Alchemy could best be defined as proto-chemistry. Ancient, medieval, and early modern alchemists attempted to understand what things are made of, how they are made, and how one can make more of them. The primary goal of alchemy was to transmute common or “base” metals like lead and tin into precious metals like silver and gold. Out of this simple, albeit futile goal came an entire system of chemical procedures, symbology, art, and literature that centered around the production of a mythical substance called the Philosopher’s Stone, and it eventually evolved directly into modern chemistry.
The Philosopher’s Stone is a hypothetical perfect substance that could supposedly transmute any substance into the most ideal form of itself. It could turn lead into gold, cure any disease, prolong life, encourage the fertile growth of plants, and other such miraculous feats. A simple way of describing it might be crystallized divinity — God in a bottle. It was desirable enough for most alchemists to relentlessly pursue its creation. The exact process of making it varies, sometimes drastically, between different authors — they may be operating on different theory, or they may create different subdivisions of the process with a different number of stages, or they may interpret the allegorical imagery in different ways. The process of making the Philosopher’s Stone, and the nature of the Stone itself, was also intentionally described in the most cryptic terms possible and layered with obfuscating metaphorical imagery. But it did usually follow a similar basic pattern:
In order to produce the Stone, the starting material must be repeatedly purified by separating out the solid “fixed” parts of the substance from the liquid or gaseous “volatile” parts of it, and then recombining them in specific ways. The core components of the substance would be separated out and recombined over and over and over again, with slightly different chemical procedures each time, until the substance became as pure as it could possibly be. This cyclical pattern is summarized by the Latin phrase solve et coagula, “dissolve and coagulate,” or even more simply, “to split apart and bring together”.
From The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine, Mellon MS 70
This process proceeded through color-coded stages: In the nigredo or black stage, the substance would be heated until it turned black and putrefied at the bottom of the flask. When the substance “dies” it’s “spirit” would leave its “body” in the form of vapor. This stage is identified with death, and alchemical artwork represents it with images of coffins, skulls, ravens or crows, and the death of a king that represents the material.
Next was the brief “peacock’s tail” stage in which the substance was repeatedly heated until it turned many different colors, which reconcile into the albedo, the white stage. The material turns into a white powder that is already capable of transmuting base metals into silver, but not quite the Philosopher’s Stone. This stage is identified with the moon, white birds such as doves or swans, lilies, snow, silver, and the Queen.
Sometimes the white stage is followed up by a yellow stage, citrinitas, but the final stage was always the rubedo, the red stage. When the material turns red, it has finally become the coveted Philosopher’s Stone. This stage is identified with the sun, the phoenix, roses, rubies, gold, and the King.
Once the Stone is completed, the alchemist has to mix it with gold, and then “project” it by throwing a bit of its powder into a crucible of base metal, which will then turn into gold. The color-changes were a sign that the Great Work was preceding correctly — if they appeared out-of-order, then something had gone wrong.
The basic theory behind alchemy was that all matter is made of the same stuff — not atoms in the sense that we would understand them now, but a kind of formless primordial ooze that anything and everything is ultimately made out of. This primordial substance was called prima materia, “first matter” Prima materia supposedly developed into different substances deep within the earth, so that metals “grew” in the ground like plants. They began as “base” or “impure” metals like lead, iron, or tin, and naturally evolved towards “noble” metals like silver or gold. Hypothetically, an alchemist could speed up this process by replicating it artificially in a laboratory. If a substance could be reduced down into the most primordial form of matter, called prima materia or “first matter,” it could be reconstructed as any other substance. Like gold, for example, which was considered to be the “perfect” metal (or metal in its most idealized state). The way to do this was to recombine the substance’s components in different ratios.
Many European Alchemists subscribed to the Aristotelian doctrine that everything is made up of the four classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water) in different ratios. The notion that the whole world is composed of the four classical elements isn’t as wrong as it may sound; one could interpret the four classical elements as the four states of matter: solids are “earth,” liquids are “water,” gases are “air,” and plasma is “fire.” For example, alchemists used “water” as a generic term for any liquid, including acids and sulfides. Lawrence Principe writes in his book The Secrets of Alchemy,
The ‘fire’ distills off as a flammable and/or colored substance, the ‘air’ is an oily one, and the ‘water’ as a watery one; the ‘earth’ remains behind in the residue. —Lawrence M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy
Each element had its own properties — earth is cold and dry, water is cold and wet, air is hot and wet, and fire is hot and dry. The balance of the four elements and their properties determined what kind of metal the prima materia evolved into. Once separated out, the different “elements” could be reduced further into prima materia by combining elements with opposite properties, which would then cancel each other out. When all four elements were in perfect balance, the result would be the Philosopher’s Stone.
From Mellon MS 70
One of the other prevailing theories behind transmutation was that the “seeds” of the metals, from which they “grew,” are Sulfur and Mercury. These aren’t literal sulfur and mercury — they’re generic terms for the innate quality (for lack of a better word) of metals that could melt and appear like mercury, such as tin and lead, or metals that could burn like sulfur, such as copper and iron. Sulfur and Mercury represented two complimentary principles that had to be united and balanced out in order to produce the Philosopher’s Stone. Principe writes,
For chymical writers, Sulfur and Mercury represent a pairing of complementary principles: solid-liquid, dry-wet, coagulant-coagulated, form-matter, active-passive, and so on. Indeed, the terms Mercury and Sulfur must be seen as referring to two groups of substances (real or theoretical) identified by their reactivity toward each other. —Lawrence M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy
Much like with the four elements, changing the proportion of Sulfur and Mercury in a substance would allow the alchemist to artificially construct any other substance. The properties of “Philosophical” Sulfur were hot, dry, active, fixed, and masculine. It is nearly always associated with the sun and the color red, as in the “Red King” or “Red Lion.” Over the course of the Great Work, the Red King would evolve from “base” and easily-combustible Sulfur into “noble” and incorruptible Gold. The properties of Mercury, also called quicksilver or argent vive, were cold, wet, passive, volatile, and feminine. “Philosophical” Mercury was almost always associated with the moon and with the color white, and the White Queen would evolve into Silver.
The substances’ “reactivity towards each other” is represented by the “Chemical Wedding,” an image of a marriage between a Red King and White Queen that symbolizes the unification of these opposing principles in perfect proportion. Principe argues that sex is a natural and expected symbol for a chemical reaction:
…given that alchemy is fundamentally a generative and productive practice (that is, it makes stuff), comparisons to procreation are actually appropriate. Alchemy’s aim is to give rise to new substances or new properties by combining existing ones, just as parents give rise to new offspring through their union. Sex and sexuality are among the most universal and common experiences of human beings, and so provide a ready source of similitudes and easily intelligible, descriptive metaphors. —Lawrence M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy
The Philosopher’s Stone is often depicted as the hermaphroditic “child” of this union, the offspring of Sulfur and Mercury that has perfectly balanced properties of both. If you’re wondering whether it’s the four elements that need to be in balance or Sulfur and Mercury that need to be in balance, or both, well… it’s exactly as confusing as it sounds. The mercury-sulfur theory and the four-elements theory have an “uneasy or unclear relationship to each other,” as Principe puts it, because of how these ideas evolved in early alchemical texts.
It’s a popular idea among modern occultists that alchemy was never about making gold, that it was instead a purely mystical system designed to transmute the soul from a “base” or “leaden” state of spiritual impurity to a “gold” or purified state of divinity, with the chemical procedures of alchemy being an elaborate metaphor for psycho-spiritual development. This idea was popularized by Mircea Eliade, Carl Jung, and Mary Anne Atwood in the twentieth century. Their works on alchemy were so influential that their paradigm became
…the dominant mode by which alchemy was studied academically, and even more so, that was how it was known publicly. —Justin Sledge, “What is Spiritual Alchemy – The Historical Unification of Mysticism, the Philosopher’s Stone, and Heresy.”
Sledge observes that the majority of his viewers are only familiar with alchemy in this context, evidenced by the number of comments he gets asking about “spiritual alchemy.” I am a fan of Jung and I still prefer to interpret alchemy metaphorically, however, the claim that alchemy was only ever a spiritual process is incorrect. Alchemy was absolutely a practical chemical procedure involving literal substances.
The “new historiography” of alchemy seeks to interpret it not as mysticism or pseudoscience, but as proto-science. Two of the leading modern scholars on alchemy, Lawrence M. Principe and William R. Newman, put forward this new approach to studying alchemy in their article, “Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins to a Historiographic Mistake.” The historiographic mistake that they refer to in the title is the idea that alchemy and chemistry are fundamentally different things that can be distinguished from each other with a clear line. Twentieth-century scholars characterized alchemy as “archaic, irrational, and even consciously fraudulent,” as opposed to chemistry, which is “modern, scientific, and rational.” Newman and Principe argue that this distinction is arbitrary and ahistorical, and that there is no meaningful distinction between alchemy and chemistry. They prove that the two terms were used interchangeably until the late seventeenth century and that only afterwards “alchemy” came to refer only to attempting to transmute base metals into gold, which is impossible, eventually rendering “alchemy” a term associated with pseudoscience. Principe writes in The Secrets of Alchemy,
…the focus on understanding matter and guiding its transformations towards practical ends establishes a commonality and continuity between ‘alchemy’ and ‘chemistry’.
There was never any point where alchemy “died” or formally changed into chemistry. It gradually evolved as alchemists realized through experimentation that the underlying theory was wrong, and that chrysopoeia (turning metals into gold) would never work. The alchemists slowly invented chemistry by experimenting with substances, just as chemists today do, laying the foundations for the modern field:
For example, alchemy brought forth such principles as an emphasis on the determination and conservation of weight in chemical processes, well-developed and explanatory particulate matter theories, analysis and synthesis as tools for understanding nature, the power of human artifice to create new or improved products over natural ones, and perhaps even the notions of force key to Newton’s physics. —Lawrence M. Principe, Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism
Therefore, many modern scholars prefer to examine alchemy in context of science.
I admire the new historiographic approach for making alchemy a subject worthy of respect and academic interest, and also for correcting some of my own incorrect ahistorical notions about alchemy. But if alchemy isn’t mysticism, and is only magical because turning lead into gold was never going to work, then where does that leave occultists who are interested in alchemy? I am no chemist; I cannot reproduce alchemical recipes in a lab the way Principe does. So, how is alchemy relevant to me? Well, I still really like the modern mystical interpretation of alchemy, even if it’s not historically accurate. And there’s evidence that at least some alchemists interpreted alchemy in a mystical context in addition to a scientific one, like Roger Bacon, who believed that by perfecting the human body using alchemical medicine, one could “participate in God.” That sounds like mysticism to me.
Medieval alchemists like Bacon believed that by physically perfecting things, one could spiritually perfect them at the same time:
Medieval alchemy was not a natural science in the modern sense but a doctrine of nature, which tried to discover and apply the laws of nature through theory and experiment. Its fundamental assumption was a holistic concept, which united the macrocosm of the stars and the microcosm of men and nature. […] The goal of the medieval alchemists was not just the exploration but the perfection of nature, regarded as a divine task or duty. —Herwig Buntz, Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism
This “macrocosm/microcosm” idea is still very common in modern occultism. It is summarized by the occult maxim “as above, so below,” a phrase taken from a short alchemical poem called the Tabula Smaragdina or Emerald Tablet, which first appeared in early medieval Arabic texts. The phrase means that the workings of the universe at large directly correspond to the patterns of human life and the workings of the human body, and that by affecting one, you can affect the other. The point of medieval alchemy was not an overcomplicated get-rich-quick scheme, but rather, a divine mandate to help the world reach a perfect godlike state. To me, that sounds a lot like the Jungian interpretation of alchemy as a means of mystical self-actualization. The practical aspects of medieval alchemy were still there and were still important, but they were intertwined with this theory of improving and perfecting the world on both a physical and a spiritual level.
Alchemy isn’t turning something into something else, it’s turning something into the best version of itself.
From the Ripley Scroll
One of the legendary founders of alchemy is the pseudo-historical figure Hermes Trismegistus, who was allegedly an incarnation of both the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. The Emerald Tablet is attributed to him. His epithet “Thrice-Greatest” is variously interpreted; I have heard it as a simple superlative, i.e. “great, great, great,” and I have also heard it as referring to Hermes Trismegistus’ three roles as the greatest philosopher, priest, and king. My personal interpretation, however, is that “Trismegistus” refers to him being the greatest scientist, priest, and wizard. I think that one must be all three in order to be a proper occultist. One must have knowledge of science to understand how the world works and why, knowledge of the divine and spiritual worlds (whether within the context of an established religion or not), and one must also have knowledge of magic, the secret third thing that is neither science nor religion, but somewhere in between the two.
Works Cited
Abraham, Lyndy. A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Allen, Meagan S. Roger Bacon and the Incorruptible Human, 1220-1292: Alchemy, Pharmacology and the Desire to Prolong Life. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.
Hanegraaff, Wouter J., editor. Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism. Brill, 2006.
Little, A.J., editor. Roger Bacon Essays: Contributed by Various Writers on the Occasion of the Commemoration of the Seventh Century of his Birth. Oxford University Press, 1914.
Newman, William R. and Lawrence M. Principe. “Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins to a Historiographic Mistake.” Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 3, No. 1. 1998.
Principe, Lawrence M. The Secrets of Alchemy. University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Sledge, Justin. “What is the Philosopher’s Stone? Introduction to Alchemy – History of Alchemical Theory and Practice.” YouTube, uploaded by ESOTERICA, 2 December 2022.
Sledge, Justin. “What is Spiritual Alchemy – The Historical Unification of Mysticism, the Philosopher’s Stone, and Heresy.” YouTube, uploaded by ESOTERICA, 5 May 2023.
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