The Great Art – Alchemy

The
philosophy of this ancient discipline is
mysterious^1a, both necessarily and deliberately.
Necessarily, because it took into account the invisible
world which cannot be observed by the senses and therefore
could not be described in a logical fashion. Deliberately,
because the knowledge, which the alchemists believed
themselves to be able to obtain, would confer a degree of
power which, in the hands of the uninitiated, would be
disastrous to the world.

Western alchemy
offers us two concomitant themes: the transmutation of base
metals into gold (which is regarded as the ultimate stage in
a process of perfection) and a religious conception of the
regeneration of the soul.¹ These two
interpretations give rise to two dominant schools of
thought. The one school, material, which regards alchemy as
a chemical process….. The other, mystical, which
conceives of alchemy as a spiritual process disguised in the
language of chemistry.

“There
is also the marriage, the coniunctio, the union of Sun and
Moon, Sol and Luna, the masculine father principles of
radiance, light, heat, and energy with the feminine mother
principles of magnetism, mystery, beauty, feeling, and
water. The inner marriage as described in alchemy, sometimes
as a ‘chemical wedding,’ is akin to the Taoist’s blending of
yang and yin, or the Tantric yogi’s fusion of Siva and Sakti
in the pingala and ida energy channels
of the subtle body. Sometimes the alchemical marriage is
said to be between the King and the Queen: these are the
male and female aspects of the person, the ego. The King is
often shown being purified, purged in a hot bath or furnace,
freed of black dross, sweating out the impurities, the
attachments that link ego to the world of sense objects.
Sometimes the marriage is described as being between a red
man (air rubeus) and a white woman (mulier candida): the
red, fiery, martial, choleric masculine and the purified,
innocent, virginal, venusian feminine. These are all aspects
of what Jung would call unifying with the anima, female
psyche, or the animus, male psyche.“³⁰

The only major
English work which attempts to reconcile these two views is
A.E.
Waite:
The
Secret Tradition of Alchemy. His conclusion is not
definitive and leaves many questions still unanswered as to
the true nature of alchemy.

This confusion over
what alchemy is presents us with a fundamental difficulty.
Alchemy has no generally stated principles which we can work
with that are accepted by all alchemists. H. Leistester
tells us, “the alchemical literature from the Greek and
Egyptian sources comes to us with no theoretical ideas,
the recipes are entirely practical.²

The method of the
early alchemists, as stated earlier was deliberately
chaotic. Authors of early manuscripts state that they
deliberately tried to conceal the practice from all who had
not been initiated into a certain secret which enabled them
to understand this Great Art.

When young
alchemists first attempted to follow the recipes in the
manuscripts, almost invariably they were unsuccessful. In
fact most alchemists never did understand, or as the
alchemists themselves like to say, innerstand the texts. The
innerstanding was to come to the alchemists through an older
more experienced master. “In the career of every
alchemist who claimed to have made the stone, there was what
may be called an initiation into the secret of
alchemy.”³

At some stage in his
practice, the young alchemist would meet an older alchemist,
who knew him to be a worthy man of the secret. He would then
pass the secret to the young initiate, allowing him to work
successfully. This secret was not always revealed by an
older alchemist; in England in 1525, Thomas Chamok said he
had no master, “God having put the secret into his head
as he was lying in bed.”⁴

Alchemist’s
theories come to the reader today in dark sayings, enigmatic
allegories, and poetic utterances. It is impossible to
understand the essence of alchemy texts on an intellectual
level. A quote from 14th century Chinese alchemists Tisan
T’uing Ch’l demonstrates this point:

Source: Wikipedia

“One,
knowing the white should hold firm to the black.
For then divine light will come in due course. The
white is the essence of gold and the black is the
basis of water. One is one in number. At the
beginning Yin-Yang (Sulfur-Mercury) is black, with
yellow sprouts. The master of the five metals and
the river chariot of the north. Hence lead is black
on the outside, but holds gold flowers in its
bosom.”⁵

This type of
descriptive prose is not at all uncommon in alchemical
literature. Another example comes from a western source,
Morienas the Greek, writing at about the same time: “The
ancients did not refer to the matters pertaining to this
science by their proper names, speaking instead as we truly
know, in circumlocutions, in order to confute
fools.”⁶

Before finishing
this introduction on the difficulty and complexity of the
subject, a word must be said about the alchemists
themselves. Alchemists were of many kinds as many as the
colors of the rainbow, which is so very important in their
imagery and symbolism. At one end of the spectrum were the
impostors or charlatans, using pretended knowledge of the
“Divine Art” as a means of making money and gaining fame. At
the other end were the devotees of the mystical alchemy.
Between these extremes were many types, some called puffers,
souffeurs or kitchen cooks. The intentions of many of these
men were honest but their knowledge was insufficient to
understand the true nature of alchemy. The difficulty is
brought home to us by John Hopkins when he says: “the
difficulty in understanding alchemists is because we try to
understand them through our rational scientific minds when
their philosophy was not scientific but more of a
transcendental idealism.”⁷

So how are we to
understand this great art, sometimes called “Hermetic
Philosophy
? We have perhaps lost the key to the ancient texts, though
they stand out as one sign of humankind’s quest for the
eternal. “For Alchemy was not as we have been told in
school, merely the forerunner of modern chemistry, but a
complete and highly developed discipline, a western
equivalent of the great spiritual disciplines of the
East.”⁸

^“It
is important to remind ourselves that the alchemical
teachings developed at a time and in a cultural context in
which Descartes’s sharp conceptual division of the world
into res extensa and res cogitans did not yet
exist. Not that the ancients did not know the difference
between consciousness and matter, but that somehow the
distinction or separation was not as rigid and definite as
it has since become. This can tend to make it quite
difficult for the modern mind to think in the same way as
the ancient mind. Jung repeatedly stresses the
point^“30

With this
paradoxical introduction, let us look at alchemy’s cultural
and historical development, keeping foremost in our minds
that alchemy is like a two-sided coin: one side is it’s
practical chemical side of transmuting metals and the other
is it’s mystical intuitive side.

 

HISTORY

The word alchemy is
said to have different origins, none of which are
conclusive. Some etymologists claim that the Arabic form
“Al-Kimiya” derives from the Greek and also from the
Egyptian hieroglyphics meaning “Black”; from the alluvial
soil of Egypt. Others claim the root is from the Occult,
where “Al” means “The” and “Kimia” means secret or hidden –
ergo “The Occult”.⁹ A more traditional definition
is that the word follows from the Greek meaning the casting
of metals. Still, Oriental sources claim Chinese roots in
the word “Kim-Imy”, meaning gold making juice.¹⁰
For our purposes we will stick with tradition which has the
word deriving from the Greek and Egyptian forms.

In a later paper
Ralph Metzner gives this description of the orgin of the
name “Alchemy”:

“The word ‘alchemy’ has been
given two different etymological derivations. Some
authorities derive it from the Arabic al-kimiya, which in
turn is based on khemia, the Greek name for Egypt, ‘the
black land’; the ancient Egyptians’ name for their country
was Kh’mi, ‘the black earth.’ So, al-kimiya would then be a
term signifying “the Egyptian teaching,’ or “the Egyptian
art,’ or ‘the art of the land of the black earth.’ An
alternative derivation of the word relates it to Greek
khumos, meaning ‘chyme’ or ‘juice.’ This provides an obvious
connection to chemistry as it is usually conceived. Both of
these derivations are interesting in that the teachings of
alchemy do relate very much to ‘water’ and to ‘earth,’ to
fluid and substance, as substrates of the living processes
of Nature.”³⁰

Alchemy continues to be shrouded in mystery, controversy,
and speculation.

“It is the Arabians construct of the term that has
remained in the English language. The Arabians originally
acquired the science from Egypt. Before Egypt was invaded
and re-named by the Romans, Egypt was originally known by
its people as Khemit or the Land of Khem. They are also said
to be the descendants from Atlantis before the great flood.
The term Khem refers to the black fertile land from which
the life giving crops grow. Esoterically, Khem refers to the
dark mystery of the primordial first matter from which
creation manifests and the science of transformation which
is alchemy. The first matter is also equated with
consciousness.

The term Chemistry has its root in khem. The science
of modern Chemistry evolved from the Alchemists in Europe.
Alchemy was brought to Europe by the Moors in Spain
originating from the Arabians. The Arabians added the prefix
Al referring to Allah or God. Therefore, alchemy can be
defined as the Science of God Realization.”

Alchemy – The Science of
Enlightenment
Arion Love,Alchemy Research

Traditionally, Egypt
and China are two locations where records of alchemical
literature originate. Some scholars claim that the
discipline developed first in China around 400 B.C. and from
there passed on to western civilization.¹¹ Others
believe Alexandria, the great Egyptian city, was where the
origins of alchemy lay. There are still other sources that
claim India to be alchemy’s birth place, citing the ancient
Hindu scriptures, the Vedas. This would date alchemy as far
back as 5000 B.C..¹² With our present knowledge
it is impossible to say with any certainty where or when the
study and practice of alchemy began, this will be left for
scholarly debate. Perhaps the most judicious opinion is that
alchemy developed independently in all of these regions,
filling a universal need in spiritual
individuals.

The oldest
alchemical text of the west, of which only a fragment has
been preserved, is entitled Physika Ku Mystika
(Physical and Mystical Matters), which is attributed to
Demokritos of Abdera in the fourth century B.C.. Fragments
and pieces of other manuscripts without any known authors
survived up to this date without any known authors. Many of
these early texts are attributed to divine and royal
personages: Hermes, Isis and Keloptra
(Cleopatra).

Early alchemical
writings are of extremely diverse character, showing very
little homogeneity. Some are very practical laboratory
treatises, others are wholly mystical. In two of Demolaitoa
of Abdera’s manuscripts, the Physical and Mystical
Matters and The Book Addressed to Leukippos, the
style changes from a very practical recipes from dyeing
cloth to transcendental Zen-like sayings, The intellectual
incoherence in these early texts, according to Dr. Taylor,
is not the intention of the author, but on account “of our
difficulty in identifying the materials and elucidating the
technical procedure.”¹³

Early Egyptian
alchemists had certain theories about the nature of matter.
The most crucial was its “essential unity”. It was this
unity that made it possible to convert one form of matter
into another. With this unity there was a progressive scale
in nature, from the corrupt, base metals (lead), to the pure
indestructible ones (gold). Nature always intends and
strives to the perfection of gold. This philosophy of the
“essential unity of matter” and its movement towards
perfection is said to derive from Aristotle. Early achemists
are said to have taken Aristotle’s theories about matter and
change and incorporated them into their science.

Two theories of
alchemists that are attributed to Aristotle are their ideas
of Matter and Form. An example here may serve as an
introduction. Sulfur and iron, according to modern science,
are different kinds of matter. But for Aristotle and
alchemists they are the same matter only specified by
different forms (form is a kind of geometric shape). For the
modern reader to consider ancient alchemical and
Aristotelian ideas, we must put aside some of our “modern”,
basic concepts such as atoms, chemical elements and pure
substances. This is a very crucial point for the modern
reader must view change as the essential characteristics of
all things and changes in himself.”

This point cannot be
emphasized enough. For Aristotle there was change and there
was the changeless. Using an alchemical example: Iron
changes into rust – something changes and something
persists. That which persists is called Matter and that
which changes is called Form. “In a statue, bronze is the
Matter and Apollo the Form, but in bronze itself, earth and
water are the Matter, and the cause of the properties of
bronze the Form”. ¹⁴

 

The Philosopher’s
Stone

“In the end
there is no substance, but rather the alternation of
consciousness and personality.”

Hofmann’s
Elixir, Amanda Feilding, 2008

 

For alchemists and
Aristotle, matter was not something that you could see or
touch. The world, the material world, consisted of five
basic elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Ether. This
last element was the prima materia, the element that
made up all things in this world. It was the key to finding
the Philosopher’s Stone (Lapis Philosophorum). This
prima materia had an enormous potency, a small
quantity of which would “transform a very much larger
quantity of base metals into silver or gold, and which had
unexampled powers of healing the human body and indeed of
perfecting all things in their
kind”.¹⁵

^“To
accomplish this, one of the essential operations used in the
opus is separatio, the separation of the elements as
a prerequisite to their unification. Paracelsus says: ‘The
impure, animate body must be purified through the separation
of elements, which is done by your meditating on it.’
Through internal observation of our own imaginal thought
processes (what Jungians call ‘active imagination’), we
become aware of the distinguishing features and
characteristics of the constituents of our psyche. We
recognize the solid, dense, chunky ‘earth’ of bodily
structurebone, muscle, tissue, joint, flesh. We experience
the wave-like fluidity of ‘water’ as we swim in our inner
sea, the mare nostrum of blood, lymph, humor, hormone
and the associated feelings. With ‘air’ we encounter the
gaseous state, the uprising breath, with its expansive,
dispersing motion, inspiration, ideas, conceptions, thoughts
that fly like the wind. With ‘fire’ we sense the electricity
of our nature, the nervous vitality, the sparking, flashing
of perception, intuition, imagination. Alchemy is
experiential psychophysiology, the consciousness of
biochemistry, the physiology of consciousness in reverse. It
is psychophysiology from the inside, using symbols, myths,
and chemical procedures to describe one’s
experience.^“30

This Philosopher’s
Stone is also known as “the Elixir”, the transmuting agent
in alchemy. This process of transmutation was effected by a
powder called “xenon”. The contemporary meaning is a
cosmetic or dusting powder. The word Elixir comes from the
Arabic Al-Iksir meaning “powder”.

This doctrine of a
transmuting agent was not at all speculative but was
supported by practical evidence. One experiment
demonstrating its properties is with the mineral galena
(lead sulfide) which possesses the color and lustre of lead,
but is neither malleable nor fusible like lead. When it is
heated, however, it disengages sulfurous fumes, acquires the
missing properties, and is transformed into
lead¹⁶

The composition of
the Elixir is clearly stated but the method of uniting its
components or of using the Elixir to make gold is held just
beyond one’s attainment: “Detailed directions for the
preparation of many substances leading up to the final
synthesis of the Elixir, sometimes sufficiently incoherent
in essential points, mingled with extravagant claims of
broad experiences in chemistry, aroused the interest during
the simpler portions of the directions and they confounded
him by the impossibility of sucess.¹⁷

The idea of finding
the Elixir of life has its origins in the Chinese religion
of Taoism, dating back to the founder, Lao Tzu, 6th century
B.C.. Since this article is mostly concerned with western
alchemy, further inquiry into the Chinese sources will not
be pursued. One source from Chinese literature will suffice;
We Po Panic (d. 121) was the
father of
Chinese alchemy and wrote a treatise on the preparation of
the “pill” of immortalityS, The
Ts’an T’ung Ch’i¹⁸

In Egypt, alchemy
thrived at the intellectual center of Alexandria without
difficulty or interference for centuries. In 292 Roman
emperor Diocletian decreed that the practitioners of the
“Great Art” were to be expelled from Egypt and all their
manuscripts were to be burned. Political reasons had forced
Diocletian’s famous edict, for he was afraid that the
alchemists could make gold and then the Egyptians could buy
men and materials to attack Rome.¹⁹ After the
edict, alchemistic history is in doubt. What happened after
the expulsion from Alexandria, and the fate of the
alchemists themselves, we have no way of knowing. We can
only speculate that many moved into the Midddle East,
joining the Islamic intellectual centers in Persia, Syria
and Constantinople. Without literature for this period, it
is impossible to be more exact.

A few
Graeco-Egyptian transcripts of earlier doctrine do remain of
this period, containing only alchemical recipes. The oldest
is the manuscript of St. Mark of Venice which dates back to
the 10th or 11th century. This and other manuscripts are
preserved in Paris and were translated and studied by
Marcellin Berthelot, resulting in his monumental work Les
Origines de l’alchimie in 1885. According to Berthelot
the chief writers of these early Greek manuscripts were:
Democritus in the 1st century, Synesius in the 2nd, Zosimos
in the 3rd, and Olympiodorus and Stephanus in the 5th and
7th, respectively.

This early
literature contains no connecting theories, according to
Holmyard. What they do offer us is the “most bizarre picture
of Gnostic theory intermingled with chemical fact, ecstatic
visions, descriptions of apparatus, and injunctions to the
reader to keep the secret of the art from the
vulgar”.

Most of the ancient
alchemical writings cane to us through Arabic writings and
translations, dating from the 7th century. These Arabic
writings are translations of early Greek and Graeco-Egyptian
manuscripts. It was in Persia and in Syria that most of the
Arabic work on alchemy took place after the explusion from
Egypt. Syria was the most vital intellectual center, a true
meeting ground of cultures and tongues. Latin, Greek,
Syrian, Persian and, after the rise of Islam, Arabic, were
all current language²¹

After 640 under the
Abbasid Caliphs of Baghdad, there was a great revival in
learning throughout the Islamic world. This period of
revival is contrasted with the relative poverty of western
Europe. Many scholars were joined at these centers where the
study of philosophy, mathematics, science and religion was
pursued. It was during this period that many early
alchemical works from the Greek manuscripts were brought to
these centers and translated. The most famous translator
during this period was Hunayn iba Ishaq (d. 876). Ishaq
brought Greek manuscripts on medicine and science from
Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor to Baghdad as early as
640.²²

The greatest figure
among alchemists and scientists in the Middle Eastern world
is Geber. Geber is a westernized version of the Arabian Abu
Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan. Europeans have looked on Geber as the
founder of alchemy because of his extensive writings and
profound understanding of the subject. There are many great
and fabulous stories connected with this giant of Islamic
culture, and it is difficult to separate fact from fiction.
What can be said with certainty is his role
in Islamic
civilization is as influential as Aristotle’s in European.
His writings are extensive and, according to Richard Russell
(in 1678), his style is that of a true artist, for his
writings have “no tautologies, circumlocutions, or fruitless
ambages; but like a good master, informs and does not
perplex the mind of his disciple.”²³

Another giant in
Islamic culture who had an extensive influence on the study
of alchemy in Persia was Rhazes (861-925). Rhazes is the
latinized form of Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi.
Born in the golden age of Arabic learning, he traveled to
Baghdad to study medicine when he was in his early teens.
His writings are also extensive and his influence
immense.

Abu’l Qasim Al-Iraqi
(d. 1200), is an even more influential figure in Islamic
alchemy. His influence is not as great as the two preceding
great masters but his writings add greatly to their theories
and recipes.

Alchemy continued to
flourish in the Islamic tradition in Spain under the Caliph
Al-Hakam II (961-976). It was during this time that one of
the most influential Latin works was written. It was
entitled DeAnitnaand is attributed to Avicenna, which is a
Latin distortion of his full name, Abu Ali al-usayn
ibn.

According to
tradition, alchemy found its way west in the middle of the
12th century in the form of Arabic manuscripts on the
subject. The
first translation was made by Robert of Chester in 1144, and
by the beginning of the 13th century almost a dozen texts
had been translated, including The Emerald Table,
attributed to the “god Hermes Trismegister”. In this
movement west, Albert Magnus (St. Albert), 1200-1280); Roger
Bacon, the father of the experimental method; and Thomas
Aquinas (1235-1271) all investigated to one degree or
another the theories of the new subject. It was Magnus and
Bacon who were to take the art seriously enough to
investigate it systematically. St. Albert’s studies were
made mostly through the work of Avicenna. His writings on
the art are also voluminous, characterized by “his tempering
statements of moderation; trying to make every ascertain
clear”.²⁴ A truly difficult task considering
alchemy’s paradoxical nature. St. Albert’s most famous work
De rubus Metallicis et Mineralibus (1214) helped
spread the facts and theories of alchemy across
Europe.

A contemporary,
Roger Bacon, also believed there was much to learn from
alchemy in its practical, chemical experiments. His interest
was purely experimental, “dividing alchemy into its
theoretical or speculative aspect and its practical
operative aspect.²⁵ He seemed to dismiss the
strict approach of science. If it could not be demonstrated
in the laboratory, and confirmed by scientific
demonstration, Bacon would say, then it wasn’t
worthwhile.

The reintroduction
of alchemy into Europe was characterized by a rise in what
Hopkins refers to as “pseudo alchemy”. Pseudo alchemists
were those individuals who studied alchemical literature and
practiced with the elements, but knew nothing of its real
value. Their purpose was only to make gold and become rich
and famous. This form of alchemy spread all throughout
Europe during the 12th and 13th centuries, thriving in small
shops, tavern’s and basements. It is a phenomenon impossible
to document, but its spread helped to discredit the art far
beyond its original form. These pseudo alchemists were
called puffers or souffeurs by true practitioners of the art
– as Pernety writes:

“Those ignorant
are those who spend many years of their life without
succeeding in any of the Hermetic principles. After spending
many years without success, their vanity offended, ashamed
as having failed, they seek to indemnify themselves, by
speaking evil of that which they have been unable to
obtain.”²⁶

Thus the alchemy
that was being introduced to Europe was stripped of its
intrinsic mystical aspects, relegating it to a purely
physical science of making gold. This misinterpretation,
Hopkins explains the reasons for this misinterpretation:
“[Because] there was no master mind (Geber), to
bring alchemy to a new birth Europe, and no compelling
discoveries had emerged from Islamic laboratories to impress
the value of alchemy upon a practical world, the prospects
of alchemy occupying a position of helpfulness in the
scientific inquiry into the nature of matter were poor
indeed”.²⁷

Probably the
greatest mind to investigate alchemy in the 13th century was
Thomas Aquinas. The extent to which he studied alchemy was
small, but his comments on the Great Art were very
influential on his contemporaries. “The chief function”,
wrote St. Thomas, “of the alchemist is to transmute metals,
that is to say, the imperfect ones, in a true manner and not
fraudulent”.²⁸

It is not surprising
that when some of the best minds in the Middle Ages gave
favorable comments on the Great Art a large number of people
began practicing alchemy. Alchemy swept over Europe like a
fever in the 13th century, remaining at least for four
centuries, until 1661, the chief preoccupation of those
inclined to understand nature’s secrets.

There was a
bewildering variety of alchemical practice during this
renaissance in European thought. Historians, writer’s and
painters of the middle ages give us a kaleidoscope look at
how the art was practiced. Inscriptions of alchemists range
from Christ like figures to creatures of the most despicable
trickery and hipocrisy.

The greatest impact
on western civilization was through the monasteries . The
medieval alchemist was in most cases a learned
cleric. This
was because the great majority of those who could read and
write were clerics, and alchemy necessarily involved the
study of books. To get a copy of a manuscript, the monk
would probably have to hand-copy one or two manuscripts
which someone would have to lend him.

Alchemy continued to
grow into the 14th century. Translations were becoming more
popular throughout Europe. Two interesting figures who
practiced alchemy during this period were were Ramon Lull
(1225-1315) and Arnold of Villanova (1214-1313).

The aim behind all
these experimental philosophers in the later centuries was
to do away with all mysterious, occult, or personalized
forces, and to explain nature on a mechanical basis. The
greatest exponent of this approach was Robert Boyle
(1627-1691). Boyle. work in chemistry had a major impact on
alchemy. Boyle’s purpose in his investigations of alchemy
and chemistry was to present a mechanical picture of
chemical reactions; to do away with all occult forms and
qualities; and to explain the behavior of substances by
analogy with a machine, specifically to consider the world
as a “great piece of clockwork.” An essential part of his
work was to clear away the old ideas as, especially those of
the Aristotelian elements, the foundation of alchemical
philosophy. He did this in his most famous book, The
Skeptical Chemist, 1661.

The result of this
and other works of the same time, was a “true chemical
revolution”²⁹ which was actually part of a
greater revolution of all experimental sciences. The
alchemical doctrines of the four elements were overthrown
and the ideas of atoms and substances were firmly
established.

Alchemical history
does not stop here. The practice and study of this ancient
and medieval art will be continued in the centuries ahead,
but never on a scale as it had been in the past.

Ed
Reither

University of New
Orleans

1976 (updated
2012)

---

Footnotes

1a. “In the past it
has been traditional to live publically but to keep great
knowledge secret. Thus, all the alternatives to the ordinary
experience and suffering which men have known before come
down to us in guarded symbols, white and black, with seals
all around, impenetrable by the common mind.” – Franklin
Jones (Adi Da Samraj) Knee of Listening, Preface
(unpublished version), 1970.

1. Sheppard, H.J.,
“A History of Alchemy”, Ambix
(July 1970), pp. 69-75.

2. Leicester, H.M.,
The
Historical Background of
Chemistry,
(New York, 1956), p. 36.

3. Partinton, J.R.,
“History of Alchemy and Early Chemistry”, Ambix
(Jan 18, 1947), pp. 302-313.

4. Read, J.,
The
Alchemists in Life Literature and Art.
(London, 1947), p. 39

5. Partington, J.R.,
“Ancient
Chinese Treatise on Alchemy“,
Nature (Aug 24, 1935), p. 78

6. Stavenhagen, L.,
“A
Testament of Alchemy“,
(New England, 1974), p. 11

7. Hopkins, A.J.,
“Alchemy,
Child of Greek Philosophy“,
(New York, 1934, p. 22

8. De Rola, S.K.,
“Alchemy, The Secret Art”, (London, 1973),
p.6

9. Wagner, H.,
“The Light of Egypt“, 2 Vols. (Denver, 1900), p.
53

10. Barnes, Wh.H.,
“Chinese Influence on Westrn Alchemy”, Nature
(May 18, 1935), p. 36

11. Taylor, S.F.
“A Survey of Greek Alchemy”, J. Hellenic Studies
(1930), pp. 109-139

12. Partington,
J.R., “History of Alchemy and Early Chemistry”,
Ambix (Jan 18, 1947, pp. 210-215.

13. Taylor S.F.
“Alchemy”, (Baltimore, 1968), p.26.

14. Ibid.,
p.85.

15. Ibid., p.
92.

16. Thompson, C. S.,
“The Lure and Romance of Alchemy“, (London, 1949),
p.81.

17. Read, J.,
“Prelude to Chemistry“, (London, 1949), p.
120.

18. Partington,
J.R., “Ancient Chinese Treatise on Alchemy“,
Nature (Aug 24, 1935), p. 38.

19. Hopkins, A.J.,
“Alchemy, Child of Greek Philosophy“, (New York,
1934), Apendix I.

20. Holmyard, E.J.
“Makers of Chemistry“, (Oxford, 1933), pp.
35-39.

21. Hitti, P.K.,
“History of the Arabs”, (London, 1937), p. 69.

22. Partington,
J.R., “Albert Magnus on Alchemy“, Ambix
(1935), p. 3.

23 Holmyard, E.J.,
“The Works of Geber“, (London, 1928) p.
xxxvii.

24. Partington,
J.R., “Albert Magnus on Alchemy”, Ambix (1935), p.
3.

25. Levi, E.,
“Transcendental Magic“, (New York 1974). p.
20.

26. Pernety, J.A.J.,
“The Great Art”, (New York, 1973) p. 29.

27. Hopkins, A.J.,
“Alchemy, Child of Greek Philosophy”, (New York, 1934) p.
184.

28. Taylor S.F.
“Alchemy“, (Baltimore, 1968), p.85.

29. Read, J.,
“The Alchemists in Life Literature and Art“, (London,
1947), p. 52.

30.
Metzner, Ralph, “Alchemy
and Personal Transformation“,
Laughing Man Magazine (Spring 1981, p. 53.

31. Feilding,
Amanda, “Hofmann’s Elixir – LSD and the A New
Eleusis“, 2008.

Also see:

Book of Secrets: “Alchemy
and the European Imagination
–1500-2000‘.

---

Enquiries:

Ed@beezone.com

Also see:

Alchemy
– The Science of Enlightenment (PDF file)