Alchemists were the precursors to our modern-day chemists in that they studied and worked with elements of the Earth in order to combine them and transform them into something else. In their search for the "Philosopher's Stone," the alchemists tried to turn base metals like lead or copper into gold or silver. Alchemy centered on the belief that art could imitate or reproduce Nature. Thus, creating gold, the purest of all the metals, was an attempt to reproduce and purify nature.
Alchemy came to Europe starting in the 8th century and to France in the 12th century, courtesy of the Arabs in Spain, but it actually goes back 4,000 years to ancient Egypt, Babylon, and Greece. It was also practiced in India from about 1200 BCE, and in the Byzantine Empire and in the Islamic world between about 700 and 1400 CE.
The Catholic Church became uncomfortable with this esoteric knowledge (that which was only known by a few). Pope John XXII's Papal Bull of 1317 condemned it. On January 13, 1404, King Henry IV of England signed a law making it a felony to create gold and silver out of thin air. As a result, some alchemists were persecuted, shunned, or considered quacks. They went underground but communicated with each other through a series of secret symbols. During the 16th century, alchemy faded away as science and the Age of Reason emerged.
Alchemy was based on Aristotelian science, which contended that the world began in chaos and without form. Matter emerged from four elements, each of which was seen as having two qualities:
- Air (fluid and hot)
- Fire (hot and dry)
- Earth (dry and cold)
- Water (cold and fluid)
Alchemists believed that removing a quality from each of two elements could
produce a third. For instance, fire and water with dry and cold removed
produced air. Alchemists' experiments were based on processes of dissolving, separating, reconstituting, and recombining matter. (https://crossref-it.info/articles/404/alchemy )
Alchemists also believed that all matter came from sulfur and mercury, which represented the male and female aspects of Nature, respectively. Combined in circumstances of cold or hot, dry or wet, matter was transformed into different properties. Consequently, by mixing substances together in a crucible, alchemists tried to reproduce Nature through purification.
Another aspect of alchemy involved the search for stones and crystals that had healing properties. Lithotherapy emerged as a healing practice and the Lapidaries or texts recorded this knowledge. Certain stones and crystals were thought to attract the favor of the gods or at least to bring out the virtues the stones held in an effort to heal wounds, sickness, and discomforts like headaches. People would sometimes wear the stones as jewelry or rub the stones on their wounds for relief. Stones were linked to particular saints, classes of angels, and other areas of Christianity. Hildegarde de Bingen (1098-1179), a nun renowned for healing science, worked with magnetic stones, magnets, and venom from poisonous reptiles. Plants eventually became associated with healing stones.
During the 14th century, alchemy became associated with alcohol. Practitioners created the "elixir of life", yet another aspect of healing in an effort to produce a long and healthy life.
Alchemy also played a role in spirituality. Since alchemy was all about transformation, it made sense to align spiritual transformation to the symbols, codes, and references of alchemical transformation. These signs and symbols were frequently carved into churches, buildings, and walls as well as stained glass windows, sculptures, and coats of arms.
Called the "language of the birds," alchemy combines rebuses with word games, anagrams, analogies, and correspondences so that its initiates could recognize each other. They etched them and a host of symbols into the stones of church architecture. During
the 15th century, builders started posting alchemical signs and symbols onto the city streets
and on houses.
Alchemy in Europe was never taught in the universities since the focus was on the subjects of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy). Instead, masters schooled their apprentices and students clandestinely.
Although alchemy was not considered a science, it layed the groundwork for modern chemistry. It also produced some amazing products and processes:
- Inks, dyes, paints and cosmetics
- Glass-making, ceramics, and leather tanning
- Distillation, extraction and the preparation of various liquors
- Mixing and purification of substances used in medicine.
And, from the alchemical tradition come some common words that we use today:
- Combination
- Purification
- Distillation
- Mollification (softening)
- Fermentation
- Coagulation
- Separation
- Re-combination
- Transformation
- Transmutation
Sources
Les Dossiers de L'Histoire: La Vie des Français au Moyen Age (Paris: Novembre 2020).
https://occult-world.com/ouroboros/
https://crossref-it.info/articles/404/alchemy
L'Éveil, December 31, 2020
https://www.leveil.fr/puy-en-velay-43000/loisirs/le-puy-en-velay-creuset-du-grand-uvre_13897982/
L'Éveil, October 22, 2018
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