Alchemy: Encyclopedia II - Alchemy - Overview

Alchemy - Overview

Alchemy - Alchemy as a proto-science

The common perception of alchemists is that they were pseudo-scientists, crackpots and charlatans who attempted to turn lead into gold, believed that the universe was composed of the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water, and spent most of their time concocting miraculous remedies, poisons, and magic potions. In popular view (and popular art) alchemists are hardly distinguished from wizards, seers, astrologers, quack doctors, and other more or less disreputable professions.

This perception is very limited and unfair. The alchemists were basically "proto-scientists" who attempted to explore and investigate the nature of chemical substances and processes before the basic scientific tools and practices were available. They had to rely on unsystematic experimentation, traditional know-how, rules of thumb, — and plenty of speculative thought to fill in the wide gaps in existing knowledge. Thus, the lapse into mysticism was unavoidable: to the early alchemist, chemical transformations could only seem magical phenomena governed by incomprehensible laws, whose potential and limitations he had no way of knowing. Having discovered that a specific procedure could turn an earth-like ore into glistening metal, it was only natural to speculate that some different procedure could turn a metal into another.

At the same time, it was clear to the alchemists that "something" was generally being conserved in chemical processes, even in the most dramatic changes of physical state and appearance; i.e. that substances contained some "principles" that could be hidden under many outer forms, and revealed by proper manipulation. Throughout the history of the discipline, alchemists struggled very hard to understand the nature of these principles, and find some order and sense in the results of their chemical experiments — which were often undermined by impure or poorly characterized reagents, the lack of quantitative measurements, and confusing and inconsistent nomenclature.

In spite of those difficulties, and of many false turns and loops, the alchemists made steady progress in the understanding of the natural world. If many of them were crackpots and charlatans, many also were well-meaning and intelligent scholars, who were simply struggling to make sense of a subject which, we now know, was way beyond the reach of their tools. To those alchemists we owe the discovery of many important substances and chemical processes, which paved the way for the modern science of chemistry, and are still the mainstay of today's chemical and metallurgical industries.

Alchemy - The changing goals of alchemy

The best known goals of the alchemists were the transmutation of common metals into gold or silver, and the creation of a "panacea", a remedy that supposedly would cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely. Starting with the Middle Ages, European alchemists invested much effort on the search for the "philosopher's stone", a mythical substance that was believed to be an essential ingredient for either or both of those goals. Still, one must not forget that the reason why alchemists enjoyed prestige and support through the centuries was neither their pursuit of those unattainable goals, nor the mystic and philosophical speculation that dominates their literature; but rather their mundane contributions to the "chemical" industries of the day — ore testing and refining, metalworking, production of ink, dyes, paints, and cosmetics, leather tanning, ceramics and glass manufacture, preparation of extracts and liquors, and so on. (It seems that the preparation of aqua vitae, the "water of life", was a fairly popular "experiment" among European alchemists.)

On the other hand, alchemists never had the intellectual tools nor the motivation to separate the physical (chemical) aspects of their craft from the metaphysical interpretations. Indeed, from antiquity until well into the Modern Age, a physics devoid of metaphysical insight would have been as unsatisfying as a metaphysics devoid of physical manifestation. For one thing, the lack of common words for chemical concepts and processes, as well as the need for secrecy, led alchemists to borrow the terms and symbols of biblical and pagan mythology, astrology, kabbalah, and other mystic and esoteric fields; so that even the plainest chemical recipe ended up reading like an abstruse magic incantation. Moreover, alchemists sought in those fields the theoretical frameworks into which they could fit their growing collection of disjointed experimental facts.

Starting with the middle ages, alchemists increasingly came to view these metaphysical aspects as the true foundation of alchemy; and chemical substances, physical states, and material processes as mere metaphors for spiritual entities, states and transformations. Thus, both the transmutation of common metals into gold and the universal panacea symbolized evolution from an imperfect, diseased, corruptible and ephemeral state towards a perfect, healthy, incorruptible and everlasting state; and the philosopher's stone then represented some mystic key that would make this evolution possible. Applied to the alchemist himself, the twin goal symbolized his evolution from ignorance to enlightenment, and the stone represented some hidden spiritual truth or power that would lead to that goal. In texts that are written according to this view, the cryptic alchemical symbols, diagrams, and textual imagery of late alchemical works typically contain multiple layers of meanings, allegories, and references to other equally cryptic works; and must be laborously "decoded" in order to discover their true meaning.

Some humanistic scholars now see these spiritual and metaphysical allegories as the truest and most valuable aspect of alchemy, and even claim that the development of chemistry out of alchemy was a "corruption" of the original Hermetic tradition. Most scientists, on the other hand, tend to take quite the opposite view: to them, the path from the material side of alchemy to modern chemistry was the "straight road" in the evolution of the discipline, while the metaphysically oriented brand of alchemy was a "wrong turn" that led to nowhere. In any case, the naïve interpretations of some alchemists or the fraudulent hopes fostered by others should not diminish the undertakings of the more sincere practitioners.

Alchemy - Alchemy and astrology

Since its earliest times, alchemy has been closely connected to astrology — which, in Islam and Europe, generally meant the traditional Babylonian-Greek school of astrology. Alchemical systems oftem postulated that each of the seven planets known to the ancients "ruled" or was associated with a certain metal. See the separate article on astrology and alchemy for further details.

Alchemy - Alchemy in the age of science

Up to the 18th century, alchemy was actually considered serious science in Europe; for instance, Isaac Newton devoted considerably more of his time and writing to the study of alchemy than he did to either optics or physics, for which he is famous, (see Isaac Newton's occult studies). Other eminent alchemists of the Western world are Roger Bacon, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Tycho Brahe, Thomas Browne, and Parmigianino. The decline of alchemy began in the 18th century with the birth of modern chemistry, which provided a more precise and reliable framework for matter transmutations and medicine, within a new grand design of the universe based on rational materialism.

In the first half of the nineteenth century, one established chemist, Baron Carl Reichenbach, researched on concepts similar to the old alchemy, such as the Odic force, but his research did not enter the mainstream of scientific discussion.

Matter transmutation, the old ideal of alchemy, enjoyed a moment in the sun in the 20th century when physicists were able to convert lead atoms into gold atoms via a nuclear reaction. However, the new gold atoms, being unstable isotopes, lasted for under five seconds before they broke apart. More recently, reports of table-top element transmutation — by means of electrolysis or sonic cavitation — were the pivot of the cold fusion controversy of 1989. None of those claims have yet been reliably duplicated.

Alchemical symbolism has been occasionally used in the 20th century by psychologists and philosophers. Carl Jung reexamined alchemical symbolism and theory and began to show the inner meaning of alchemical work as a spiritual path. Alchemical philosophy, symbols and methods have enjoyed something of a renaissance in post-modern contexts, such as the New Age movement. Even some physicists have played with alchemical ideas in books such as The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters.

Alchemy - Alchemy as a subject of historical research

The history of alchemy has become a vigorous academic field. As the obscure—hermetic, of course—language of the alchemists is gradually being "deciphered", historians are becoming more aware of the intellectual connections between that discipline and other facets of Western cultural history, such as the sociology and psychology of the intellectual communities, kabbalism, spiritualism, Rosicrucianism, and other mystic movements, cryptography, witchcraft—and, of course, the evolution of science and philosophy.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Overview", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki