17th
Century:
The
Decline of Western Alchemy
The
demise of Western alchemy was brought about by the rise of modern
science with its emphasis on rigorous quantitative experimentation and
its disdain for "ancient wisdom". Although the seeds of these events
were planted as early as the 17th century, alchemy still flourished for
some two hundred years, and in fact may have reached its apogee in the
18th century.
Robert Boyle (1627–1691), better known for his studies of
gases
(cf. Boyle's law) pioneered the scientific method in chemical
investigations. He assumed nothing in his experiments and compiled
every piece of relevant data; in a typical experiment, Boyle would note
the place in which the experiment was carried out, the wind
characteristics, the position of the Sun and Moon, and the barometer
reading, all just in case they proved to be relevant. (Pilkington p.11)
This approach eventually led to the founding of modern chemistry in the
18th and 19th centuries, based on revolutionary discoveries of
Lavoisier and John Dalton — which finally provided a logical,
quantitative and reliable framework for understanding matter
transmutations, and revealed the futility of longstanding alchemical
goals such as the philospher's stone.
Meanwhile, Paracelsian alchemy led to the development of modern
medicine. Experimentalists gradually uncovered the workings of the
human body, such as blood circulation (Harvey, 1616), and eventually
traced many diseases to infections with germs (Koch and Pasteur, 19th
century) or lack of natural nutrients and vitamins (Lind, Eijkman,
Funk, et al.). Supported by parallel developments in organic chemistry,
the new science easily displaced alchemy from its medical roles,
interpretive and prescriptive, while deflating its hopes of miraculous
elixirs and exposing the ineffectiveness or even toxicity of its
remedies.
Thus, as science steadily continued to uncover and rationalize the
clockwork of the universe, founded on its own materialistic
metaphysics, Alchemy was left deprived of its chemical and medical
connections — but still incurably burdened by them. Reduced
to an
arcane philosophical system, poorly connected to the material world, it
suffered the common fate of other esoteric disciplines such as
astrology and Kabbalah: excluded from university curricula, shunned by
its former patrons, ostracized by scientists, and commonly viewed as
the epitome of charlatanism and superstition.
These developments could be interpreted as part of a broader reaction
in European intellectualism against the Romantic movement of the
preceding century. Be as it may, it is sobering to observe how a
discipline that held so much intellectual and material prestige, for
more than two thousand years, could disappear so easily from the
universe of Western thought.
Aula lucis, or,
The House of Light by Thomas Vaughan
Steganographick
Collection from Le Tableau des Riches Inventions
Oswald Croll Preface
of Signatures
Extract from
Glauber's Short Book of Dialogues
Khunrath's
Natural Symbolum or short confession
The names of
the Philosophers' Stone by William Gratacolle
Michael Maier's
Atalanta Fugiens
Extract from Alchymie
et le Songe Verde
A 17th century
allegorical alchemical poem by Edmund Dickinson
153 Chymical
aphorisms of F.M. van Helmont.
157
Phylosophick Canons
The Book of
Lambspring
Edward Kelly's
Theatre of Terrestrial Astronomy
Edward Kelly's
The Stone of the Philosophers
The Light
coming out of darkness - Crasselame
Everard's
translation of the Corpus Hermeticum
Verse on the
Threefold Sophic Fire
The Tomb of
Semiramis
On the
Philosophers' Stone
Valentine
Weigel - Astrology Theologized
Thomas Vaughan
- Coelum Terrae
Aesch-Mezareph
The Iconologia
of Cesare Ripa
Introduction to
the Iconologia of Cesare Ripa
The War of the
Knights
Robert Fludd's Mosaical
Philosophy [extract]
The Hermetic
Triumph
An anonymous
treatise on the Philosophers' stone
Jean Albert
Belin - The Adventures of an Unknown Philosopher
Ruland - On the
Prima Materia
The letter of a
philosopher concerning the secret of the great work
The Natural
round Physick or Philosophy of the Alchymical Cabalistical Vision
An hundred
aphorisms containing the whole body of
magic from Ms. Sloane 1321
Certain Verses
of an Unknown Writer
from Benedict
Figulus
A Short Enquiry
concerning the Hermetic Art
The Hermetic
Arcanum
Limojon
Saint-Didier's Letter to the True Disciples of Hermes
The Glory of
Light
Place in Space
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