The Goals of Alchemy

Contrary to popular opinion, alchemy was not merely a quest for the recipe to make gold and neither was it a purely mediaeval venture. Alchemy has its origins in ancient Egypt and in ancient Babylonia, well before the birth of Christ. From the outset it was always was a much broader enterprise than the attempt to transmute base metals into gold.

Both ancient Babylonian and Egyptian cultures were very good at mining metal ores, and refining them into precious metals. Early texts give us recipes for producing various precious metals, precious gemstones and dyestuffs. Generally speaking, alchemy was about processes that would add value or usefulness to unrefined materials. One example of this was the addition of silver and copper to gold that had the apparent effect of making more gold. Another method was treating the surface of base metals to make them look like gold. Painting lead with egg yolk was one of the less successful attempts to do this!

The Theory of Alchemy

The ancient Greeks, who were excellent philosophers and scientists, created the theory of alchemy. We often give credit to the ancient Greeks for discovering that elements were made up of atoms. But, the vast majority of the ancient Greeks had a quite different theory of the nature of matter that did not involve atoms at all. They believed in Aristotle's theory of matter in which all matter consisted of four elements, earth, water, air and fire. In this scheme the earth was cold and dry, water was cold and wet, air was hot and wet and fire was hot and dry. These elements could be transformed one into another. Water (cold and wet) could easily become air (hot and wet) by being boiled, for example.

Aristotle's Elements.
Each element is characterised by a pair of the wet/dry and hot/cold properties.

All of the elements could be transmuted into any of the other elements. Everything was made of a combination of earth, water, air and fire. So, in theory at least, it was possible to transmute any starting material into anything you wanted. It was these theories that were taken up by Europeans in the Rennaissance.

Gold

Alchemists believed that everything was made up not of atoms, but of matter that had certain qualities. So gold, which could be thought of as a combination of earth and water, could also be thought of as matter which was yellow, heavy, shiny, metallic and malleable. Each of these qualities could be changed for other qualities. So, making gold would require mixing together ingredients that contained just the right proportions of the desirable properties.

There were different approaches to making gold. Some searched for the 'philosopher's stone' that would transform anything into gold immediately. Others believed that transformation would be a long process. The philosopher's stone was also linked to the search for an elixir of eternal life and youth. Just crush a bit up, dissolve in water and you have the key to eternal youth. In the decade of her thirties Queen Elizabeth I is reported to have requested an alchemist to find the elixir of youth for her.

Rather disappointingly for the two or three thousand years in which alchemy was common practise there are no known examples of the transmutation of base metals into gold. So, how come alchemy persisted for so long?

Why Did Alchemy Last So Long?

Changing anything into anything else you want seems a wonderful, but quite mad idea today. But, if you think for a moment, there is nothing very strange about the idea of transmutation. It happens on a day to day basis. Water becomes steam and ice, cakes turn from mush into crumbly sponge when baked, blue and yellow paints become green when mixed and egg whites turn from clear 'gloop' to foaming white twirls when beaten. These reactions seem mundane and everyday, but the alchemists discovered many more spectacular ones.

Start with a red powder, heat it and watch it miraculously transform into a silver liquid. As we understand it today, cinnabar (mercury oxide) was heated to release oxygen leaving behind pure mercury. Likewise take a yellow/red metal (copper) heat it together with a yellow powder (sulphur) and the result is a black powder (copper sulphate). In alchemical thought the means of producing metallic qualities was demonstrated by the first reaction. Whilst metallic qualities were removed from copper in the second (along with the yellowness of both copper and sulphur). This had to be transmutation in action.

Such impressive demonstrations of transformation were the routine of alchemy. No wonder then that alchemists believed that if they could only find the all-elusive formula, gold was there for the making. But, alchemy was conceived more broadly than the hunt for gold. Many other useful processes, like the production of metal alloys, perfumes, acids and alcohol, were all seen as progress.

Alchemy for All

There was a broad spread of how people approached alchemy. Some treated it much as we would treat chemistry. Others took a more magical approach, without being mysterious and some took an entirely mystical approach. Mystics were inclined to keep their art secret and in many surviving alchemical texts reactions are written in codes and ciphers.

Alchemy and Science

Alchemy in Europe, Arabia and China made significant advances and laid the basis from which the science of chemistry developed. It produced a good deal of lasting chemical knowledge. There was a wide-ranging knowledge of the alloys of precious and other metals, some of which we have probably lost today.

The procedure of distillation was invented by alchemists and fascinated them. Take a rose, crush up the petals, add alcohol and distil. What you get is concentrated rose oils, of the sort that are used to make perfumes. But, alchemists believed this to be a pure and active 'essence of rose' which contained 'all that makes a rose into a rose'. Because acids and alkalis had interesting reactions with metals, the alchemists developed stronger and stronger ones. Particularly aqua fortis (concentrated nitric acid) and aqua regis (a mix of concentrated nitric and hydrochloric acids) which could dissolve gold.

Interest in alchemy as a main line of research into chemical matters dwindled in the 17th and 18th centuries. Aristotle's theory of matter was replaced with a new theory of atomism in the 17th century. Alchemy seemed to be making little progress relative to other sciences. The new chemistry with fixed elements and a new terminology, was making great progress.

Who wants to be an alchemist?

Try your hand at the age old experiment of making gold

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