Alchemy: Ancient and Modern - Being a Brief Account of the Alchemistic Doctrines, and their Relations, to Mysticism on the One Hand, and to Recent Discoveries in Physical Science on the Other Hand. H. Stanley Redgrove
Further Evidence of the Complexity of the Atoms
§ 84. Views of Wald and Ostwald
§ 86. X-Rays and Becquerel Rays
§ 88. Chemical Properties of Radium
§ 89. The Radioactivity of Radium
§ 90. The Disintegration of the Radium Atom
§ 92. Properties of Uranium and Thorium
§ 94. The Production of Helium from Emanation
§ 96. Is this Change a true Transmutation?
§ 97. The Production of Neon from Emanation
§ 98. Ramsay’s Experiments on Copper
§ 99. Further Experiments on Radium and Copper
§ 100. Ramsay’s Experiments on Thorium and allied Metals
§ 101. The Possibility of Making Gold
§ 102. The Significance of “Allotropy”
PORTRAIT OF PARACELSUS
LIST OF PLATES
PLATE 1. Portrait of Paracelsus
PLATE 2. Symbolical Illustration representing the Trinity of Body, Soul and Spirit
PLATE 3. Symbolical Illustrations representing—
(A) The Fertility of the Earth
(B) The Amalgamation of Mercury and Gold
PLATE 4. Symbolical Illustrations representing—
(A) The Coction of Gold-Amalgam in a Closed Vessel
(B) The Transmutation of the Metals
PLATE 5. Alchemistic Apparatus—
(A) (B) Two forms of apparatus for sublimation
PLATE 6. Alchemistic Apparatus—
(A) An Athanor
(B) A Pelican
PLATE 7. Portrait of Albertus Magnus
PLATE 8. Portraits of—
(A) Thomas Aquinas
(B) Nicolas Flamel
PLATE 9. Portraits of—
(A) Edward Kelley
(B) John Dee
PLATE 10. Portrait of Michael Maier
PLATE 11. Portrait of Jacob Buehme
PLATE 12. Portraits of J. B. and F. M. van Helmont
PLATE 13. Portrait of J. F. Helvetius
PLATE 14. Portrait of “Cagliostro”
PLATE 15. Portrait of Robert Boyle
PLATE 16. Portrait of John Dalton
TABLE SHOWING THE PERIODIC CLASSIFICATION OF THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS
ALCHEMY:
ANCIENT AND MODERN
CHAPTER I
THE MEANING OF ALCHEMY
The Aim of Alchemy.
§ 1. Alchemy is generally understood to have been that art whose end was the transmutation of the so-called base metals into gold by means of an ill-defined something called the Philosopher’s Stone; but even from a purely physical standpoint, this is a somewhat superficial view. Alchemy was both a philosophy and an experimental science, and the transmutation of the metals was its end only in that this would give the final proof of the alchemistic hypotheses; in other words, Alchemy, considered from the physical standpoint, was the attempt to demonstrate experimentally on the material plane the validity of a certain philosophical view of the Cosmos. We see the genuine scientific spirit in the saying of one of the alchemists: “Would to God . . . all men might become adepts in our Art—for then gold, the great idol of mankind, would lose its value, and we should prize it only for its scientific teaching.”1 Unfortunately, however, not many alchemists came up to this ideal; and for the majority of them, Alchemy did mean merely the possibility of making gold cheaply and gaining untold wealth.
The Transcendental Theory of Alchemy.
§ 2. By some mystics, however, the opinion has been expressed that Alchemy was not a physical art or science at all, that in no sense was its object the manufacture of material gold, and that its processes were not carried out on the physical plane. According to this transcendental theory, Alchemy was concerned with man’s soul, its object was the perfection, not of material substances, but of man in a spiritual sense. Those who hold this view identify Alchemy with, or at least regard it as a branch of, Mysticism, from which it is supposed to differ merely by the employment of a special language; and they hold that the writings of the alchemists must not be understood literally as dealing with chemical operations, with furnaces, retorts, alembics, pelicans and the like, with salt, sulphur, mercury, gold and other material substances, but must be understood as grand allegories