Alchemy sulfur symbol.svg on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Alchemy (from
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 metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an Elixir of life, elixir of immortality; and the creation of Panacea (medicine), panaceas able to cure any disease. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to result from the alchemical Magnum opus (alchemy), ''magnum opus'' ("Great Work"). The concept of creating the philosophers' stone was variously connected with all of these projects. Islamic and European alchemists developed a basic set of laboratory techniques, theories, and terms, some of which are still in use today. They did not abandon the Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosophical idea that everything is composed of four elements, and they tended to guard their work in secrecy, often making use of History of cryptography, cyphers and cryptic symbolism. In Europe, the Latin translations of the 12th century, 12th-century translations of Science in the medieval Islamic world, medieval Islamic works on science and the Recovery of Aristotle, 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 era, early modern science (particularly History of chemistry, chemistry and History of medicine, medicine). Modern discussions of alchemy are generally split into an examination of its exoteric practical applications and its esoteric spiritual aspects, despite criticisms by scholars such as Eric John Holmyard, Eric J. Holmyard and Marie-Louise von Franz that they should be understood as complementary. The former is pursued by History of the physical sciences, historians of the physical sciences, who examine the subject in terms of History of chemistry, early chemistry, History of medicine, medicine, and charlatanism, and the philosophical and Religion, religious contexts in which these events occurred. The latter interests historians of esotericism, History of psychology, psychologists, and some philosophers and Spirituality, spiritualists. The subject has also made an ongoing impact on literature and the arts.
The start of Western alchemy may generally be traced to ancient and Hellenistic Egypt, where the city of Alexandria 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 nature of texts from the Greek alchemical corpus. The treatises of Zosimos of Panopolis, the earliest historically attested author (Floruit, 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, Pseudo-Democritus, and Agathodaemon (alchemist), Agathodaimon, but very little is known about any of these authors. The most complete of their works, The ''Four Books'' of Pseudo-Democritus, 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 Ancient Egypt, 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, Osiris, Jason, and many others.
The central figure in the mythology of alchemy is Hermes Trismegistus (or Thrice-Great Hermes). His name is derived from the deity, god Thoth and his Greek counterpart Hermes. Hermes and his caduceus or serpent-staff, were among alchemy's principal symbols. According to Clement of Alexandria, he wrote what were called the "forty-two books of Hermes", covering all fields of knowledge. The ''Hermetica'' of Thrice-Great Hermes is generally understood to form the basis for Western alchemical philosophy and practice, called the hermeticism, hermetic philosophy 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 and the Leyden papyrus X. 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), which aligned these recipes with theoretical knowledge of astrology and the classical elements.''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, Platonism, Stoicism and Gnosticism which formed the origin of alchemy's character. An important example of alchemy's roots in Greek philosophy, originated by Empedocles and developed by Aristotle, was that all things in the universe were formed from only four elements: Earth (classical element), earth, Air (classical element), air, Water (classical element), water, and Fire (classical element), fire. 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. Lactantius believed Hermes Trismegistus had prophesied its birth. Augustine of Hippo, 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 of Alexandria, Moses, Isis, Cleopatra the Alchemist, Cleopatra, Pseudo-Democritus, Democritus, and Ostanes. Others authors such as Komarios, and Chymes, 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 sparked its migration from Alexandria to the Islamic world, facilitating the translation and preservation of Greek alchemical texts in the 8th and 9th centuries.
After the Fall of the Roman Empire, 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. Platonic and Aristotle, 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 language, Syriac translations and scholarship.
In the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Arabic works attributed to Jābir ibn Hayyān (Latinized as "Geber" or "Geberus") introduced a new approach to alchemy. Paul Kraus (Arabist), 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'', 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 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 (classical element), aether, Air (classical element), air, Earth (classical element), earth, Fire (classical element), fire, and Water (classical element), water) in addition to two chemical elements representing the metals: Sulfur, sulphur, "the stone which burns", which characterized the principle of combustibility, and Mercury (element), 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 (chemistry), salt giving solidity.Strathern, Paul. (2000), ''Mendeleyev's Dream – the Quest for the Elements'', New York: Berkley Books The atomic theory 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 Al-Kindi, Alkindus, Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, Avicenna and Ibn Khaldun. In particular, they wrote refutations against the idea of the Philosopher's stone, transmutation of metals.
From the 14th century onwards, many materials and practices originally belonging to Indian alchemy (Rasayana) were assimilated in the Persian texts written by Muslim scholars.
Whereas European alchemy eventually centered on the transmutation of base metals into noble metals, Chinese alchemy had a more obvious connection to medicine.[Obed Simon Johnson, A Study of Chinese Alchemy, Shanghai, Commercial P, 1928. rpt. New York: Arno P, 1974.] The philosopher's stone of European alchemists can be compared to the Elixir of life, 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 Panacea (medicine), universal panacea; 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 for eternal life. Described in 9th-century texts and used in fireworks in China by the 10th century, it was used in cannons by 1290. From China, the use of gunpowder spread to Japan, the Mongols, 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 forms of traditional Chinese medicine, such as Acupuncture and Moxibustion. In the early Song dynasty, followers of this Taoist idea (chiefly the elite and upper class) would ingest cinnabar, mercuric sulfide, 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.
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 ''The Book of the Composition of Alchemy, 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 philosophers' stone, elixir 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, through contributors like Gerard of Cremona and Adelard of Bath. Translations of the time included the Turba Philosophorum, 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 Anselm of Canterbury, St Anselm 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 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 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 Order, Dominican friar, 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.
Roger Bacon, a Franciscan Order, Franciscan friar who wrote on a wide variety of topics including optics, comparative linguistics, and medicine, composed his ''Opus Majus, Great Work'' ( la, Opus Majus) for as part of a project towards rebuilding the medieval university 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 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 (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 soul, 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 set with traps to mislead the uninitiated. Finally, the alchemists practiced their art: they actively experimented with chemicals and made observations and theory, theories 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, Piers Plowman, and Chaucer 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, Nicholas Eymerich's ''Directorium Inquisitorum'', 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, and in works written in the name of Raymond Lull and Arnold of Villanova.
Nicolas Flamel is a well-known alchemist, but a good example of pseudepigraphy, 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. 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 late Middle Ages, 14th and 15th centuries, alchemists were much like Flamel: they concentrated on looking for the philosophers' stone. Bernard Trevisan and George Ripley (alchemist), George Ripley made similar contributions. Their cryptic allusions and symbolism led to wide variations in interpretation of the art.
During the Renaissance, 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 and Renaissance Neoplatonism guided alchemists away from physics 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 (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, 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 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 Elizabeth I of England, Queen Elizabeth I, 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: Robert Boyle and Elias Ashmole. 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, in the late 16th century, famously received and sponsored various alchemists at his court in Prague, including Dee and his associate Edward Kelley. James IV of Scotland, King James IV of Scotland, Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Henry V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Augustus, Elector of Saxony, Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, and Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel all contracted alchemists. John's son Arthur Dee worked as a court physician to Michael I of Russia and Charles I of England but also compiled the alchemical book ''Fasciculus Chemicus''.
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 and Heinrich Khunrath wrote about fraudulent transmutations, distinguishing themselves from the con artists. 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 (1546–1601), an alchemist better known for his astronomical and astrological investigations, had a laboratory built at his Uraniborg observatory/research institute. Michał Sędziwój, Michael Sendivogius (''Michał Sędziwój'', 1566–1636), a Poland, Polish alchemist, philosopher, medical doctor and pioneer of chemistry wrote mystical works but is also credited with distilling oxygen in a lab sometime around 1600. Sendivogious taught his technique to Cornelius Drebbel who, in 1621, applied this in a submarine. Isaac Newton devoted considerably more of his writing to the study of alchemy (see Isaac Newton's occult studies) than he did to either optics or physics. Other early modern alchemists who were eminent in their other studies include Robert Boyle, and Jan Baptist van Helmont. Their Hermeticism complemented rather than precluded their practical achievements in medicine and science.
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 (chemist), 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 (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 Antoine Lavoisier, 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 and Ethan A. Hitchcock (general), 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, Arthur Edward Waite, and Rudolf Steiner. 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, published his studies on Odic force, a concept with some similarities to alchemy, but his research did not enter the mainstream of scientific discussion.
In 1946, Louis Cattiaux 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.
Western alchemical theory corresponds to the worldview of late antiquity in which it was born. Concepts were imported from Neoplatonism and earlier Greek cosmology. As such, the classical elements appear in alchemical writings, as do the seven classical planets 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 Experimental Fire: Inventing English Alchemy, 1300-1700
'. University of Chicago Press.
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.
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, .
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'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]
Digital Collections
featuring selected manuscripts, rare books, paintings, and ephemera relating to alchemical topics and experimentation. {{Authority control Alchemy, Esotericism Hermeticism History of philosophy History of science
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: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscience, protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in Chinese alchemy, China, Rasayana, India, the Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam, Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Egypt (Roman province), Greco-Roman Egypt 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 metals" (e.g., lead) into "noble metals" (particularly gold); the creation of an Elixir of life, elixir of immortality; and the creation of Panacea (medicine), panaceas able to cure any disease. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to result from the alchemical Magnum opus (alchemy), ''magnum opus'' ("Great Work"). The concept of creating the philosophers' stone was variously connected with all of these projects. Islamic and European alchemists developed a basic set of laboratory techniques, theories, and terms, some of which are still in use today. They did not abandon the Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosophical idea that everything is composed of four elements, and they tended to guard their work in secrecy, often making use of History of cryptography, cyphers and cryptic symbolism. In Europe, the Latin translations of the 12th century, 12th-century translations of Science in the medieval Islamic world, medieval Islamic works on science and the Recovery of Aristotle, 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 era, early modern science (particularly History of chemistry, chemistry and History of medicine, medicine). Modern discussions of alchemy are generally split into an examination of its exoteric practical applications and its esoteric spiritual aspects, despite criticisms by scholars such as Eric John Holmyard, Eric J. Holmyard and Marie-Louise von Franz that they should be understood as complementary. The former is pursued by History of the physical sciences, historians of the physical sciences, who examine the subject in terms of History of chemistry, early chemistry, History of medicine, medicine, and charlatanism, and the philosophical and Religion, religious contexts in which these events occurred. The latter interests historians of esotericism, History of psychology, psychologists, and some philosophers and Spirituality, spiritualists. The subject has also made an ongoing impact on literature and the arts.
Etymology
The word alchemy comes from old French ''alquemie'', ''alkimie'', used in Medieval Latin as . This name was itself adopted from theArabic
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 term ''khēmeía'' (), also spelled ''khumeia'' () and ''khēmía'' (), with ''al-'' being the Arabic definite article 'the'. Together this association can be interpreted as 'the process of Magnum opus (alchemy), 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 language, Egyptian name ' (hieroglyphic 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 ' ), meaning 'black earth', which refers to the fertile and wikt:auriferous, auriferous soil of the Nile valley, as opposed to red desert sand. According to the Egyptologist Wallis Budge, the Arabic word ''ʾ'' actually means "the Egyptian [science]", borrowing from the Coptic language, Coptic word for "Egypt", ' (or its equivalent in the Mediaeval Bohairic dialect of Coptic, '). This Coptic word derives from Demotic Egyptian, Demotic ', itself from ancient Egyptian language, Egyptian '. 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, centered in China; Rasayana, Indian alchemy, centered on the Indian subcontinent; and Western alchemy, which occurred around the Mediterranean Basin, Mediterranean and whose center shifted over the millennia from Egypt (Roman province), Greco-Roman Egypt to the Muslim world, Islamic world, and finally Middle Ages, medieval Europe. Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoism and Indian alchemy with the Indian religions, Dharmic faiths. In contrast, Western alchemy developed its philosophical system mostly independent of but influenced by various Western religions. It is still an open question whether these three strands share a common origin, or to what extent they influenced each other.Hellenistic Egypt
The start of Western alchemy may generally be traced to ancient and Hellenistic Egypt, where the city of Alexandria 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 nature of texts from the Greek alchemical corpus. The treatises of Zosimos of Panopolis, the earliest historically attested author (Floruit, 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, Pseudo-Democritus, and Agathodaemon (alchemist), Agathodaimon, but very little is known about any of these authors. The most complete of their works, The ''Four Books'' of Pseudo-Democritus, 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 Ancient Egypt, 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, Osiris, Jason, and many others.
The central figure in the mythology of alchemy is Hermes Trismegistus (or Thrice-Great Hermes). His name is derived from the deity, god Thoth and his Greek counterpart Hermes. Hermes and his caduceus or serpent-staff, were among alchemy's principal symbols. According to Clement of Alexandria, he wrote what were called the "forty-two books of Hermes", covering all fields of knowledge. The ''Hermetica'' of Thrice-Great Hermes is generally understood to form the basis for Western alchemical philosophy and practice, called the hermeticism, hermetic philosophy 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 and the Leyden papyrus X. 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), which aligned these recipes with theoretical knowledge of astrology and the classical elements.''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, Platonism, Stoicism and Gnosticism which formed the origin of alchemy's character. An important example of alchemy's roots in Greek philosophy, originated by Empedocles and developed by Aristotle, was that all things in the universe were formed from only four elements: Earth (classical element), earth, Air (classical element), air, Water (classical element), water, and Fire (classical element), fire. 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. Lactantius believed Hermes Trismegistus had prophesied its birth. Augustine of Hippo, 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 of Alexandria, Moses, Isis, Cleopatra the Alchemist, Cleopatra, Pseudo-Democritus, Democritus, and Ostanes. Others authors such as Komarios, and Chymes, 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 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 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/Niter, nitre, perfume making (different qualities of perfumes are mentioned), granulated (refined) Sugar. Buddhism, Buddhist 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 Alchemy and chemistry in medieval Islam, Persian chemist and Medicine in medieval Islam, physician 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 (Hinduism), Kaula tantric schools associated to the teachings of the personality of Matsyendranath. 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 Nagarjuna (metallurgist), 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
After the Fall of the Roman Empire, 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. Platonic and Aristotle, 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 language, Syriac translations and scholarship.
In the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Arabic works attributed to Jābir ibn Hayyān (Latinized as "Geber" or "Geberus") introduced a new approach to alchemy. Paul Kraus (Arabist), 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'', 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 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 (classical element), aether, Air (classical element), air, Earth (classical element), earth, Fire (classical element), fire, and Water (classical element), water) in addition to two chemical elements representing the metals: Sulfur, sulphur, "the stone which burns", which characterized the principle of combustibility, and Mercury (element), 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 (chemistry), salt giving solidity.Strathern, Paul. (2000), ''Mendeleyev's Dream – the Quest for the Elements'', New York: Berkley Books The atomic theory 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 Al-Kindi, Alkindus, Abū al-Rayhān al-Bīrūnī, Avicenna and Ibn Khaldun. In particular, they wrote refutations against the idea of the Philosopher's stone, transmutation of metals.
From the 14th century onwards, many materials and practices originally belonging to Indian alchemy (Rasayana) were assimilated in the Persian texts written by Muslim scholars.
East Asia
Whereas European alchemy eventually centered on the transmutation of base metals into noble metals, Chinese alchemy had a more obvious connection to medicine.[Obed Simon Johnson, A Study of Chinese Alchemy, Shanghai, Commercial P, 1928. rpt. New York: Arno P, 1974.] The philosopher's stone of European alchemists can be compared to the Elixir of life, 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 Panacea (medicine), universal panacea; 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 for eternal life. Described in 9th-century texts and used in fireworks in China by the 10th century, it was used in cannons by 1290. From China, the use of gunpowder spread to Japan, the Mongols, 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 forms of traditional Chinese medicine, such as Acupuncture and Moxibustion. In the early Song dynasty, followers of this Taoist idea (chiefly the elite and upper class) would ingest cinnabar, mercuric sulfide, 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.
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 ''The Book of the Composition of Alchemy, 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 philosophers' stone, elixir 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, through contributors like Gerard of Cremona and Adelard of Bath. Translations of the time included the Turba Philosophorum, 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 Anselm of Canterbury, St Anselm 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 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 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 Order, Dominican friar, 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.
Roger Bacon, a Franciscan Order, Franciscan friar who wrote on a wide variety of topics including optics, comparative linguistics, and medicine, composed his ''Opus Majus, Great Work'' ( la, Opus Majus) for as part of a project towards rebuilding the medieval university 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 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 (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 soul, 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 set with traps to mislead the uninitiated. Finally, the alchemists practiced their art: they actively experimented with chemicals and made observations and theory, theories 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, Piers Plowman, and Chaucer 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, Nicholas Eymerich's ''Directorium Inquisitorum'', 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, and in works written in the name of Raymond Lull and Arnold of Villanova.
Nicolas Flamel is a well-known alchemist, but a good example of pseudepigraphy, 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. 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 late Middle Ages, 14th and 15th centuries, alchemists were much like Flamel: they concentrated on looking for the philosophers' stone. Bernard Trevisan and George Ripley (alchemist), George Ripley 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, 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 and Renaissance Neoplatonism guided alchemists away from physics 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 (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, 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 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 Elizabeth I of England, Queen Elizabeth I, 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: Robert Boyle and Elias Ashmole. 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, in the late 16th century, famously received and sponsored various alchemists at his court in Prague, including Dee and his associate Edward Kelley. James IV of Scotland, King James IV of Scotland, Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Henry V, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Augustus, Elector of Saxony, Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn, and Maurice, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel all contracted alchemists. John's son Arthur Dee worked as a court physician to Michael I of Russia and Charles I of England but also compiled the alchemical book ''Fasciculus Chemicus''.
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 and Heinrich Khunrath wrote about fraudulent transmutations, distinguishing themselves from the con artists. 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 (1546–1601), an alchemist better known for his astronomical and astrological investigations, had a laboratory built at his Uraniborg observatory/research institute. Michał Sędziwój, Michael Sendivogius (''Michał Sędziwój'', 1566–1636), a Poland, Polish alchemist, philosopher, medical doctor and pioneer of chemistry wrote mystical works but is also credited with distilling oxygen in a lab sometime around 1600. Sendivogious taught his technique to Cornelius Drebbel who, in 1621, applied this in a submarine. Isaac Newton devoted considerably more of his writing to the study of alchemy (see Isaac Newton's occult studies) than he did to either optics or physics. Other early modern alchemists who were eminent in their other studies include Robert Boyle, and Jan Baptist van Helmont. 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 (chemist), 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 (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 Antoine Lavoisier, 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 and Ethan A. Hitchcock (general), 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, Arthur Edward Waite, and Rudolf Steiner. 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, published his studies on Odic force, a concept with some similarities to alchemy, but his research did not enter the mainstream of scientific discussion.
In 1946, Louis Cattiaux 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 names four women who were able to make the philosophers' stone: Mary the Jewess, Cleopatra the Alchemist, Medera, and Paphnutia the Virgin, 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, 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. 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, the Countess of Forlì and Lady of Imola, is one of the few confirmed female alchemists after Mary the Jewess. 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, 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 (classical element), 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. Due to the proliferation in alchemical literature of pseudepigrapha 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, 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, 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 is even referred to in an anonymous manuscript about a hand lotion created with rose powder and crushed bones. Mary Anne Atwood'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, Kabbalah, kabbalism, spiritualism, Rosicrucianism, and other mystic movements. Institutions involved in this research include The Chymistry of Isaac Newton project at Indiana University, the University of Exeter Centre for the Study of Esotericism (EXESESO), the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE), and the University of Amsterdam'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 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', published by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, and 'Isis (journal), Isis', 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 and earlier Greek cosmology. As such, the classical elements appear in alchemical writings, as do the seven classical planets 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.
Magnum opus
The Great Work of Alchemy is often described as a series of four stages represented by colors. *''nigredo'', a blackening or melanosis *''Albedo (alchemy), albedo'', a whitening or leucosis *''citrinitas'', a yellowing or xanthosis *''rubedo'', a reddening, purpling, or iosisModernity
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 and Anna Marie Roos, 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 or radical environmentalism movements. Groups like the Rosicrucianism, Rosicrucians and Freemasonry, 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 (paranormal), magic and alchemy in popular thought.Esoteric interpretations of historical texts
In the eyes of a variety of modern Esotericism, esoteric and Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 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 () 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. 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 symbols, 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 Jung, Carl Gustav Jung. 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'', a Chinese alchemical text translated by his friend Richard Wilhelm (sinologist), 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." Specifically, he regarded the conjuring up of images of philosopher's stone, 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'', 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 (Jungian archetypes, archetypes) that comprise all psychic life.Polly Young-Eisendrath, 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''.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 William Shakespeare, Shakespeare to J. K. Rowling, and also the popular Japanese manga ''Fullmetal Alchemist''. 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. 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, Synthesis of precious metals#Gold, Gold was synthesized in particle accelerators as early as 1941.See also
*Alchemical symbol *Biological transmutation in Corentin Louis Kervran *Cupellation *Historicism *History of chemistry *List of alchemists *List of alchemical substances *Nuclear transmutation *Outline of alchemy *Porta Alchemica *Renaissance magic *Spagyric *Superseded theories in science *Synthesis of precious metals *Western esotericismNotes
References
Citations
Bibliography
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *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 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. The Academic Bookstore, Akademiska Bokhandeln, 1913Papyrus 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, 2019Early 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'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]
Digital Collections
featuring selected manuscripts, rare books, paintings, and ephemera relating to alchemical topics and experimentation. {{Authority control Alchemy, Esotericism Hermeticism History of philosophy History of science