Jewish alchemists can be found during this period.
Most of the Greco-Roman alchemists preceding Zosimos are known only by pseudonyms, such as
Moses, Isis,
Cleopatra,
Democritus
Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. No ...
, and
Ostanes
Ostanes (from Ancient Greek, Greek ), also spelled Hostanes and Osthanes, is a legendary Persians, Persian magus and alchemist. It was the pen-name used by several pseudepigraphy, pseudo-anonymous authors of Greek and Latin works from Hellenistic ...
. Others authors such as Komarios, and
Chymes Chymes ( el, Χύμης) was a Greco-Roman alchemist who lived before the third century. He is known only through fragments of text in the works of Zosimos of Panopolis and Olympiodorus of Thebes.Taylor, F. Sherwood. “A Survey of Greek Alchemy ...
, we only know through fragments of text. After AD 400, Greek alchemical writers occupied themselves solely in commenting on the works of these predecessors. By the middle of the 7th century alchemy was almost an entirely mystical discipline. It was at that time that
Khalid Ibn Yazid
Khālid ibn Yazīd (full name ''Abū Hāshim Khālid ibn Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān'', ), 668–704 or 709, was an Umayyad prince and purported alchemist.
As a son of the Umayyad caliph Yazid I, Khalid was supposed to become ca ...
sparked its migration from Alexandria to the Islamic world, facilitating the translation and preservation of Greek alchemical texts in the 8th and 9th centuries.
Byzantium
Greek alchemy is preserved in medieval Greek (Byzantine) manuscripts, and yet historians have only relatively recently begun to pay attention to the study and development of Greek alchemy in the Byzantine period.
India
The 2nd millennium BC text
Vedas
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute th ...
describe a connection between eternal life and gold.
A considerable knowledge of metallurgy has been exhibited in a third-century CE text called
Arthashastra which provides ingredients of explosives (Agniyoga) and salts extracted from fertile soils and plant remains (Yavakshara) such as saltpetre/
nitre
Niter or nitre is the mineral form of potassium nitrate, KNO3. It is a soft, white, highly soluble mineral found primarily in arid climates or cave deposits.
Historically, the term ''niter'' was not well differentiated from natron, both of w ...
, perfume making (different qualities of perfumes are mentioned), granulated (refined) Sugar.
Buddhist
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
texts from the 2nd to 5th centuries mention the transmutation of base metals to gold. According to some scholars Greek alchemy may have influenced Indian alchemy but there are no hard evidences to back this claim.
[Multhauf, Robert P. & Gilbert, Robert Andrew (2008). ''Alchemy''. Encyclopædia Britannica (2008).]
The 11th-century
Persian chemist and
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
Abū Rayhān Bīrūnī, who visited Gujarat as part of the court of
Mahmud of Ghazni, reported that they
The goals of alchemy in India included the creation of a divine body (Sanskrit ''divya-deham'') and immortality while still embodied (Sanskrit ''jīvan-mukti''). Sanskrit alchemical texts include much material on the manipulation of mercury and sulphur, that are homologized with the semen of the god Śiva and the menstrual blood of the goddess Devī.
Some early alchemical writings seem to have their origins in the
Kaula Kaula may refer to:
People
* Prithvi Nath Kaula (1924–2009), Indian librarian
* William J. Kaula (1871–1953), American watercolor painter
* William M. Kaula (1926–2000), Australian-born American geophysicist
Other uses
* USS ''Kaula'' (AG-3 ...
tantric schools associated to the teachings of the personality of
Matsyendranath
Matsyendranātha, also known as Matsyendra, Macchindranāth, Mīnanātha and Minapa (early 10th century) was a saint and yogi in a number of Buddhist and Hindu traditions. He is traditionally considered the revivalist of hatha yoga as well ...
. Other early writings are found in the Jaina medical treatise ''Kalyāṇakārakam'' of Ugrāditya, written in South India in the early 9th century.
Two famous early Indian alchemical authors were
Nāgārjuna Siddha and Nityanātha Siddha. Nāgārjuna Siddha was a Buddhist monk. His book, ''Rasendramangalam'', is an example of Indian alchemy and medicine. Nityanātha Siddha wrote ''Rasaratnākara'', also a highly influential work. In Sanskrit, ''rasa'' translates to "mercury", and Nāgārjuna Siddha was said to have developed a method of converting mercury into gold.
Scholarship on Indian alchemy is in the publication of ''The Alchemical Body'' by David Gordon White.
A modern bibliography on Indian alchemical studies has been written by White.
The contents of 39 Sanskrit alchemical treatises have been analysed in detail in G. Jan Meulenbeld's ''History of Indian Medical Literature''.
The discussion of these works in HIML gives a summary of the contents of each work, their special features, and where possible the evidence concerning their dating. Chapter 13 of HIML, ''Various works on rasaśāstra and ratnaśāstra'' (or ''Various works on alchemy and gems'') gives brief details of a further 655 (six hundred and fifty-five) treatises. In some cases Meulenbeld gives notes on the contents and authorship of these works; in other cases references are made only to the unpublished manuscripts of these titles.
A great deal remains to be discovered about Indian alchemical literature. The content of the Sanskrit alchemical corpus has not yet (2014) been adequately integrated into the wider general history of alchemy.
Islamic world
![Jabir ibn Hayyan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Jabir_ibn_Hayyan.jpg)
After
the fall of the Roman Empire, the focus of alchemical development moved to the Islamic World. Much more is known about
Islamic alchemy because it was better documented: indeed, most of the earlier writings that have come down through the years were preserved as Arabic translations. The word ''alchemy'' itself was derived from the Arabic word ''al-kīmiyā'' (الكيمياء). The early Islamic world was a melting pot for alchemy.
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
nic and
Aristotelian thought, which had already been somewhat appropriated into hermetical science, continued to be assimilated during the late 7th and early 8th centuries through
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
translations and scholarship.
In the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Arabic works attributed to
Jābir ibn Hayyān
Abū Mūsā Jābir ibn Ḥayyān (Arabic: , variously called al-Ṣūfī, al-Azdī, al-Kūfī, or al-Ṭūsī), died 806−816, is the purported author of an enormous number and variety of works in Arabic, often called the Jabirian corpus. The ...
(Latinized as "Geber" or "Geberus") introduced a new approach to alchemy.
Paul Kraus, who wrote the standard reference work on Jabir, put it as follows:
Islamic philosophers also made great contributions to alchemical hermeticism. The most influential author in this regard was arguably Jabir. Jabir's ultimate goal was ''
Takwin
Takwin ( ar, تكوين) was a goal of certain Muslim alchemists, notably Jabir ibn Hayyan. In the alchemical context, takwin refers to the creation of synthetic life in the laboratory, up to and including human life. Whether Jabir meant this goa ...
'', the artificial creation of life in the alchemical laboratory, up to, and including, human life. He analyzed each Aristotelian element in terms of four basic qualities of ''hotness'', ''coldness'', ''dryness'', and ''moistness''.
According to Jabir, in each metal two of these qualities were interior and two were exterior. For example, lead was externally cold and dry, while gold was hot and moist. Thus, Jabir theorized, by rearranging the qualities of one metal, a different metal would result.
By this reasoning, the search for the
philosopher's stone
The philosopher's stone or more properly philosophers' stone (Arabic: حجر الفلاسفة, , la, lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (, from the Greek , "gold", ...
was introduced to Western alchemy. Jabir developed an elaborate
numerology whereby the root letters of a substance's name in Arabic, when treated with various transformations, held correspondences to the element's physical properties.
The elemental system used in medieval alchemy also originated with Jabir. His original system consisted of seven elements, which included the five
classical elements (
aether,
air
The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...
,
earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
,
fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames a ...
, and
water
Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...
) in addition to two
chemical element
A chemical element is a species of atoms that have a given number of protons in their nuclei, including the pure substance consisting only of that species. Unlike chemical compounds, chemical elements cannot be broken down into simpler sub ...
s representing the metals:
sulphur, "the stone which burns", which characterized the principle of combustibility, and
mercury, which contained the idealized principle of metallic properties. Shortly thereafter, this evolved into eight elements, with the Arabic concept of the three metallic principles: sulphur giving flammability or combustion, mercury giving volatility and stability, and
salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...
giving solidity.
[Strathern, Paul. (2000), ''Mendeleyev's Dream – the Quest for the Elements'', New York: Berkley Books] The
atomic theory
Atomic theory is the scientific theory that matter is composed of particles called atoms. Atomic theory traces its origins to an ancient philosophical tradition known as atomism. According to this idea, if one were to take a lump of matter ...
of
corpuscularianism, where all physical bodies possess an inner and outer layer of minute particles or corpuscles, also has its origins in the work of Jabir.
From the 9th to 14th centuries, alchemical theories faced criticism from a variety of practical Muslim chemists, including
Alkindus
Abū Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī (; ar, أبو يوسف يعقوب بن إسحاق الصبّاح الكندي; la, Alkindus; c. 801–873 AD) was an Arab Muslim philosopher, polymath, mathematician, physicia ...
,
Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Co ...
,
Avicenna and
Ibn Khaldun. In particular, they wrote refutations against the idea of the
transmutation of metals.
From the 14th century onwards, many materials and practices originally belonging to Indian alchemy (
Rasayana
''Rasāyana'' (रसायन) is a Sanskrit word literally meaning ''path'' (''ayana'') ''of essence'' (''rasa''). It is an early ayurvedic medical term referring to techniques for lengthening lifespans and invigorating the body. It is one of ...
) were assimilated in the Persian texts written by Muslim scholars.
East Asia
![Esoteric Taijitu](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Esoteric_Taijitu.svg)
Whereas European alchemy eventually centered on the transmutation of base metals into noble metals, Chinese alchemy had a more obvious connection to medicine.
[ bed Simon Johnson, A Study of Chinese Alchemy, Shanghai, Commercial P, 1928. rpt. New York: Arno P, 1974./ref> The philosopher's stone of European alchemists can be compared to the Grand Elixir of Immortality sought by Chinese alchemists. In the hermetic view, these two goals were not unconnected, and the philosopher's stone was often equated with the ]universal panacea
A panacea , named after the Greek goddess of universal remedy Panacea, is any supposed remedy that is claimed (for example) to cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely. It was in the past sought by alchemists in connection with the elixir ...
; therefore, the two traditions may have had more in common than initially appears.
Black powder may have been an important invention of Chinese alchemists. It is said that the Chinese invented gunpowder while trying to find a potion
A potion () is a liquid "that contains medicine, poison, or something that is supposed to have magic powers.” It derives from the Latin word ''potus'' which referred to a drink or drinking. The term philtre is also used, often specifically ...
for eternal life. Described in 9th-century texts and used in fireworks
Fireworks are a class of low explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large number of devices ...
in China by the 10th century, it was used in cannon
A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...
s by 1290. From China, the use of gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...
spread to Japan, the Mongol
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member ...
s, the Muslim world, and Europe. Gunpowder was used by the Mongols against the Hungarians in 1241, and in Europe by the 14th century.
Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoist
Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Tao ...
forms of traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments having no logical mechanism of acti ...
, such as Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body. Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientif ...
and Moxibustion
Moxibustion () is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy which consists of burning dried mugwort ('' wikt:moxa'') on particular points on the body. It plays an important role in the traditional medical systems of China, Japan, Korea, Vietna ...
. In the early Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...
, followers of this Taoist idea (chiefly the elite and upper class) would ingest mercuric sulfide
Mercury sulfide, or mercury(II) sulfide is a chemical compound composed of the chemical elements mercury and sulfur. It is represented by the chemical formula HgS. It is virtually insoluble in water.
Crystal structure
HgS is dimorphic with ...
, which, though tolerable in low levels, led many to suicide. Thinking that this consequential death would lead to freedom and access to the Taoist heavens, the ensuing deaths encouraged people to eschew this method of alchemy in favor of external sources (the aforementioned Tai Chi Chuan, mastering of the qi, etc.) Chinese alchemy was introduced to the West by Obed Simon Johnson
Obed Johnson (born May 5, 1881 bed Simon Johnson, “John Peter Johnson” in Lost Grove Township, 1869-1969, compiled by the Committee of the Harcourt Commercial Club. Gowrie, Iowa: The Gowrie News, 1970, page 85/ref>) was an American academic, ...
.
Medieval Europe
The introduction of alchemy to Latin Europe may be dated to 11 February 1144, with the completion of Robert of Chester's translation of the Arabic '' Book of the Composition of Alchemy''. Although European craftsmen and technicians pre-existed, Robert notes in his preface that alchemy (though here still referring to the elixir
ELIXIR (the European life-sciences Infrastructure for biological Information) is an initiative that will allow life science laboratories across Europe to share and store their research data as part of an organised network. Its goal is to bring t ...
rather than to the art itself) was unknown in Latin Europe at the time of his writing. The translation of Arabic texts concerning numerous disciplines including alchemy flourished in 12th-century Toledo, Spain
Toledo ( , ) is a city and municipality of Spain, capital of the province of Toledo and the ''de jure'' seat of the government and parliament of the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. Toledo was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESC ...
, through contributors like Gerard of Cremona
Gerard of Cremona (Latin: ''Gerardus Cremonensis''; c. 1114 – 1187) was an Italian translator of scientific books from Arabic into Latin. He worked in Toledo, Kingdom of Castile and obtained the Arabic books in the libraries at Toledo. Some of ...
and Adelard of Bath
Adelard of Bath ( la, Adelardus Bathensis; 1080? 1142–1152?) was a 12th-century English natural philosopher. He is known both for his original works and for translating many important Arabic and Greek scientific works of astrology, astronom ...
. Translations of the time included the Turba Philosophorum
The ''Turba Philosophorum'', also known as ''Assembly of the Philosophers'', is one of the oldest European alchemy texts, translated from the Arabic, like the Picatrix. It is considered to have been written c. 900 A.D.
The text
To quote Plessner, ...
, and the works of Avicenna and Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi. These brought with them many new words to the European vocabulary for which there was no previous Latin equivalent. Alcohol, carboy, elixir, and athanor are examples.
Meanwhile, theologian contemporaries of the translators made strides towards the reconciliation of faith and experimental rationalism, thereby priming Europe for the influx of alchemical thought. The 11th-century St Anselm
Anselm of Canterbury, OSB (; 1033/4–1109), also called ( it, Anselmo d'Aosta, link=no) after his birthplace and (french: Anselme du Bec, link=no) after his monastery, was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of th ...
put forth the opinion that faith and rationalism were compatible and encouraged rationalism in a Christian context. In the early 12th century, Peter Abelard followed Anselm's work, laying down the foundation for acceptance of Aristotelian thought before the first works of Aristotle had reached the West. In the early 13th century, Robert Grosseteste
Robert Grosseteste, ', ', or ') or the gallicised Robert Grosstête ( ; la, Robertus Grossetesta or '). Also known as Robert of Lincoln ( la, Robertus Lincolniensis, ', &c.) or Rupert of Lincoln ( la, Rubertus Lincolniensis, &c.). ( ; la, Rob ...
used Abelard's methods of analysis and added the use of observation, experimentation, and conclusions when conducting scientific investigations. Grosseteste also did much work to reconcile Platonic and Aristotelian thinking.
Through much of the 12th and 13th centuries, alchemical knowledge in Europe remained centered on translations, and new Latin contributions were not made. The efforts of the translators were succeeded by that of the encyclopaedists. In the 13th century, Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus (c. 1200 – 15 November 1280), also known as Saint Albert the Great or Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop. Later canonised as a Catholic saint, he was known during his li ...
and Roger Bacon were the most notable of these, their work summarizing and explaining the newly imported alchemical knowledge in Aristotelian terms. Albertus Magnus, a Dominican friar
The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...
, is known to have written works such as the ''Book of Minerals'' where he observed and commented on the operations and theories of alchemical authorities like Hermes and Democritus and unnamed alchemists of his time. Albertus critically compared these to the writings of Aristotle and Avicenna, where they concerned the transmutation of metals. From the time shortly after his death through to the 15th century, more than 28 alchemical tracts were misattributed to him, a common practice giving rise to his reputation as an accomplished alchemist. Likewise, alchemical texts have been attributed to Albert's student Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wit ...
.
Roger Bacon, a Franciscan friar
, image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans
, abbreviation = OFM
, predecessor =
, ...
who wrote on a wide variety of topics including optics
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultrav ...
, comparative linguistics, and medicine, composed his '' Great Work'' ( la, Opus Majus) for as part of a project towards rebuilding the medieval university
A medieval university was a corporation organized during the Middle Ages for the purposes of higher education. The first Western European institutions generally considered to be universities were established in present-day Italy (including the ...
curriculum to include the new learning of his time. While alchemy was not more important to him than other sciences and he did not produce allegorical works on the topic, he did consider it and astrology to be important parts of both natural philosophy and theology and his contributions advanced alchemy's connections to soteriology
Soteriology (; el, σωτηρία ' "salvation" from σωτήρ ' "savior, preserver" and λόγος ' "study" or "word") is the study of religious doctrines of salvation. Salvation theory occupies a place of special significance in many religion ...
and Christian theology. Bacon's writings integrated morality, salvation, alchemy, and the prolongation of life. His correspondence with Clement highlighted this, noting the importance of alchemy to the papacy. Like the Greeks before him, Bacon acknowledged the division of alchemy into practical and theoretical spheres. He noted that the theoretical lay outside the scope of Aristotle, the natural philosophers, and all Latin writers of his time. The practical confirmed the theoretical, and Bacon advocated its uses in natural science and medicine. In later European legend, he became an archmage. In particular, along with Albertus Magnus, he was credited with the forging of a brazen head capable of answering its owner's questions.
Soon after Bacon, the influential work of Pseudo-Geber
Pseudo-Geber (or "Latin pseudo-Geber") is the presumed author or group of authors responsible for a corpus of pseudepigraphic alchemical writings dating to the late 13th and early 14th centuries. These writings were falsely attributed to Jabir ...
(sometimes identified as Paul of Taranto) appeared. His ''Summa Perfectionis'' remained a staple summary of alchemical practice and theory through the medieval and renaissance periods. It was notable for its inclusion of practical chemical operations alongside sulphur-mercury theory, and the unusual clarity with which they were described. By the end of the 13th century, alchemy had developed into a fairly structured system of belief. Adepts believed in the macrocosm-microcosm theories of Hermes, that is to say, they believed that processes that affect minerals and other substances could have an effect on the human body (for example, if one could learn the secret of purifying gold, one could use the technique to purify the human soul). They believed in the four elements and the four qualities as described above, and they had a strong tradition of cloaking their written ideas in a labyrinth of coded jargon
Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...
set with traps to mislead the uninitiated. Finally, the alchemists practiced their art: they actively experimented with chemicals and made observations and theories
A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be ...
about how the universe operated. Their entire philosophy revolved around their belief that man's soul was divided within himself after the fall of Adam. By purifying the two parts of man's soul, man could be reunited with God.
In the 14th century, alchemy became more accessible to Europeans outside the confines of Latin speaking churchmen and scholars. Alchemical discourse shifted from scholarly philosophical debate to an exposed social commentary on the alchemists themselves. Dante
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian people, Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', origin ...
, Piers Plowman, and Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
all painted unflattering pictures of alchemists as thieves and liars. Pope John XXII's 1317 edict, '' Spondent quas non-exhibent'' forbade the false promises of transmutation made by pseudo-alchemists. Roman Catholic Inquisitor General Nicholas Eymerich's ''Directorium Inquisitorum
The ''Directorium Inquisitorum'' is Nicholas Eymerich's most prominent and enduring work, written in Latin and consisting of approximately 800 pages, which he had composed as early as 1376. Eymerich had written an earlier treatise on sorcery, perh ...
'', written in 1376, associated alchemy with the performance of demonic rituals, which Eymerich differentiated from magic performed in accordance with scripture. In 1403, Henry IV of England banned the practice of multiplying metals (although it was possible to buy a licence to attempt to make gold alchemically, and a number were granted by Henry VI and Edward IV). These critiques and regulations centered more around pseudo-alchemical charlatanism than the actual study of alchemy, which continued with an increasingly Christian tone. The 14th century saw the Christian imagery of death and resurrection employed in the alchemical texts of Petrus Bonus, John of Rupescissa
:''Johannes de Rupescissa may also refer to Cardinal Jean de La Rochetaillée''
Jean de Roquetaillade, also known as John of Rupescissa, (ca. 1310 – between 1366 and 1370) was a French Franciscan alchemist and eschatologist.
Biography
Aft ...
, and in works written in the name of Raymond Lull and Arnold of Villanova.
Nicolas Flamel
Nicolas Flamel (; 1330 – 22 March 1418) was a French scribe and manuscript-seller. After his death, Flamel developed a reputation as an alchemist believed to have created and discovered the philosopher's stone and to have thereby achieved im ...
is a well-known alchemist, but a good example of pseudepigraphy
Pseudepigrapha (also anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.Bauckham, Richard; "Pseu ...
, the practice of giving your works the name of someone else, usually more famous. Although the historical Flamel existed, the writings and legends assigned to him only appeared in 1612. Flamel was not a religious scholar as were many of his predecessors, and his entire interest in the subject revolved around the pursuit of the philosopher's stone
The philosopher's stone or more properly philosophers' stone (Arabic: حجر الفلاسفة, , la, lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (, from the Greek , "gold", ...
. His work spends a great deal of time describing the processes and reactions, but never actually gives the formula for carrying out the transmutations. Most of 'his' work was aimed at gathering alchemical knowledge that had existed before him, especially as regarded the philosopher's stone. Through the 14th and 15th centuries, alchemists were much like Flamel: they concentrated on looking for the philosophers' stone. Bernard Trevisan and George Ripley George Ripley may refer to:
* George Ripley (alchemist) (died 1490), English author and alchemist
*George Ripley (transcendentalist)
George Ripley (October 3, 1802 – July 4, 1880) was an American social reformer, Unitarian minister, and journ ...
made similar contributions. Their cryptic allusions and symbolism led to wide variations in interpretation of the art.
Renaissance and early modern Europe
During the Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
, Hermetic and Platonic foundations were restored to European alchemy. The dawn of medical, pharmaceutical, occult, and entrepreneurial branches of alchemy followed.
In the late 15th century, Marsilio Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum and the works of Plato into Latin. These were previously unavailable to Europeans who for the first time had a full picture of the alchemical theory that Bacon had declared absent. Renaissance Humanism
Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ( it, umanista) referred to teache ...
and Renaissance Neoplatonism guided alchemists away from physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
to refocus on mankind as the alchemical vessel.
Esoteric systems developed that blended alchemy into a broader occult Hermeticism, fusing it with magic, astrology, and Christian cabala. A key figure in this development was German Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (; ; 14 September 1486 – 18 February 1535) was a German polymath, physician, legal scholar, soldier, theologian, and occult writer. Agrippa's '' Three Books of Occult Philosophy'' published in 1533 dre ...
(1486–1535), who received his Hermetic education in Italy in the schools of the humanists. In his ''De Occulta Philosophia'', he attempted to merge Kabbalah
Kabbalah ( he, קַבָּלָה ''Qabbālā'', literally "reception, tradition") is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ( ''Məqūbbāl'' "receiver"). The defin ...
, Hermeticism, and alchemy. He was instrumental in spreading this new blend of Hermeticism outside the borders of Italy.
Paracelsus (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493–1541) cast alchemy into a new form, rejecting some of Agrippa's occultism and moving away from chrysopoeia. Paracelsus pioneered the use of chemicals and minerals in medicine and wrote, "Many have said of Alchemy, that it is for the making of gold and silver. For me such is not the aim, but to consider only what virtue and power may lie in medicines."
His hermetical views were that sickness and health in the body relied on the harmony of man the microcosm and Nature the macrocosm. He took an approach different from those before him, using this analogy not in the manner of soul-purification but in the manner that humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and that certain illnesses of the body had chemical remedies that could cure them. Iatrochemistry
Iatrochemistry (; also known as chemiatria or chemical medicine) is a branch of both chemistry and medicine. Having its roots in alchemy, iatrochemistry seeks to provide chemical solutions to diseases and medical ailments.
This area of scien ...
refers to the pharmaceutical applications of alchemy championed by Paracelsus.
John Dee (13 July 1527 – December, 1608) followed Agrippa's occult tradition. Although better known for angel summoning, divination, and his role as astrologer, cryptographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
El ...
, Dee's alchemical ''Monas Hieroglyphica'', written in 1564 was his most popular and influential work. His writing portrayed alchemy as a sort of terrestrial astronomy in line with the Hermetic axiom ''As above so below''. During the 17th century, a short-lived "supernatural" interpretation of alchemy became popular, including support by fellows of the Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
: Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of ...
and Elias Ashmole
Elias Ashmole (; 23 May 1617 – 18 May 1692) was an English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer and student of alchemy. Ashmole supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he ...
. Proponents of the supernatural interpretation of alchemy believed that the philosopher's stone might be used to summon and communicate with angels.
Entrepreneurial opportunities were common for the alchemists of Renaissance Europe. Alchemists were contracted by the elite for practical purposes related to mining, medical services, and the production of chemicals, medicines, metals, and gemstones. Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). He was a member of the H ...
, in the late 16th century, famously received and sponsored various alchemists at his court in Prague, including Dee and his associate Edward Kelley
Sir Edward Kelley or Kelly, also known as Edward Talbot (; 1 August 1555 – 1597/8), was an English Renaissance occultist and scryer. He is best known for working with John Dee in his magical investigations. Besides the professed ability to ...
. King James IV of Scotland
James IV (17 March 1473 – 9 September 1513) was King of Scotland from 11 June 1488 until his death at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. He inherited the throne at the age of fifteen on the death of his father, James III, at the Battle of Sauch ...
, Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Julius of Brunswick-Lüneburg (also known as Julius of Braunschweig; 29 June 1528 – 3 May 1589), a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and ruling Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel from 1568 until his death. From 1584, he ...
, Henry V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Henry V of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel ( la, Henricus; 10 November 1489 – 11 June 1568), called the Younger, (''Heinrich der Jüngere''), a member of the House of Welf, was Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and ruling Prince of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel fr ...
, Augustus, Elector of Saxony
Augustus (31 July 152611 February 1586) was Elector of Saxony from 1553 to 1586.
First years
Augustus was born in Freiberg, the youngest child and third (but second surviving) son of Henry IV, Duke of Saxony, and Catherine of Mecklenburg. He con ...
, Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, and Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel
Maurice of Hesse-Kassel (german: Moritz; 25 May 1572 – 15 March 1632), also called Maurice the Learned or Moritz, was the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) in the Holy Roman Empire from 1592 to 1627.
Life
Maurice was born in Kassel a ...
all contracted alchemists. John's son Arthur Dee
Arthur Dee (13 July 1579 – September or October 1651) was a physician and alchemist. He became a physician successively to Tsar Michael I of Russia and to King Charles I of England.
Youth
Dee was the eldest son of John Dee by his third wife, J ...
worked as a court physician to Michael I of Russia
Michael I ( Russian: Михаил Фёдорович Романов, ''Mikhaíl Fyódorovich Románov'') () became the first Russian tsar of the House of Romanov after the Zemskiy Sobor of 1613 elected him to rule the Tsardom of Russia.
He ...
and Charles I of England
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. He was born into the House of Stuart as the second son of King James VI of Scotland, but after hi ...
but also compiled the alchemical book ''Fasciculus Chemicus
''Fasciculus Chemicus'' or ''Chymical Collections. Expressing the Ingress, Progress, and Egress, of the Secret Hermetick Science out of the choicest and most famous authors'' is an anthology of alchemical writings compiled by Arthur Dee (1579– ...
''.
Although most of these appointments were legitimate, the trend of pseudo-alchemical fraud continued through the Renaissance. ''Betrüger'' would use sleight of hand, or claims of secret knowledge to make money or secure patronage. Legitimate mystical and medical alchemists such as Michael Maier
Michael Maier ( la, Michael Maierus; 1568–1622) was a German physician and counsellor to Rudolf II Habsburg. He was a learned alchemist, epigramist, and amateur composer.
Early life
Maier was born in Rendsburg, Holstein, the son of a spe ...
and Heinrich Khunrath wrote about fraudulent transmutations, distinguishing themselves from the con artist
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have ...
s. False alchemists were sometimes prosecuted for fraud.
The terms "chemia" and "alchemia" were used as synonyms in the early modern period, and the differences between alchemy, chemistry and small-scale assaying and metallurgy were not as neat as in the present day. There were important overlaps between practitioners, and trying to classify them into alchemists, chemists and craftsmen is anachronistic. For example, Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe ( ; born Tyge Ottesen Brahe; generally called Tycho (14 December 154624 October 1601) was a Danish astronomer, known for his comprehensive astronomical observations, generally considered to be the most accurate of his time. He was ...
(1546–1601), an alchemist better known for his astronomical
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxi ...
and astrological
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that claim to discern information about human affairs and terrestrial events by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects. Dif ...
investigations, had a laboratory built at his Uraniborg
Uraniborg ( da, Uranienborg, sv, Uraniborg) was a Danish astronomical observatory and alchemy laboratory established and operated by Tycho Brahe. It was built on Hven, an island in the Øresund between Zealand and Scania, Sweden, which was ...
observatory/research institute. Michael Sendivogius
Michael Sendivogius (; pl, Michał Sędziwój; 2 February 1566 – 1636) was a Polish alchemist, philosopher, and medical doctor. A pioneer of chemistry, he developed ways of purification and creation of various acids, metals and other ch ...
(''Michał Sędziwój'', 1566–1636), a Polish
Polish may refer to:
* Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe
* Polish language
* Poles
Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...
alchemist, philosopher, medical doctor and pioneer of chemistry wrote mystical works but is also credited with distilling oxygen
Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as ...
in a lab sometime around 1600. Sendivogious taught his technique to Cornelius Drebbel
Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel ( ) (1572 – 7 November 1633) was a Dutch engineer and inventor. He was the builder of the first operational submarine in 1620 and an innovator who contributed to the development of measurement and control systems, ...
who, in 1621, applied this in a submarine. Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
devoted considerably more of his writing to the study of alchemy (see Isaac Newton's occult studies
English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton produced works exploring chronology, and biblical interpretation (especially of the Apocalypse), and alchemy. Some of this could be considered occult. Newton's scientific work may have been of l ...
) than he did to either optics or physics. Other early modern alchemists who were eminent in their other studies include Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of ...
, and Jan Baptist van Helmont
Jan Baptist van Helmont (; ; 12 January 1580 – 30 December 1644) was a chemist, physiologist, and physician from Brussels. He worked during the years just after Paracelsus and the rise of iatrochemistry, and is sometimes considered to b ...
. Their Hermeticism complemented rather than precluded their practical achievements in medicine and science.
Later modern period
The decline of European alchemy was brought about by the rise of modern science with its emphasis on rigorous quantitative experimentation and its disdain for "ancient wisdom". Although the seeds of these events were planted as early as the 17th century, alchemy still flourished for some two hundred years, and in fact may have reached its peak in the 18th century. As late as 1781 James Price claimed to have produced a powder that could transmute mercury into silver or gold. Early modern European alchemy continued to exhibit a diversity of theories, practices, and purposes: "Scholastic and anti-Aristotelian, Paracelsian and anti-Paracelsian, Hermetic, Neoplatonic, mechanistic, vitalistic, and more—plus virtually every combination and compromise thereof."
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle (; 25 January 1627 – 31 December 1691) was an Anglo-Irish natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, alchemist and inventor. Boyle is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and therefore one of the founders of ...
(1627–1691) pioneered the scientific method in chemical investigations. He assumed nothing in his experiments and compiled every piece of relevant data. Boyle would note the place in which the experiment was carried out, the wind characteristics, the position of the Sun and Moon, and the barometer reading, all just in case they proved to be relevant. This approach eventually led to the founding of modern chemistry in the 18th and 19th centuries, based on revolutionary discoveries and ideas of Lavoisier and John Dalton.
Beginning around 1720, a rigid distinction began to be drawn for the first time between "alchemy" and "chemistry". By the 1740s, "alchemy" was now restricted to the realm of gold making, leading to the popular belief that alchemists were charlatans, and the tradition itself nothing more than a fraud. In order to protect the developing science of modern chemistry from the negative censure to which alchemy was being subjected, academic writers during the 18th-century scientific Enlightenment attempted, for the sake of survival, to divorce and separate the "new" chemistry from the "old" practices of alchemy. This move was mostly successful, and the consequences of this continued into the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
During the occult revival of the early 19th century, alchemy received new attention as an occult science. The esoteric or occultist school, which arose during the 19th century, held (and continues to hold) the view that the substances and operations mentioned in alchemical literature are to be interpreted in a spiritual sense, and it downplays the role of the alchemy as a practical tradition or protoscience. This interpretation further forwarded the view that alchemy is an art primarily concerned with spiritual enlightenment or illumination, as opposed to the physical manipulation of apparatus and chemicals, and claims that the obscure language of the alchemical texts were an allegorical guise for spiritual, moral or mystical processes.
In the 19th-century revival of alchemy, the two most seminal figures were Mary Anne Atwood
Mary Anne Atwood (née South) (1817 – 1910) was an English writer on hermeticism and spiritual alchemy.
Life
Atwood was born in Dieppe, France but grew up in Gosport, Hampshire. Her father, Thomas South, was a researcher into the history of ...
and Ethan Allen Hitchcock, who independently published similar works regarding spiritual alchemy. Both forwarded a completely esoteric view of alchemy, as Atwood claimed: "No modern art or chemistry, notwithstanding all its surreptitious claims, has any thing in common with Alchemy." Atwood's work influenced subsequent authors of the occult revival including Eliphas Levi Eliphaz is one of Esau's sons in the Bible.
Eliphaz or Eliphas is also the given name of:
* Eliphaz (Job), another person in the Bible
* Eliphaz Dow (1705-1755), the first male executed in New Hampshire, for murder
* Eliphaz Fay (1797–1854), fo ...
, Arthur Edward Waite
Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider–Waite tarot deck (also called the Rider–Waite–Smith ...
, and Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as ...
. Hitchcock, in his ''Remarks Upon Alchymists'' (1855) attempted to make a case for his spiritual interpretation with his claim that the alchemists wrote about a spiritual discipline under a materialistic guise in order to avoid accusations of blasphemy from the church and state. In 1845, Baron Carl Reichenbach
Carl Ludwig von Reichenbach (full name: Karl Ludwig Freiherr von Reichenbach; February 12, 1788January 1869) was a German chemist, geologist, metallurgist, naturalist, industrialist and philosopher, and a member of the Prussian Academy of Scienc ...
, published his studies on Odic force
The Odic force (also called Od d Odyle, Önd, Odes, Odylic, Odyllic, or Odems) is the name given in the mid-19th century to a hypothetical vital energy or life force by Baron Carl von Reichenbach. Von Reichenbach coined the name from that of ...
, a concept with some similarities to alchemy, but his research did not enter the mainstream of scientific discussion.
In 1946, Louis Cattiaux
Louis Cattiaux (17 August 1904 – 16 July 1953) was a French painter and poet.
Biography
Louis Cattiaux was born in Valenciennes on 17 August 1904. He lost his mother at a very young age and was raised by his older sister. In 1914, he was eva ...
published the Message Retrouvé, a work that was at once philosophical, mystical and highly influenced by alchemy. In his lineage, many researchers, including Emmanuel and Charles d'Hooghvorst, are updating alchemical studies in France and Belgium.
Women
Several women appear in the earliest history of alchemy. Michael Maier
Michael Maier ( la, Michael Maierus; 1568–1622) was a German physician and counsellor to Rudolf II Habsburg. He was a learned alchemist, epigramist, and amateur composer.
Early life
Maier was born in Rendsburg, Holstein, the son of a spe ...
names four women who were able to make the philosophers' stone: Mary the Jewess
Mary or Maria the Jewess ( la, Maria Hebraea), also known as Mary the Prophetess ( la, Maria Prophetissa) or Maria the Copt ( ar, مارية القبطية, Māriyya al-Qibṭiyya), was an early alchemist known from the works of Zosimos of Panop ...
, Cleopatra the Alchemist
Cleopatra the Alchemist (Greek: Κλεοπάτρα; fl. c. 3rd century AD) was a Greek alchemist, author, and philosopher. She experimented with practical alchemy but is also credited as one of the four female alchemists who could produce the P ...
, Medera, and Taphnutia. Zosimos' sister Theosebia (later known as Euthica the Arab) and Isis the Prophetess also played roles in early alchemical texts.
The first alchemist whose name we know was Mary the Jewess (). Early sources claim that Mary (or Maria) devised a number of improvements to alchemical equipment and tools as well as novel techniques in chemistry. Her best known advances were in heating and distillation processes. The laboratory water-bath, known eponymously (especially in France) as the bain-marie
A bain-marie (; also known as a water bath or double boiler), a type of heated bath, is a piece of equipment used in science, industry, and cooking to heat materials gently or to keep materials warm over a period of time. A bain-marie is also ...
, is said to have been invented or at least improved by her. Essentially a double-boiler, it was (and is) used in chemistry for processes that required gentle heating. The tribikos (a modified distillation apparatus) and the kerotakis (a more intricate apparatus used especially for sublimations) are two other advancements in the process of distillation that are credited to her. Although we have no writing from Mary herself, she is known from the early-fourth-century writings of Zosimos of Panopolis
Zosimos of Panopolis ( el, Ζώσιμος ὁ Πανοπολίτης; also known by the Latin name Zosimus Alchemista, i.e. "Zosimus the Alchemist") was a Greco-Egyptian alchemist and Gnostic mystic who lived at the end of the 3rd and beginning ...
. After the Greco-Roman period, women's names appear less frequently in alchemical literature.
Towards the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of the Renaissance, due to the emergence of print, women were able to access the alchemical knowledge from texts of the preceding centuries. Caterina Sforza
Caterina Sforza (1463 – 28 May 1509) was an Italian noblewoman, the Countess of Forlì and Lady of Imola, firstly with her husband Girolamo Riario, and after his death as a regent of her son Ottaviano. Caterina was a noblewoman who lived a li ...
, the Countess of Forlì and Lady of Imola, is one of the few confirmed female alchemists after Mary the Jewess
Mary or Maria the Jewess ( la, Maria Hebraea), also known as Mary the Prophetess ( la, Maria Prophetissa) or Maria the Copt ( ar, مارية القبطية, Māriyya al-Qibṭiyya), was an early alchemist known from the works of Zosimos of Panop ...
. As she owned an apothecary, she would practice science and conduct experiments in her botanic gardens and laboratories. Being knowledgable in alchemy and pharmacology, she recorded all of her alchemical ventures in a manuscript named ('Experiments'). The manuscript contained more than four hundred recipes covering alchemy as well as cosmetics and medicine. One of these recipes was for the water of talc. Talc
Talc, or talcum, is a clay mineral, composed of hydrated magnesium silicate with the chemical formula Mg3Si4O10(OH)2. Talc in powdered form, often combined with corn starch, is used as baby powder. This mineral is used as a thickening agent a ...
, which makes up talcum powder, is a mineral which, when combined with water and distilled, was said to produce a solution which yielded many benefits. These supposed benefits included turning silver to gold and rejuvenation. When combined with white wine, its powder form could be ingested to counteract poision. Furthermore, if that powder was mixed and drunk with white wine, it was said to be a source of protection from any poison, sickness, or plague. Other recipes were for making hair dyes, lotions, lip colors. There was also information on how to treat a variety of ailments from fevers and coughs to epilepsy and cancer. In addition, there were instructions on producing the quintessence (or aether), an elixir which was believed to be able to heal all sicknesses, defend against diseases, and perpetuate youthfulness. She also wrote about creating the illustrious philosophers' stone
The philosopher's stone or more properly philosophers' stone (Arabic: حجر الفلاسفة, , la, lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (, from the Greek , "gold", ...
.
Due to the proliferation in alchemical literature of pseudepigrapha
Pseudepigrapha (also anglicized as "pseudepigraph" or "pseudepigraphs") are falsely attributed works, texts whose claimed author is not the true author, or a work whose real author attributed it to a figure of the past.Bauckham, Richard; "Pse ...
and anonymous works, it is difficult to know which of the alchemists were actually women. As the sixteenth century went on, scientific culture flourished and people began collecting "secrets". During this period "secrets" referred to experiments, and the most coveted ones were not those which were bizarre, but the ones which had been proven to yield the desired outcome. Some women known for their interest in alchemy were Catherine de' Medici, the Queen of France, and Marie de' Medici, the following Queen of France, who carried out experiments in her personal laboratory. Also, Isabella d'Este
Isabella d'Este (19 May 1474 – 13 February 1539) was Marchioness of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whos ...
, the Marchioness of Mantua, made perfumes herself to serve as gifts. In this period, the only book of secrets ascribed to a woman was ('The Secrets of Signora Isabella Cortese'). This book contained information on how to turn base metals into gold, medicine, and cosmetics. However, it is rumored that a man, Girolamo Ruscelli, was the real author and only used a female voice to attract female readers. This contributed to a bigger problem in which male authors would credit prominent noblewomen for beauty products with the purpose of appealing to a female audience. For example, in ("Gallant Recipe-Book"), the distillation of lemons and roses was attributed to Elisabetta Gonzaga
Elisabetta Gonzaga (1471–1526) was a noblewoman of the Italian Renaissance, renowned for her cultured and virtuous life. A member of the House of Gonzaga, she was a sister of Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua and by marriage the Duchess ...
, the duchess of Urbino. In the same book, Isabella d'Aragona, the daughter of Alfonso II of Naples, is accredited for recipes involving alum and mercury. Ippolita Maria Sforza
Ippolita Maria Sforza (18 April 1445 – 20 August 1488) was an Italian noblewoman, a member of the Sforza family which ruled the Duchy of Milan from 1450 until 1535. She was the first wife of the Duke of Calabria, who later reigned as King Alfo ...
is even referred to in an anonymous manuscript about a hand lotion created with rose powder and crushed bones.
Mary Anne Atwood
Mary Anne Atwood (née South) (1817 – 1910) was an English writer on hermeticism and spiritual alchemy.
Life
Atwood was born in Dieppe, France but grew up in Gosport, Hampshire. Her father, Thomas South, was a researcher into the history of ...
's ''A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery'' (1850) marks the return of women during the nineteenth-century occult revival.
Modern historical research
The history of alchemy has become a significant and recognized subject of academic study. As the language of the alchemists is analyzed, historians are becoming more aware of the intellectual connections between that discipline and other facets of Western cultural history, such as the evolution of science and philosophy, the sociology and psychology of the intellectual communities, kabbalism, spiritualism
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and Mind-body dualism, dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (w ...
, Rosicrucianism, and other mystic movements. Institutions involved in this research include The Chymistry of Isaac Newton project at Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universi ...
, the University of Exeter
, mottoeng = "We Follow the Light"
, established = 1838 - St Luke's College1855 - Exeter School of Art1863 - Exeter School of Science 1955 - University of Exeter (received royal charter)
, type = Public
, ...
Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO), the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism
The European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) is Europe's only scholarly society for the study of Western esotericism. Founded in 2002, the society promotes academic study of the various manifestations of Western esotericism f ...
(ESSWE), and the University of Amsterdam
The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...
's Sub-department for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents. A large collection of books on alchemy is kept in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica
Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (BPH) or The Ritman Library is a private Dutch library founded by Joost Ritman located in the Huis met de Hoofden (House with the Heads) at Keizersgracht 123, in the center of Amsterdam. The Bibliotheca Philos ...
in Amsterdam. A recipe found in a mid-19th-century kabbalah based book features step by step instructions on turning copper into gold. The author attributed this recipe to an ancient manuscript he located.
Journals which publish regularly on the topic of Alchemy include 'Ambix
''Ambix'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal on the history of alchemy and chemistry; it was founded in 1936 and has appeared continuously from 1937 to the present, other than from 1939 to 1945 during World War II. It is currently published by the ...
', published by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, and 'Isis
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
', published by The History of Science Society.
Core concepts
Western alchemical theory corresponds to the worldview of late antiquity in which it was born. Concepts were imported from Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some i ...
and earlier Greek cosmology
Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...
. As such, the classical elements appear in alchemical writings, as do the seven classical planet
In classical antiquity, the seven classical planets or seven luminaries are the seven moving astronomical objects in the sky visible to the naked eye: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The word ''planet'' comes fro ...
s and the corresponding seven metals of antiquity. Similarly, the gods of the Roman pantheon who are associated with these luminaries are discussed in alchemical literature. The concepts of prima materia and anima mundi are central to the theory of the philosopher's stone
The philosopher's stone or more properly philosophers' stone (Arabic: حجر الفلاسفة, , la, lapis philosophorum), is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold (, from the Greek , "gold", ...
.
Magnum opus
The Great Work of Alchemy is often described as a series of four stages represented by colors.
*''nigredo
In alchemy, nigredo, or blackness, means putrefaction or decomposition. Many alchemists believed that as a first step in the pathway to the philosopher's stone, all alchemical ingredients had to be cleansed and cooked extensively to a uniform blac ...
'', a blackening or melanosis
*''albedo
Albedo (; ) is the measure of the diffuse reflection of solar radiation out of the total solar radiation and measured on a scale from 0, corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation, to 1, corresponding to a body that refl ...
'', a whitening or leucosis
*''citrinitas Citrinitas, or sometimes xanthosis,Joseph Needham. ''Science & Civilisation in China: Chemistry and chemical technology. Spagyrical discovery and invention : magisteries of gold and immortality.'' Cambridge. 1974. p.23 is a term given by alchemists ...
'', a yellowing or xanthosis
*''rubedo
Rubedo is a Latin word meaning "redness" that was adopted by alchemists to define the fourth and final major stage in their magnum opus. Both gold and the philosopher's stone were associated with the color red, as rubedo signaled alchemical succ ...
'', a reddening, purpling, or iosis
Modernity
Due to the complexity and obscurity of alchemical literature, and the 18th-century disappearance of remaining alchemical practitioners into the area of chemistry, the general understanding of alchemy has been strongly influenced by several distinct and radically different interpretations. Those focusing on the exoteric, such as historians of science Lawrence M. Principe and William R. Newman, have interpreted the 'decknamen' (or code words) of alchemy as physical substances. These scholars have reconstructed physicochemical experiments that they say are described in medieval and early modern texts. At the opposite end of the spectrum, focusing on the esoteric, scholars, such as Florin George Călian
Florin George Călian is a Romanian historian of religion and philosophy. He is a researcher at the Institute for Ecumenical Research, Lucian Blaga University.
Educational background
Florin George Călian studied psychology, philosophy and cla ...
and Anna Marie Roos Anna Marie Roos is a historian of early modern English science, noted for her research on the early Royal Society. She is a professor in the School of History and Heritage at the University of Lincoln, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a Fel ...
, who question the reading of Principe and Newman, interpret these same decknamen as spiritual, religious, or psychological concepts.
New interpretations of alchemy are still perpetuated, sometimes merging in concepts from New Age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consi ...
or radical environmentalism movements. Groups like the Rosicrucians and Freemasons have a continued interest in alchemy and its symbolism. Since the Victorian revival of alchemy, "occultists reinterpreted alchemy as a spiritual practice, involving the self-transformation of the practitioner and only incidentally or not at all the transformation of laboratory substances", which has contributed to a merger of magic
Magic or Magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
* Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic
* Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
and alchemy in popular thought.
Esoteric interpretations of historical texts
In the eyes of a variety of modern esoteric
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas ...
and Neo-Hermeticist practitioners, alchemy is fundamentally spiritual. In this interpretation, transmutation of lead into gold is presented as an analogy for personal transmutation, purification, and perfection.[Antoine Faivre, Wouter J. Hanegraaff. ''Western esotericism and the science of religion.'' 1995. p.96]
According to this view, early alchemists such as Zosimos of Panopolis
Zosimos of Panopolis ( el, Ζώσιμος ὁ Πανοπολίτης; also known by the Latin name Zosimus Alchemista, i.e. "Zosimus the Alchemist") was a Greco-Egyptian alchemist and Gnostic mystic who lived at the end of the 3rd and beginning ...
() highlighted the spiritual nature of the alchemical quest, symbolic of a religious regeneration of the human soul. This approach is held to have continued in the Middle Ages, as metaphysical aspects, substances, physical states, and material processes are supposed to have been used as metaphors for spiritual entities, spiritual states, and, ultimately, transformation. In this sense, the literal meanings of 'Alchemical Formulas' were like a veil, hiding their true spiritual philosophy
Spiritual philosophy is any philosophy or teaching that pertains to spirituality. It may incorporate religious or esoteric themes. It can include any belief or thought system that embraces the existence of a reality that cannot be physically perc ...
. In the Neo-Hermeticist interpretation, both the transmutation of common metals into gold and the universal panacea are held to symbolize evolution from an imperfect, diseased, corruptible, and ephemeral state toward a perfect, healthy, incorruptible, and everlasting state, so the philosopher's stone then represented a mystic key that would make this evolution possible. Applied to the alchemist, the twin goal symbolized their evolution from ignorance to enlightenment, and the stone represented a hidden spiritual truth or power that would lead to that goal. In texts that are held to have been written according to this view, the cryptic alchemical symbol
Alchemical symbols, originally devised as part of alchemy, were used to denote some elements and some compounds until the 18th century. Although notation like this was mostly standardized, style and symbol varied between alchemists, so this pag ...
s, diagrams, and textual imagery of late alchemical works are supposed to contain multiple layers of meanings, allegories, and references to other equally cryptic works; which must be laboriously decoded to discover their true meaning.
In his 1766 ''Alchemical Catechism'', Théodore Henri de Tschudi denotes that the usage of the metals was merely symbolic:
Psychology
Alchemical symbolism has been important in analytical psychology and was revived and popularized from near extinction by the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
. Jung was initially confounded and at odds with alchemy and its images but after being given a copy of ''The Secret of the Golden Flower
''The Secret of the Golden Flower'' () is a Chinese Taoist book on neidan (inner alchemy) meditation, which also mixes Buddhist teachings with some Confucian thoughts. It was written by means of the spirit-writing (fuji) technique, through two ...
'', a Chinese alchemical text translated by his friend Richard Wilhelm, he discovered a direct correlation or parallel between the symbolic images in the alchemical drawings and the inner, symbolic images coming up in his patients' dreams, visions, or fantasies. He observed these alchemical images occurring during the psychic process of transformation, a process that Jung called "individuation
The principle of individuation, or ', describes the manner in which a thing is identified as distinct from other things.
The concept appears in numerous fields and is encountered in works of Leibniz, Carl Gustav Jung, Gunther Anders, Gilbert Sim ...
." Specifically, he regarded the conjuring up of images of gold or Lapis as symbolic expressions of the origin and goal of this "process of individuation."[Jung, C. G. (1944). Psychology and Alchemy (2nd ed. 1968 Collected Works Vol. 12 ). London: Routledge. E.g. §41, §116, §427, §431, §448.] Together with his alchemical ''mystica soror'' (mystical sister) Jungian Swiss analyst Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung began collecting old alchemical texts, compiled a lexicon of key phrases with cross-references, and pored over them. The volumes of work he wrote shed new light onto understanding the art of transubstantiation and renewed alchemy's popularity as a symbolic process of coming into wholeness as a human being where opposites are brought into contact and inner and outer, spirit and matter are reunited in the ''hieros gamos
''Hieros gamos'', hieros (ἱερός) meaning "holy" or "sacred" and gamos (γάμος) meaning marriage, or Hierogamy (Greek , "holy marriage"), is a sacred marriage that plays out between a god and a goddess, especially when enacted in a symb ...
'', or divine marriage. His writings are influential in general psychology, but especially to those who have an interest in understanding the importance of dreams, symbols, and the unconscious archetypal forces (archetypes
The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis.
An archetype can be any of the following:
# a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ...
) that comprise all psychic life.Polly Young-Eisendrath Polly Young-Eisendrath (born 1947) is an American psychologist, author, teacher, speaker, Jungian analyst, Zen Buddhist, and the founder of ''Dialogue Therapy'' and Real Dialogue' and creator of the podcast ''Enemies: From War to Wisdom''.
She has ...
, Terence Dawson. ''The Cambridge companion to Jung.'' Cambridge University Press. 1997. p.33
Both von Franz and Jung have contributed significantly to the subject and work of alchemy and its continued presence in psychology as well as contemporary culture. Among the volumes Jung wrote on alchemy, his magnum opus is Volume 14 of his Collected Works, ''Mysterium Coniunctionis ''The Collected Works of C. G. Jung'' (german: Gesammelte Werke) is a book series containing the first collected edition, in English translation, of the major writings of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung.
The twenty volumes, including a Bibliog ...
''.
Literature
Alchemy has had a long-standing relationship with art, seen both in alchemical texts and in mainstream entertainment. ''Literary alchemy'' appears throughout the history of English literature from Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
to J. K. Rowling
Joanne Rowling ( "rolling"; born 31 July 1965), also known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author and philanthropist. She wrote ''Harry Potter'', a seven-volume children's fantasy series published from 1997 to 2007. The ser ...
, and also the popular Japanese manga ''Fullmetal Alchemist
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. It was serialized in Square Enix's ''shōnen'' manga anthology magazine '' Monthly Shōnen Gangan'' between July 2001 and June 2010; the publisher later collected th ...
''. Here, characters or plot structure follow an alchemical magnum opus. In the 14th century, Chaucer began a trend of alchemical satire that can still be seen in recent fantasy works like those of the late Sir Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his '' Discworld'' series of 41 novels.
Pratchett's first no ...
.
Visual artists had a similar relationship with alchemy. While some of them used alchemy as a source of satire, others worked with the alchemists themselves or integrated alchemical thought or symbols in their work. Music was also present in the works of alchemists and continues to influence popular performers. In the last hundred years, alchemists have been portrayed in a magical and spagyric role in fantasy fiction, film, television, novels, comics and video games.
Science
One goal of alchemy, the transmutation of base substances into gold, is now known to be impossible by chemical means but possible by physical means. Although not financially worthwhile, Gold was synthesized in particle accelerators as early as 1941.
See also
*Alchemical symbol
Alchemical symbols, originally devised as part of alchemy, were used to denote some elements and some compounds until the 18th century. Although notation like this was mostly standardized, style and symbol varied between alchemists, so this pag ...
*Biological transmutation in Corentin Louis Kervran
*Cupellation
Cupellation is a refining process in metallurgy where ores or alloyed metals are treated under very high temperatures and have controlled operations to separate noble metals, like gold and silver, from base metals, like lead, copper, zinc, arse ...
*Historicism
Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely ...
* History of chemistry
* List of alchemists
*List of alchemical substances
Alchemical studies produced a number of substances, which were later classified as particular chemical compounds or mixtures of compounds.
Many of these terms were in common use into the 20th century.
Metals and metalloids
* Antimony/ ...
* Nuclear transmutation
*Outline of alchemy
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to alchemy:
Alchemy – A philosophical tradition recognized as protoscience, that includes the application of Hermetic principles, and practices related to mythology, re ...
*Porta Alchemica
The Alchemical Door, also known as the Alchemy Gate or Magic Portal ( it, Porta Alchemica or ''Porta Magica''), is a monument built between 1678 and 1680 by Massimiliano Palombara, marquis of Pietraforte, in his residence, the , which was located ...
*Renaissance magic
Renaissance magic was a resurgence in Hermeticism and Neo-Platonic varieties of the magical arts which arose along with Renaissance humanism in the 15th and 16th centuries CE. These magical arts (called '' artes magicae'') were divided into sev ...
* Spagyric
*Superseded theories in science
This list catalogs well-accepted theories in science and pre-scientific natural philosophy and natural history which have since been superseded by scientific theories. Many discarded explanations were once supported by a scientific consensus, ...
* Synthesis of precious metals
*Western esotericism
Western esotericism, also known as esotericism, esoterism, and sometimes the Western mystery tradition, is a term scholars use to categorise a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas ...
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
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Further reading
General
* Lawrence Principe, ''The Secrets of Alchemy'', Chicago, 2013.
*Jennifer M. Rampling. 2020.
The Experimental Fire: Inventing English Alchemy, 1300-1700
'. University of Chicago Press.
Greco-Egyptian alchemy
Texts
* Marcellin Berthelot
Pierre Eugène Marcellin Berthelot (; 25 October 1827 – 18 March 1907) was a French chemist and Republican politician noted for the ThomsenBerthelot principle of thermochemistry. He synthesized many organic compounds from inorganic substa ...
and Charles-Émile Ruelle (eds.), ''Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs'' (CAAG), 3 vols., 1887–1888, Vol 1: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k96492923, Vol 2: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9680734p, Vol. 3: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9634942s.
* André-Jean Festugière, ''La Révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste'', Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2014 (, OCLC 897235256).
* Robert Halleux and Henri-Dominique Saffrey (eds.), ''Les alchimistes grecs, t. 1 : Papyrus de Leyde – Papyrus de Stockholm – Recettes,'' Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1981.
* Otto Lagercrantz (ed), ''Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis'', Uppsala, A.B. Akademiska Bokhandeln, 1913
Papyrus graecus holmiensis (P. holm.); Recepte für Silber, Steine und Purpur, bearb. von Otto Lagercrantz. Hrsg. mit Unterstützung des Vilh. Ekman'schen Universitätsfonds
* Michèle Mertens and Henri-Dominique Saffrey (ed.), ''Les alchimistes grecs, t. 4.1 : Zosime de Panopolis. Mémoires authentiques,'' Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1995.
* Andrée Collinet and Henri-Dominique Saffrey (ed.), ''Les alchimistes grecs, t. 10 : L'Anonyme de Zuretti ou l'Art sacré and divin de la chrysopée par un anonyme'', Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2000.
* Andrée Collinet (ed), ''Les alchimistes grecs'', ''t. 11 : Recettes alchimiques (Par. Gr. 2419; Holkhamicus 109) – Cosmas le Hiéromoine – Chrysopée'', Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2000.
* Matteo Martelli (ed), ''The Four Books of Pseudo-Democritus'', Maney Publishing, 2014.
Studies
* Dylan M. Burns, " μίξεώς τινι τέχνῃ κρείττονι : Alchemical Metaphor in the ''Paraphrase of Shem'' (NHC VII,1) ", ''Aries'' 15 (2015), p. 79–106.
* Alberto Camplani, " Procedimenti magico-alchemici e discorso filosofico ermetico " in Giuliana Lanata (ed.), ''Il Tardoantico alle soglie del Duemila'', ETS, 2000, p. 73–98.
* Alberto Camplani and Marco Zambon, " Il sacrificio come problema in alcune correnti filosofice di età imperiale ", ''Annali di storia dell'esegesi'' 19 (2002), p. 59–99.
* Régine Charron and Louis Painchaud, " 'God is a Dyer,' The Background and Significance of a Puzzling Motif in the Coptic ''Gospel According to Philip (CG II, 3)'', ''Le Muséon'' 114 (2001), p. 41-50.
* Régine Charron, " The Apocryphon of John (NHC II,1) and the Greco-Egyptian Alchemical Literature ", ''Vigiliae Christinae'' 59 (2005), p. 438-456.
* Philippe Derchain, "L'Atelier des Orfèvres à Dendara et les origines de l'alchimie," ''Chronique d'Égypte'', vol. 65, no 130, 1990, p. 219–242.
* Korshi Dosoo, " A History of the Theban Magical Library ", ''Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists'' 53 (2016), p. 251–274.
* Olivier Dufault, ''Early Greek Alchemy, Patronage and Innovation in Late Antiquity'', California Classical Studies, 2019
Early Greek Alchemy, Patronage and Innovation in Late Antiquity
* Sergio Knipe, " Sacrifice and self-transformation in the alchemical writings of Zosimus of Panopolis ", in Christopher Kelly, Richard Flower, Michael Stuart Williams (eds.), ''Unclassical Traditions. Volume II: Perspectives from East and West in Late Antiquity,'' Cambridge University Press, 2011, p. 59–69.
* André-Jean Festugière, ''La Révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste'', Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2014 , .
* Kyle A. Fraser, " Zosimos of Panopolis and the Book of Enoch: Alchemy as Forbidden Knowledge ", ''Aries'' 4.2 (2004), p. 125–147.
* Kyle A. Fraser, " Baptized in Gnosis: The Spiritual Alchemy of Zosimos of Panopolis ", ''Dionysius'' 25 (2007), p. 33–54.
* Kyle A. Fraser, " Distilling Nature's Secrets: The Sacred Art of Alchemy ", in John Scarborough and Paul Keyser (eds.), ''Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World,'' Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 721–742. 2018
* Shannon Grimes, ''Becoming Gold: Zosimos of Panopolis and the Alchemical Arts in Roman Egypt'', Auckland, Rubedo Press, 2018,
* Paul T. Keyser, " Greco-Roman Alchemy and Coins of Imitation Silver ", ''American Journal of Numismatics'' 7–8 (1995–1996), p. 209–234.
* Paul Keyser, " The Longue Durée of Alchemy ", in John Scarborough and Paul Keyser (eds.), ''Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World,'' Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 409–430.
* Jean Letrouit, "Chronologie des alchimistes grecs," in Didier Kahn and Sylvain Matton, ''Alchimie: art, histoire et mythes'', SEHA-Archè, 1995, p. 11–93.
* Lindsay, Jack. ''The Origins of Alchemy in Greco-Roman Egypt''. Barnes & Noble, 1970.
* Paul Magdalino and Maria Mavroudi (eds.), ''The Occult Sciences in Byzantium'', La Pomme d'or, 2006.
* Matteo Martelli, " The Alchemical Art of Dyeing: The Fourfold Division of Alchemy and the Enochian Tradition " in Sven Dupré (ed.), ''Laboratories of Art,'' Springer, 2014, .
* Matteo Martelli, " Alchemy, Medicine and Religion: Zosimus of Panopolis and the Egyptian Priests ", ''Religion in the Roman Empire'' 3.2 (2017), p. 202–220.
* Gerasimos Merianos, " Alchemy ", In A. Kaldellis & N. Siniossoglou (eds.), ''The Cambridge Intellectual History of Byzantium'' (pp. 234–251). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017, .
* Efthymios Nikolaïdis (ed.), Greek Alchemy from Late Antiquity to Early Modernity, Brepols, 2019, .
* Daniel Stolzenberg, " Unpropitious Tinctures: Alchemy, Astrology & Gnosis According to Zosimos of Panopolis ", ''Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences'' 49 (1999), p. 3–31.
* Cristina Viano, " Byzantine Alchemy, or the Era of Systematization ", in John Scarborough and Paul Keyser (eds.), ''Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World,'' Oxford University Press, 2018, p. 943–964.
* C. Vlachou ''and al.,'' " Experimental investigation of silvering in late Roman coinage ", ''Material Research Society Symposium Proceedings'' 712 (2002), p. II9.2.1-II9.2.9, .
Early modern
* Principe, Lawrence and William Newman. ''Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry''. University of Chicago Press, 2002.
External links
*
SHAC: Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
ESSWE: European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism
Association for the Study of Esotericism
The Alchemy Website.
– Adam McLean
Adam McLean (born 7 March 1948 in Glasgow) is a Scottish writer on alchemical texts and symbolism. In 1978 he founded the '' Hermetic Journal'' which he published until 1992 during which time he also started publishing the ''Magnum Opus Hermet ...
's online collections and academic discussion.
*
''Dictionary of the History of Ideas'':
Alchemy
– A digital exhibition from th
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University
Alchemy
featured topic page on Science History Institute
The Science History Institute is an institution that preserves and promotes understanding of the history of science. Located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it includes a library, museum, archive, research center and conference center.
It was f ...
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featuring selected manuscripts, rare books, paintings, and ephemera relating to alchemical topics and experimentation.
{{Authority control
Esotericism
Hermeticism
History of philosophy
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