About Alchemy

Alchemy is generally defined as an art which aims to change impure metals into silver or gold. This is the simplified version of a tradition which in the Latin West goes back to the late Middle Ages, when men like Roger Bacon (ca 1214-after 1292) explored the domain of alchemy, and described the 'alkimia speculativa' as a science which studied the inanimate world.

R. Bacon, De arte chymiae, 1603

This scientific approach involved the research into the causes, characteristics and transmutation of metals. The refining of metals was looked upon as an intervention in their natural growth. Metals waxed inside the earth as in a womb: the art of alchemy merely accelerated the growth process and improved the unripe fruit.

Metal tree, in: De alchimia. Pars secunda: Rosarium philosophorum, Frankfurt 1550

This process also came to be associated with the curing of a body: the process which was to refine the metals might also be able to cure the human body of all ailments. Bacon's approach highlights a number of aspects inherent to the alchemical tradition: the pursuit of making gold, a natural-philosophical context associated with this pursuit, 'applied alchemy' for the benefit of man, analogical reasonings and organic metaphors.

The alchemist went about his business using simple instruments: he needed an oven for heating, retorts for distilling, and materials such as ores and minerals to make acids. [illustration 3] The essentially down-to-earth apparatus [illustration 4] and the phases in the process in the course of time generated a repertory of symbols and metaphors. Fire stood for both destruction and life force, the retorts were a reflection of the cosmos, because in these the creation was re-enacted, during distillation vapours would rise, - 'spirits' - which precipitated as a result of condensation and descended as it were into matter: the body had to become spirit, as the motto ran. In the retorts a process of death and resurrection was taking place, which could be indicated using images derived from the Passion of Christ. [illustration 5] The studies of Carl Gustav Jung show it is possible to detect correspondences between alchemy and mysticism: the alchemist himself, too, was to live through the process of transmutation, and become transformed as a result.

Alchemical texts can be read partly literally, partly allegorically and mystically, although the precise relationship between these readings is only rarely clear-cut. Within the history of science it has long been customary to regard alchemy as proto-chemistry; witness titles such as M. Berthelot' s La chimie au Moyen-Âge (Paris 1843) or E.O. von Lippmann' s Abhandlungen und Vorträge zur Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften (Leipzig 1906). The existing alchemical texts were interpreted as exactly as possible by substituting symbols with current chemical symbols. This approach proved more or less successful, especially in the interpretation of seventeenth-century texts. Psycho-analytical interpretations of alchemy are not concerned with such paralellisms. Both viewpoints, however, are anachronistic, because they regard the history of alchemy from a modern perspective.


The history of Western alchemy in brief outline

Around the middle of the twelfth century the first translations from the Arabic begin to appear. (Arabic alchemy partly goes back to Greek texts) [illustration 6]. At the same time the works of Aristotle are introduced in the Latin West. Although Aristotle does not discuss alchemy at all, his Meteorologica becomes an authoritative text, not in the least because of Arabic additions relating to alchemy. Following the introduction of the art, alchemical texts are produced in the fourtheenth century containing allegories which draw on Biblical texts. After the invention of printing it is still another century before a wave of alchemical texts begins to flood the market. Around 1550 a number of compendia appears with Latin translations of by now classical texts such as the Rosarium Philosophorum and the Turba Philosophorum. Metallurgic manuals are also brought on the market, including Georg Agricola' s De Re Metallica (1556). A new genre is introduced, that of the 'libri secreti' , books of secrets, a sort of DIY-books with 'secret' recipes in all kinds of fields, including alchemy. Natural-philosophical handbooks appear which indirectly relate to alchemy, such as Giambattista della Porta' s Magia Naturalis (1558).

The appearance of Paracelsus (1493-1541) on the scene is decisive for the subsequent history of alchemy. Paracelsus set little store by transmutation, but he did prepare iatro-chemical medicine with the aid of distillation, [illustration 7] and many physicians in the seventeenth century made use of iatro-chemical methods of healing. One of Paracelsus' best-known followers in this respect is the Danish physician Petrus Severinus. Paracelsistic terminology came to be adopted by mystics and theosophers, amongst whom Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1605), Jacob Böhme (1575-1624) and his followers, particularly English Behmenists like Jane Lead and John Pordage. Their natural-philosophical speculations are generally set within a neoplatonist framework and are heterodox and anti-Aristotelian.

The early seventeenth century witnesses a flowering of emblematic literature which makes use of earlier trends, at the same time enriching these with allegories based on classical texts which may be interpreted alchemistically, such as Ovid' s Metamorphoses. Classic examples of alchemical emblematical literature are works by Michael Maier (notably Atalanta fugiens, Symbola aureae mensae duodecim nationum) and Lambsprinck, De lapide philosophico. [illustration 8]

In the late seventeenth century, finally, alchemistic insights are incorporated into the new corpuscular theories which come to dominate the atomistic-mechanistic world picture. This type of alchemy gradually takes on an experimental character whereby an attempt is made to express its findings in clear language. [illustration 9] The traditional alchemical termimology is retained by Pietists, and increasingly acquires a symbolical nature. The distinction between a 'chymist' - a practitioner of the chemical discipline - and an 'adept' - who knows the secret of alchemy - becomes ever larger. With the advance of gas chemistry and the dissolution of the elements at the end of the eighteenth century the universe becomes less of a mystery. The life force pervading the universe, once called the Philosopher's Stone, the Quinta Essentia, or the World Soul, is identified as oxygen. The now abstruse symbols of alchemy slumber in esoteric societies to awaken eventually in Jungian psychoanalysis. [illustration 10]


Frank van Lamoen