Table of contents for History of Alchemy in All About History

For an apparently defunct subject, alchemy has had a vast impact on the modern world. On one hand, its spiritual theories have been informing religious thought since the 3rd century, culminating in the overwhelming influence they’ve had on the reconstructed esoteric and magical movements of today. On the other, its relentless curiosity, specialist equipment and experimental methodology made it the early crucible of many of the sciences, notably chemistry, but also physics and pharmacology. Despite science’s understandable reluctance to acknowledge it, alchemical ideas have, directly or indirectly, led to breakthroughs in the understanding of gravity, electromagnetism, atomic theory, medicine and even quantum mechanics. Now, as modern academics put its illusive, elusive language under the microscope, they’re discovering that alchemy, far from being the bumbling precursor to science or alternative philosophy…

All alchemists frequently used their furnaces to heat metals and other substances, but they also literally tried to test every single other process they could think of, some of which seem quite absurd today. This was primarily due to their lack of understanding about the true nature of metals. For instance, Geber believed that matter could be changed into its perfect form by mixing it with a pure, perfect substance. Essentially, alchemists considered this method as the fermentation of gold by leavening it with base metals in order to achieve their goal. Other common processes used were pulverisation, solidification, distillation, sublimation, mortification and calcination. The furnace fire was used for methods like calcination, which broke down solid substances into powder, but heat was not always utilised. Alchemists distilled many different…

When the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, died in 210 BCE, he was placed in a tomb constructed on a fantastic scale. Alongside the famed Terracotta Warriors he was buried with alchemical secrets. It is said that inside the grave a vast model of the world was constructed with rivers and oceans of mercury flowing like water. Archaeologists have not yet penetrated the interior of the imperial tomb, but readings of mercury in the surrounding soil are far above average, hinting at the liquid metal within. As well as being buried amidst mercury the metal may have been the cause of death of the first emperor. Records show he had an obsession with immortality and one of his plans to achieve it was to have alchemists concoct…

Today there’s a clear delineation between the concepts of religion, magic, and science, but this is a relatively recent invention, and one that’s intricately entwined with the history of alchemy. In the 3rd century Roman province of Aegyptus, however, such a distinction wasn’t made in the same way that we do now. The world was understood on the basis of empirical evidence filtered through the philosophies and mythologies of a wide range of religions and cultures, and from this unique, curious mixture rose a new way of seeing. Some historians may try to argue in favour of a purely exoteric beginning for alchemy – that its roots are entirely material, artisanal, and proto-scientific – while others prefer focusing on its esoteric aspects, its myth and mysticism and even magic. The…

To the Egyptians, writing was sacred as it gave reliability, and enabled all knowledge of the world to be recorded Ra God of the Sun Ra was Egypt’s most important Sun god, also known as Khepri when rising, Atum when setting and the Aten as the solar disc. As the main creator deity, Ra also produced twin gods Shu and Tefnut. Geb God of the Earth As the grandson of Ra and the son of Shu and Tefnut, greenskinned Geb represented the Earth and was usually shown reclining, stretched out beneath his sister-wife Nut. Nut Goddess of the sky As granddaughter of Ra, Nut was the sky goddess whose star-spangled body formed the heavens, held above her brother Geb by their father Shu, god of air. Isis Goddess of motherhood…

Part of what makes alchemy so fascinating is its sense of mystery. It owes its enigmatic aura in large part to the series of signs and symbols used to represent different elements and processes, or even hide its knowledge from the uninitiated. When we see these mysterious signs, we can’t help but think of clandestine codes, conspiracies and ancient secrets, inaccessible to those of us who don’t have the key to this hidden knowledge. Fortunately, we can help you strip back some of the layers of mystery. Alchemical symbols function as a shorthand for elements, processes, units and so on. Foundational elements in the philosophy of alchemy each have their own sign. The four elements – fire, water, air and earth – are represented by symbols based on triangles and…

Hermetic Qabalah combined diverse beliefs and blended practices of various schools of thought. In sharing concepts with Jewish Kabbalah and drawing on alchemy, pagan religions, Western astrology, Gnosticism and more, it created a new system and was a prime example of what is termed religious syncretism. Detractors, including Orthodox Christians, say syncretism relies not on the Scriptures but on the whim of humans, drawing on influences affecting a culture. They say it makes a religion illegitimate, but there’s a compelling argument that all religions are syncretic to some degree: many pagan symbols, for example, were adopted by Christianity between the second and fourth centuries. Indeed, the religion of Judaism has also arguably absorbed outside religious influences (Jewish fundamentalists, however, say it has not). Meanwhile, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, an Italian…

Every so often, a person is born destined – as if by divine purpose – to change the world. Swiss chemist and occultist Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493-1541), who became known across Europe and entered the annals of history as Doctor Paracelsus, was an absolute rock star of medicine. He took medical knowledge kicking and screaming into the Renaissance from the end days of the Middle Ages, all the while annoying just about everybody and making so many enemies he lived with an almost constant threat of physical harm and mortal danger. Paracelsus was a bridge between the old world and new; a man whose achievements helped pave the way towards modern science as we know it today. Although far-reaching, he was still deeply religious and wished to…

Alchemy in late Medieval Europe brought with it many risks. The Roman Catholic Church was deeply opposed to its practice, being highly suspicious of its ancient connections to pagan practices and magic. Bodily immortality granted by potions such as the fabled ‘elixir of life’ had no place in a religious environment in which eternal life could be obtained only through the Christian sacraments. So noxious was alchemy during this time that both political and religious figures forbade its practice, and the Italian poet Dante Alighieri confidently stuck alchemists in Hell in the Divine Comedy. Late Medieval alchemy also suffered from its continued lack of success in transforming lead into gold, one of its most prominent endeavours. Doubt as to the possibility of transmutation thus increased, though some alchemists continued doggedly…

Western alchemy is in some ways rooted in the ancient city of Alexandria. At a meeting point of Asia, Africa, and Europe, some of the foundational texts of alchemy were written there. It is impossible to trace a smooth descent of alchemical lore from Alexandria to the modern day, as empires rose and fell and conquerors swept across nations, but we can see the influences of alchemy moving with the centuries. When Zosimos of Panopolis wrote about a ‘xerion,’ meaning medical powder, that helped to transmute metals into gold, he can have had no idea of its future. Xerion would pass first into Arabic as al-iksir and then into Latin as elixir. For the Medieval alchemists, this elixir could cause gold to proliferate, cure diseases, and grant immortality. We may…

Alexander the Great himself was such an inspiration to the ancient world that even before his death he was viewed as a demigod when he conquered Egypt – he was crowned as Pharaoh in Memphis and named ‘Son of the gods’, which affected the religious young king very deeply. After his death his remains and even his legend were venerated. The dynasty that ruled Egypt after him, founded by his companion and possible half-brother Ptolemy I Soter, recognised that blending the gods of Egypt with those of Greece would go a long way towards unifying a population that had only come together thanks to its adoration of Alexander. The Ptolemies began a syncretic process of combining the gods of both cultures: Zeus-Ammon was already a duality both societies were comfortable…

Gods of words and writing are often also gods of magic. Up until the Greek culture pervaded Egyptian life, writing and literacy were considered secret knowledge kept only for priests and scribes. Thoth was often considered to have created writing and languages as the scribe of the gods, a responsibility shared with the goddess Seshat; seen as the ‘lord of books’, he was a powerful word-smith. Many gods linked to the art of writing are also gods of magic. Odin, the chief god of Norse mythology, was a god of wisdom, healing and magic, and credited with uncovering the wisdom of the runes. He was said to practise the secret art of seiðr magic and sorcery, and was the god who uncovered the wisdom of the runes by hanging himself…

Our vast solar system may be made up of eight planets (sorry, Pluto), but only five of those planets are visible from Earth to the naked eye, and therefore only five were visible to ancient people: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Those five planets, together with the Moon and the Sun, comprise what is known to astronomers as the seven classical planets. As well as heavily featuring in the natural science of astronomy, the planets also play a key role in ancient alchemy. In the West, as well as other locations around the globe where it was widely practised, alchemy became entwined with traditional Babylonian-Greek style astrology, as the two were thought to complement each other in the search for hidden knowledge. As a result, each of the classical…

Throughout the long history of fascination with alchemical ideas, there are several women of note who are credited with forming the very early precepts of hermetical understanding and belief. One of these was the pseudonymously named Cleopatra the Alchemist. Thought to have lived during the 3rd century CE, ‘Cleopatra’ was a Greek philosopher, writer and, as her name implies, alchemist. It is possible that Cleopatra was not just one person but may have been the name behind which a group of writers operated. One of the founding figures of alchemy, and one of four women alchemists said to have been skilled enough to make the Philosophers Stone, it has also been suggested that Cleopatra invented the distillation apparatus the alembic. The most important document linked to Cleopatra is the Chrysopoeia…

‘Golden Age’ might seem like quite a grand way of describing Islamic culture at the time of the Middle Ages, but it’s also rather fitting. The term sits in contrasts to the European Dark Ages, the historical period that occurred in the Western world shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire and saw a huge demographic, cultural and economic decline. The term ‘Islamic Golden Age’ first started being used in 19th century literature about Islamic history in the context of Orientalism, the western aesthetic fashion of imitating or depicting aspects of the Eastern world. The term was notably used by the author of A Handbook for Travellers in Syria and Palestine, published in 1868, which said that Damascus’ most beautiful mosques were “like Mohammedanism itself, rapidly decaying,” and relics…

Jabir ibn Hayyan was born in 721 CE in Khorasan, straddling Iran and Central Asia, towards the northeastern frontier of the Islamic world. Under the leadership of the Umayyad dynasty, the Muslim empire had recently reached its remarkable peak, stretching all the way from Spain to China, via North Africa – all managed by a staggeringly efficient bureaucracy, inherited from the Sassanids and Byzantines. Trouble, however, was brewing. As discontent spread amongst non-Arabs, a subgroup of Mohammed’s Hashemite clan, known as the Abbasids, emerged in Khorasan, rustling up support for their own dynasty. Among their early supporters was Jabir’s father, Hayyan, a Yemeni druggist who left his home in Kufa, Iraq, to stoke the flames of revolution. When the Umayyads caught wind of the emerging coup, Hayyan was captured and…

On 11th of February 1144, a monk laid down his quill on a work that would resonate throughout Europe for centuries. Robert of Chester had just completed his translation of an Arabic text that first introduced the word alchemy to Latin Europe. We know the exact date because he tells us in his preface to Liber de compositione alchimiae – The Book of the Composition of Alchemy. He undertook this work “because our Latin world does not yet know what alchemy is.” Very soon everyone would have heard of it. OUT OF IBERIA Often Europe of the Middle Ages is considered as a monolithically Catholic Christian area. This is far from the truth. The Iberian Peninsula, including much of what we now call Spain, was under the control of Muslim…

Paracelsus sported a German-style longsword, to which he gave an occult name: Azoth (an alchemical term for a transformational element sought by occultists and magicians, and the name given to mercury). The sword would have been three to four feet long with a cross-guard and globular pommel. Rumour spread that he slept with it by his side and that it had a life of its own – it could dance a jig, clattering about the room making an ungodly clanging racket, waking up Paracelsus’s neighbours and leading to his reputation for belligerent and sinister behaviour. Why a learned man and doctor of medicine should walk around sporting such a cumbersome object on his belt has never been explained, though given his infamous bad temper and reputation for making enemies left,…

Rosicrucianism declined in popularity during the 17th century due to the European intellectual movement, the Enlightenment Europe in the early 17th century was not a happy place. It was a continent marked by religious divisions and political strife which would escalate into the bloody Thirty Years’ War that led to eight million lives being lost. At the same time, it was a period of great change. During the century, modern philosophy and science emerged thanks to impressive thinkers such as Newton and Descartes. But were these men also members of the spiritual movement Rosicrucianism? Some have said so but, alas, we may never know. There are a great many stories and myths about Rosicrucianism, not least those that surround its origins. What we know to be true, however, is that…

The chemist Angelo Sala (1576-1637) stood apart from the mass of his fellow Italians on account of his Calvinist Protestant religion. Like Boyle and Newton, he straddled the dividing line between alchemist and chemist, being a believer in the theory of Three Principles. One of his greatest contributions was proving that substances retained their identities even after they had been combined with others. This theory was by no means new, but it ran contrary to Aristotle, who believed that substances’ individual identities were destroyed utterly when they reacted with one another, leaving behind no traces of the original combining materials. Sala thought otherwise, and sought the truth. In 1617, in his The Anatomy of Vitriol, he informed the world of an experiment he had conducted concerning chemical structure. First, he…

Mary Anne South was born in 1817 in France, but she did not remain long in the land of her birth; Mary’s early years were spent in Gosport, Hampshire. Although most often remembered by her married name, Mary’s main contributions to alchemical writings in fact took place before her marriage. She had a very close relationship with her father Thomas South, a researcher of spirituality with an interest in the hermetic arts, and it was this bond that inspired Mary’s interest in and work on alchemy, with the pair often working together. Her lack of a formal education did not set Mary back, and she was known for her proficiency in both Greek and Latin. Considered an intellectual equal by her father, it was this very fact that led to…

Like so many legendary historical figures, Fulcanelli’s real identity is shrouded in mystery. It is likely that he was French, and some claim he was born in the first half of the 19th century, in 1839. His works can unquestionably be attributed to someone well versed in alchemy. His most elaborate claim to success is that his assistant, Eugène Canseliet, transformed lead into gold in the presence of witnesses, attaining the alchemist’s dream. Fulcanelli is said to have disappeared in the 1920s after imparting his knowledge to his assistants. Some say he survived World War II, only to disappear after the Liberation of Paris in 1944. Canseliet claimed that his master appeared to him a final time in Seville in 1953, asking, “Do you recognise me?” He reports in his…

Many early alchemical techniques and devices paved the way for the scientific revolution Alchemy, the Noble Art, is an ancient practice that has taken on myriad forms over the centuries. Alchemists of all nations have sought to transform base metals into glittering gold. They have delved into secrets of immortality and tried to create panaceas that would cure any illness. By combining the correct ingredients they believed that they could even create life itself. With mystical insights into the nature of reality alchemists have sought to reshape the world into a more perfect form. For alchemists the world was alive with spiritual forces that, with the right knowledge and set of tools, could be commanded. Metals lived, could be killed, and be resurrected by masters of the art. From India,…

It is almost impossible to declare where the origins of alchemy lie, if indeed it was not invented in many places at the same time. Some scholars consider China or Egypt to be the originators of alchemical thought, but there are those who believe India to be the true home of alchemy. India in the ancient world was known for its achievements in metallurgy and the smelting of ores. Bronze and iron emerged relatively early in the region. From the times of the early Indus Valley civilisations, medicines had been compounded from natural products in the hopes of curing diseases. Ayurveda, as this branch of medicine was and is known, gave ancient Indians a large store of materials and substances to work with. In the Rigveda, a collection of Hindu…

Until the 17th century in Europe, much of the medicine taught at universities was underpinned by the work of doctors who had lived over a thousand years before. Galen was a Greek surgeon who had lived in the Roman Empire and yet his texts were still mandatory reading for trainee doctors. Galen promoted the theory of humourism – the idea that the four humours of black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm controlled health. These were linked to the conception of the four elements, as air was associated with blood and phlegm with water and so on. To bring the humours into balance you could either stimulate the body to produce more of one or lower the levels by extracting it. Bleeding was long thought to be a helpful cure.…

The earliest figures in Alexandrian alchemy are semilegendary. In a world in which similar-sounding words across different languages were enough to prove a deep connection, an early alchemist, and one who apocryphally was thought to have given his name to the art, is Chymes, known in Arabic manuscripts as ‘Kimas’ or ‘Shimas’. In some Alexandrian Graeco-Jewish traditions he was associated with Ham, the son of the bliblical Noah, who was thought to have settled in Egypt after the Flood. Another early alchemist with an Abrahamic name is the mysterious Moses of Alexandria, who is associated with the prophet of the same name – in ancient Alexandria the biblical Moses was thought to have invented the arts and sciences. Then there were the mysterious figures who wrote under the pen names…

The Book of Thoth was said to have been written by the god himself. The ‘book’ is thought to have actually been a collection of texts, 42 books, in six categories, that were said to contain all of the philosophical knowledge of the Egyptian people. The work is referred to by Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second century CE, who attributes the works to Hermes. The books were thought to have been translated into Greek, and updated with Greek ideals. It’s said that books covered the laws, deities and priestly instruction; instructions for how to serve the gods; knowledge of the geography of the world and writing; astrology and astronomy; religious compositions; and, finally, knowledge of medicine. While some have tried to include the Book of the…

The process of transmutation, or the quest to find a way to turn base metals into gold and silver, is a central part of alchemy’s history. This goal has had many names: the Philosopher’s Stone, chrysopoeia, and the Magnum Opus, or Great Work. Across the ages, alchemists have pursued – and some have claimed to have realised – this goal. The idea of transmutation is usually traced back to Zosimos of Panopolis in 300 CE. He set out the stages through which the process of transmutation was to be accomplished, laying down an early template with which alchemists would continue to work for centuries. The first of these four stages is nigredo, a blackening in which ingredients had to be cleansed through cooking to create a black material. This is…

The Philosopher’s Stone can be considered the ultimate goal of alchemy. Alchemists might not necessarily agree on what precisely the Philosopher’s Stone is, but almost every alchemist coveted it in one way or another. In legend, some are even said to have acquired it – Albertus Magnus was said to have passed the secret formula for the Stone on to Thomas Aquinas before his death in 1280, for example. The Stone, particularly in antiquity and the Middle Ages, was commonly understood to be some kind of primal matter from which everything else – including the four elements of fire, water, air and earth – was derived. Out of this idea came the theory that the Philosopher’s Stone could be used to create new materials. More specifically, that it could be…

Pseudepigraphy, the writing of texts under another person’s name, has a long and not entirely dishonourable history. Many authors in the past borrowed a name for many of the same reasons as alchemists chose to. Almost as soon as writing came to be used so did the co-opting of antique names for their own purposes. Some texts that may have been created anonymously in the ancient Greek world had another name attached to them by tradition. Mystical works relating to the afterlife and the nature of reality had a tendency to be described as the works of Orpheus. There was a thriving trade in manuscripts that were thought to be by famous writers. If someone could produce a new and undiscovered work by Plato then the scrolls would fetch a…

Born in Cologne in 1486, Agrippa was a man of many interests and talents; soldier, theologian, physician and law expert being among the various roles he played throughout his life. He is best remembered, however, for his occult writings, alchemical ideas, and his seeming contradictions on the topics of magic and science. Agrippa’s interest in the occult is believed to have stemmed from his time at the University of Cologne, where he studied medicine and law, magic, sciences and theology at a young age. After his studies he spent time in Europe in the army of Maximilian I, and in 1509 he received the patronage of Margaret of Austria. Due to his authorship of On the Nobility and Excellence of the Feminine Sex, Agrippa has been hailed as an early…

The concept of the substance known within alchemy as alkahest is usually attributed to the 16th-century alchemist Paracelsus, born in Switzerland as Philipus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheom. This idea was built on the work of alchemists that came before him, who placed a lot of focus on breaking down metals and other substances in the search for the elusive Philosopher’s Stone – the, obscure, mythical knowledge that they believed to be the key to transmutation, or the ability to turn common metals to gold. For Paracelsus, alkahest was the name of the substance key to that process. It was the name he gave to a solvent capable of dissolving any substance with which it came into contact. This, of course, begs the inevitable question as to how alkahest could…

The Rose Cross, otherwise known as the Rosy Cross, was said to have been created by Christian Rosenkreuz, the founder of Rosicrucianism. But since we know Rosenkreuz to be fictional, we can suppose it was actually the work of whoever produced the manifestos that underpinned the movement. It takes the Christian symbol of the cross and embeds it with a rose at its centre, and it clearly marries well with Christian Rosenkreuz’s name. What it actually symbolises is open to debate, although some posit that the cross represents the human body and the rose the unfolding consciousness of individuals. The Rose Cross has also come to represent silence and salvation for some, while others see it as symbol of human reproduction being elevated to the spiritual, with the rose being…

“It may come as no surprise that many wellknown names in esoteric circles had a fraught relationship with Waite” Arthur Edward Waite is one of the most prominent figures in the Western Esoteric tradition. Born in New York in 1857, Waite’s early life was turbulent. The family faced great hardship when his father, Captain Charles F Waite, a merchant marine, died at sea while his mother, Emma Lovell, the daughter of a rich trader, was pregnant. She chose to return to England, taking Arthur and his infant sister with her. The boy spent his early years studying at a private school in the north of London and moved to St Charles’ College in his teenage years. On leaving school he became a clerk, dedicating much of his time to writing…