alchemy and alchemists - john read, frc.pdf

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RosicrucianDigest

No. 12013 -Supplement

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Alchemy and Alchemists

John Read, FRC

Most people who think aboutalchemy in the present age (andthere are not many who do)

regard it as the pretended art of transmutingbase metals, such as lead, into the nobleones, silver and gold. Liebig held the viewthat alchemy was never anything else but

chemistry; from this point of view onemay look upon alchemy as the chemistryof the Middle Ages. In its widest andtruest significance, however, alchemy was agrandiose philosophical system which aimedat penetrating the mysteries of creation andof life; it sought to place the microcosm ofhumanity in adjustment with the macrocosmof the universe; the transmutation of one

form of inanimate matter into another wasmerely an incidental alchemical goal.Te more one studies alchemy, the

more complex it appears. It was, indeed,a vast network of rudimentary chemistry,interwoven with philosophy, astrology,mysticism, theosophy, magic, and manyother strands. Te associations of alchemy

with religion and with psychology stilloffer wide fields of study; in recent years

C. G. Jung, in particular, has expressed theopinion that alchemy is no less importantto psychology than to chemistry.

Alchemy endured for more than amillennium, that is to say, from at leastearly Christian times until the end of theseventeenth century. But alchemy haslong been outmoded, and so there is littlerealization at the present day of the extent

to which alchemical conceptions andimagery permeated the thought and art ofthe Middle Ages.

Professor of Chemistry in the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. (Reprinted from Nature, Vol. 168, P. 759, November 3, 1951). Tis article was originally from a discourse deliveredon August 10th, 1951 to the British Association of the Advancement of Science meeting at

Edinburgh.

Sketched in broad outline, thefundamental ideas of alchemy were: first,that all forms of matter are one in origin;second, that these forms are producedby evolutionary processes; third, thatmatter has a common soul which alone ispermanent. Te body, our outward form,

being merely a mode of manifestationof the soul, is transitory and may betransmuted. Here are views which in theiressentials bear a remarkable resemblanceto those of modern physical science.Indeed, in this twentieth century “modernalchemy,” as Lord Rutherford called it, hasshown the possibility of bringing aboutmany transmutations of elements.

Alchemical reasoning was mainlydeductive and based on two a prioriassumptions: first, the unity of matter;second, the existence of a potenttransmuting agent, known as thePhilosopher’s Stone. From the postulateof the unity of matter it followed thatthis medicine of the metals became alsothe medicine of humans. In this guisethe Philosopher’s Stone was known as theElixir Vitae , or Elixir of Life.

From this summary it should be clearthat alchemy was much more than anexperimental science. It was a philosophicalsystem. In their true significance, theefforts made by the adepts to transmutemetals were attempts to prove the truth ofthe broad philosophical system of alchemyby means of material experiments.


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Origin of Alchemy

Te universal patron adopted by thealchemists from early times and throughoutthe Middle Ages was Hermes rismegistus,or Hermes the Trice-Great. In this Greekequivalent of the Egyptian Toth, the

deified intellect, the alchemical fraternityrecognized the father of the Hermetic Artand the author of the Emerald able. Tethirteen precepts of this able formedthe articles of association of the so-called“Sons of Hermes”: it laid down in crypticlanguage the guiding principles of theircreed.

Toth, as depicted in ancient Egyptiantemples, was sometimes shown with thecrux ansata (the symbol of life) in theright hand, and a staff in the left. Linked

with the staff were a serpent, a scorpion,a hawks’s head, a circle, and an asp. Eachof these representations had its particularsymbolical meaning. Such symbolism

was later characteristic of alchemy; andeven modern chemistry, the daughter ofalchemy, is to a large extent a science of

symbols.Te origin of alchemy has often been

ascribed to Egypt, otherwise knownas Khem, the Biblical Land of Ham.Sometimes it has been supposed thatalchemy arose farther to the east, inChaldea, or even in China. Te Chaldeans,as exponents of astrology, associated theSun, moon and planets with specific

metals and also with human organs anddestinies. Still farther east, in ancientChina, alchemical ideas may be tracedas early as the fifth century BCE in thecomprehensive religious and philosophicalsystem known as Daoism. Much later, inthe second century CE, Wei Po-Yang, “thefather of Chinese alchemy,” wrote the firsttreatise in Chinese dealing with alchemy,in which he described the preparation of

the “pill of immortality,” otherwise theElixir Vitae .

Te ultimate origin of alchemy is thusa vexed question. Tere is little doubt,however, that alchemical knowledge andideas were gathered from the ancientcivilizations of Egypt, Babylonia, India,and China, and brought to a focus inGreece. From Greece this corpus of

alchemy was transmitted to Islam, mainlythrough Syria and Persia. Eventually theaccumulated knowledge of the Muslimalchemists, drawn from these varioussources and augmented in its passagethrough Islam, was brought into WesternEurope, chiefly through Spain.

Alchemical Teory

Alchemy, like modern science, hadits guiding theoretical principles. Tefundamental theory of alchemy was thatof the Four Qualities and Four Elements,often represented in the diagram formedof an outer and an inner square.

Te corners of the outer square carrythe names of the four elements: fire, earth,

water, and air. Te corners of the inner

square, situated at the mid-points of thesides of the outer square, are allocatedto the four fundamental qualities: thehot, the dry, the cold, and the wet. Tediagram shows that fire is hot and dry;earth, dry and cold; water, cold and wet;air, wet and hot. Tese four elements mayalso be looked upon as representing energy(fire) and the solid, liquid, and gaseous

states of the aggregation of matter (earth, water, air).

Te four qualities and the four elements.

AIR EARH

FIRE

WAER



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Tis theory, usually ascribed to Aristotle, may be traced in Egypt and Indiaas far back as 1500 BCE. It is the oldesttheory of physical science, and it was very

widely held, in one form or another, overa long period. It bears out the statementthat “there is a great oneness in the human

mind in the matter of broad principle incrude cosmical ideas.”

According to the theory, water—one ofthe four elements of the material world—isan embodiment of cold and wet qualities.

When the cold quality is replaced by thehot one, the element water is changed intothe element air, embodying the wet andhot qualities. Te idea of transmutationis thus implicit in the theory. Nowadays,of course, this process is viewed simply as achange of liquid water through the agencyof heat into the gaseous form of the samesubstance, and there is no question oftransmutation.

In essence, this ancient theory isbased upon a primitive mode of thinkingsometimes known as the Doctrine of thewo Contraries. Tis is dependent upon

the recognition of a distinction betweenopposites, such as cold and hot, dryand wet. An apposition of outstandingimportance in alchemy was that of the twoopposed, or contrary, elements—fire and

water. Tese two opposites came to light ina new guise in the sulphur-mercury theoryof the metals, which seems to have beenpropounded by the Muslim alchemists inthe ninth century CE.

Te principle here known as “sulfur” was essentially an embodiment of com-bustibility, and “mercury” denoted themineral spirit of metals and also liquidityor fusibility. It was held that when thesetwo natural principles, engendered in thebowels of the earth, came together in astate of purity the result was gold; if they

were slightly impure they gave silver; if

they were markedly impure they furnishedonly the baser metals. Beyond this, it wassupposed that in states of superfine purity

they could give rise to something so muchpurer than ordinary gold that a smallamount of this product (the Philosopher’sStone) would be able to transmute a verylarge quantity of a base metal into gold ofordinary purity.

Te chief experimental task of the

alchemical adept was to imitate, and evensurpass, Nature in accomplishing suchchanges.

In the cryptic expression and symbolicrepresentation of alchemy, sophic sulphurand sophic mercury (as the two principles

were often called) assumed many forms.For example, they were known as Osirisand Isis, Sun and moon, Sol and Luna,

brother and sister, masculine and feminine,active and passive, giver and receiver, fixedand volatile, wingless lion and wingedlioness, and so forth.

It was supposed by the esotericalchemists, or adepts, that the pure “seeds”of gold and silver (or quick-silver) couldbe extracted from these metals in the formof sophic sulphur and sophic mercury.

Tese “seeds” cold then be combined,often in a liquid menstruum, to yieldthe Philosopher’s Stone. Te successionof the processes here concerned wasknown as the Great Work, leading to thepreparation of the Philosopher’s Stone, orGrand Magisterium. Te Stone, resultingfrom the union of masculine and feminineprinciples, was often symbolized as aninfant.

According to these views, in order toprepare the Philosopher’s Stone an initialquantity of gold was necessary. Te Stone(often described as a red powder) couldthen be used to convert base metals intomore gold, so that the original gold was“multiplied,” as the alchemists used tosay. One of their favorite metals for“multiplication” was mercury and this

choice has been curiously vindicatedby modern observations that gold canindeed be produced by transmutation



Te Alchemist. H. Spencer Lewis, FRC.



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from mercury, although only in excessivelyminute amounts and at great cost.

In modern parlance it would be correctto call the Philosopher’s Stone a catalyst.Here again the alchemists are vindicated;for what more potent catalyst could beimagined than the neutrons which start

and maintain the explosive disintegrationof uranium-235 into other elements?“Everything possible to be believ’d,” wrotethe English poet and mystic, WilliamBlake, “is an image of truth… What isnow proved was once only imagin’d.”

Alchemical literature abounds in cryp-tic descriptions and pictorial representa-tions of the blending of sophic sulphurand sophic mercury in the synthesis of theStone. For example, a wingless lion and

winged lioness are shown in playful con-flict, with a watery background (represent-ing the liquid menstruum, or HermeticStream); an alchemist is depicted in the actof balancing equal weights of fire and wa-ter; the Hermetic Androgyne—half man,half woman—stands above a dragon, sig-nifying the menstruum.

Incidents from the Bible and fromclassical mythology were also freely adaptedto alchemical ends. Tus, in an illustratedmanuscript in the St. Andrews collection,the birth of Eve from Adam’s rib, withthe Serpent as onlooker, is depicted tosymbolize the same fundamental idea asthe Hermetic Androgyne. As an exampleof another kind, taken from a differentsource, Apollo and Artemis, with theterrorizing serpent of Juno, are selectedfrom classical mythology in order tofurnish a further pictorial illustration ofthe same conception. Some alchemists

went so far as to insist that the wholecorpus of classical mythology was nothingmore than a complex medium designedexpressly to record alchemical truths inconcealed allegories and “abstract riddles

of our Stone,” as Ben Jonson phrased it inhis play, Te Alchemist (1612).

Alchemical SymbolismPictorial symbolism is an ingredient

of the first importance in alchemy. Manyof the designs were characterized by colorschemes suggestive of heraldry. Amongmedieval examples, the so-called “figuresof Abraham the Jew,” dating from the early

years of the fifteenth century, were held ingreat reverence by alchemists of succeedingages. Tese figures were ascribed toNicolas Flamel, a Parisian alchemist ofgreat repute; they took the form of aseries of elaborate frescoes, decorating thearcade of the churchyard of the Innocentsin Paris. Te designs, executed in color,

were capable of a dual alchemical andreligious interpretation. Te Biblical storyof the massacre of the innocents by KingHerod formed a central feature of theseries. Herod was pictured as “a King witha great Fauchion.” Mothers were shown inthe act of weeping “at the feet of the un-pitiful Soldiers; the blood of which Infants

was put in a great vessel, wherein the Sunand Moon came to bathe themselves.” Inother words, infants’ blood was merely

a cryptic representation of the liquidmenstruum which was supposed to aidin the conjunction of sophic sulphur andsophic mercury.

As another example, an illustrationentitled the First Key of Basil Valentine (ca.1600) shows a king and queen as the centralfeature. Below the king a wolf leaps overa heated crucible, and near the queen anold man with a wooden leg manipulates ascythe around a cupel. An accompanying“explanation” directs the operator: “akea fierce grey Wolf. Cast to him the bodyof the King, and when he has devoured it,burn him entirely to ashes in a great fire.By this process the King will be liberated;and when it has been performed thrice theLion has overcome the Wolf, who will findnothing more to devour in him. Tus our

body has been made fit for the first state ofour Work.”



Te alchemical wolf, lupus metallorum, was “antimony” (stibnite, or nativeantimony sulphide), used in the heatedcrucible as an agent for purifying gold,since it “devoured” traces of metallicimpurities. Te wooden-legged ancientsignified Saturn, that is to say, either theslow-moving planet of that name or thedull, heavy metal, lead. Te scythe, likeother sharp implements, symbolizedfire. Tis part of the design thereforerepresents the cupellation of argentiferouslead, furnishing pure silver. In brief, theFirst Key of Basilius shows how to beginthe preparation of sophic sulphur and

sophic mercury, in readiness for the nextoperation of the Great Work.

Probably the finest artistic examples ofthe avowed symbolism of alchemy are thebeautiful copper-engravings of JohannesTeodorus de Bry and his associates;these occur notably in various alchemical

works of Count Michael Maier, suchas Atalanta Fugiens and Symbola Aureae

Mensae , published at Oppenheim andFrankfurt during 1617-18. Tese platesare boldly engraved; textures are conveyed

by different systems of shading; humanfigures are drawn forcefully and correctly;the compositions have an effect of brillianceand solidity, enhanced by strong modelingand shadows.

Apart from such ad hoc pictorial repre-sentations of alchemical tenets, a strong al-chemical influence pervaded much of theart of the Middle Ages. It found expres-sion repeatedly in the painting, decorativearchitecture, sculpture, and colored glassof this era. Alchemical ideas and symbol-ism may be traced in detail, for example,in the work of such artists as Durer, Cra-nach, Giorgione, and Campagnola. It

may even be claimed that every detail inDurer’s masterpiece of engraving, Melen-colia (1514), is capable of an alchemicalinterpretation: the doctrine of melancholyis inseparably bound up with the Saturnmysticism which permeates alchemy.1

Decline of Alchemy

Te outstanding practical aim of

alchemy until the sixteenth century wasthe transmutation of base metals into gold, whether from purely philosophical or



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mercenary motives. Early in the sixteenthcentury Paracelsus endeavored to give a newdirection to operative alchemy by insistingthat its main goal should be the healingof disease rather than the making of gold.He envisaged alchemy as a handmaid ofmedicine, to be applied in the preparation

of chemical remedies of mineral origin.He sought to liberate medicine from theobsession of the ancient Galenic order,and in this sense he takes rank beside suchcontemporaries as Luther, Copernicus,and Columbus as an emancipator ofhumanity from the trammels of authority.Te ensuing period of iatro-chemistryor medico-chemistry, lasting until theeighteenth century, witnessed a slowdecline of the old alchemy.

Paracelsus was essentially a reformerand propagandist of the Renaissance. Hischief contribution to alchemy was hismodification of the sulphur-mercury theoryby the introduction of a third principle

which he named salt. In his system of thetria prima , or three hypostatical principles,sulphur, mercury, and salt stood materially

for inflammability, metallicity, anduninflammability (fixidity) and mysticallyfor the soul, spirit, and body of humanbeings. Te second half of the seventeenthcentury found both the old alchemy andiatro-chemistry on the wane. Despitetheir excesses, both the alchemists andthe iatro-chemists had done a great dealto accumulate chemical knowledge and to

prepare the way for the incipient science ofchemistry which was to arise in the secondhalf of the eighteenth century.

It is sometimes held that thepublication of Te Sceptical Chymist , byRobert Boyle in 1661, heralded the end ofalchemy. It is true that Boyle dismissed tohis own satisfaction in this famous bookthe systems of the four elements and thetria prima and put forward the modernidea of an element; but the emergence ofmodern chemistry had to wait for more

than another century. During this Indiansummer of alchemy the stage was heldby the Teory of Phlogiston, while thefour elements and the three hypostaticalprinciples hovered behind the scenes likeghosts reluctant to be laid…Phlogistonmelted finally “into air, into thin air”

with the discovery, in the second half ofthe eighteenth century, of the chemicalcomposition of the ancient “elements”air and water and of the true nature ofcombustion. Tese discoveries ushered inthe era of modern chemistry.2

ypes of Alchemists

Te term alchemist has been usedthroughout the ages to denote manykinds of people, with a real or professedknowledge of alchemy. Tese ranged fromimpostors and charlatans having no claimto the title, through puffers (souffleurs),goldmakers, skilled practicants, andscholastic philosophers, to adepts andreligious mystics…

Scotland figures a good deal in the

history of alchemy. Also in Scotlandthere are some outstanding collectionsof alchemical literature, particularly theFerguson and James Young Collectionsin Glasgow, and others in St. Andrews,Edinburgh, and Aberdeen. A centuryafter Damian’s exploit, Scotland produceda mysterious itinerant goldmaker in theperson of Alexander Seton, otherwise

known as “Te Cosmopolite.” He has alsobeen called “the chief martyr of alchemy”;for his dramatic career is said to have endedin tragedy at Cracow in 1604, as a result ofhis experiences in the torture chamber ofthe Elector of Saxony at Dresden.3

Te numerous paintings of alchemistsand alchemical interiors, notably byBrueghel, Stradanus, eniers, Steen, Wijck,and other artists of the Low Countries, aremainly concerned with alchemists of thekinds that have been mentioned.4 Such



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genre representations of these painters andof artists in Italy, Spain, Germany, andother countries, are of great interest andvalue to historical science.

Alchemists of a severely practicaltype, who were interested chiefly inchemical phenomena and in the discovery

and application of new substances andprocesses, are typified by such men asBrunschwick, Agricola, Libavius, andGlauber; the scholastic philosophersby Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus;and the religious mystics, who viewedalchemy as “the Divine Art,” by Ripley andKhunrath.

Alchemical Music

Among the mystical alchemists, CountMichael Maier calls for special mention.He was physician, private secretary, andalchemist to the Emperor Rudolph II (theso-called “German Hermes”) at Prague,early in the seventeenth century. A manof many accomplishments, Maier was alsoa philosopher, mystic, classical scholar and

musician. He was a voluminous writer ofgreat credulity, and he carried to extremesthe alchemical interpretation of Egyptianand classical mythology. Tis subjectforms the chief theme of his AtalantaFugiens (1618), a quaint and fascinating

work handsomely embellished with fiftycopper-engravings by de Bry and hisschool. Each engraving is provided with

a cryptic title and a Latin epigram writtenin elegiac couplets. Each epigram is setto music, in the form of so-called fugues ,

which are in reality canons in two partsagainst a repeated canto fermo. In allusionto the classical legend, these three parts aretermed, “Atalanta, or the fleeing voice,”“Hippomenes, or the pursuing voice,” and“Te apple in the path, or the delayingvoice.”

Presumably, in view of the alchemicalbelief in the beneficent influence of music,

the final processes of the Great Work,carried out in the sealed Vessel of Hermesand directed by prayer as well as by chemicaland astrological influences were sometimesundertaken to the accompaniment ofmusical chants or incantations. o thereligious mystics among the alchemists

these processes would partake of thenature of a religious ritual, and it wouldbe natural for them to introduce musicfrom one of these closely related activitiesto the other. It must be emphasized alsothat alchemical theories and ideas camelargely from ancient Greece, and that thealchemists followed Pythagoras and Platoin ascribing a particular importance tonumber and harmony in the interpretationof Nature and the universe.

In 1935, some of these alchemicalcanons5 were sung in public for the firsttime by members of the St. AndrewsUniversity choir, at the Royal Institutionin London. Fuga XVIII may be mentionedas typical: “Whatever active principle thereis in nature, it sends out its force in alldirections and loves to multiply the same.”

It is of interest that some manuscript notesof Atalanta Fugiens made by Sir IsaacNewton, and now in the St. Andrewscollection, bear a special mark of emphasisbeside this particular epigram.



REFERENCES

1. For a detailed alchemical interpretation of Du-rer’s Melencolia see Te Alchemist in Life. Lit-erature and Art , 57-62 (London and Edinburgh,1947).

2. Op. cit., pp. 8-9.

3. A detailed account of Seton, and of his rescuerand successor. Sendivogius is given in Humourand Humanism in Chemistry, 37-65 (London

1947). Te same work also deals fully with James IV and Damian (pp. 16-36).

4. Alchemical paintings by artists of the Low Coun-tries and others are reproduced in the work men-tioned under (i) above.

5. Some of Maier’s alchemical music is reproducedin Prelude to Chemistry (London, 1936; 2nd edit.,1939; and New York, 1937).

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