The origins of alchemy are lost in history and theories abound as to where it might have originated:
- God taught it to Adam and later to Moses
- Fallen Angels taught it to human women in exchange for sex
- It is a remnant of lost Atlantean technology
- Extraterrestrials taught it to our ancestors.
Whatever its true origin is, recorded history documents an esoteric tradition that has existed for several thousand years. Mystery and magic permeate all that is ancient Egypt.
From beginning to end, Egypt has been called a theocratic state, ruled by a very powerful priesthood. The priesthood was divided into various castes, each with specific duties such as scribes and astronomers. Of special interest to us are the priests, who worked with materials in ways we might describe today as chemistry. These priests, often working under an oath of secrecy regarding their art, developed skills in metallurgy, ceramics, medicine, mummification, and winemaking, to name just a few.
The study of the operative forces at work in the universe was the primary goal of the priesthood. They called these forces the "Neteru" from which we obtain our word, "Nature." The Neteru are the forces of Nature.
From the small number of writings which remain to us, it is apparent that these priests were skilled healers who possessed a materials science, much of which is still a mystery to us. There were always two parts to these sciencesone was mental/spiritual and the other physical. For example, the preparation of a medicine included the processing of a material accompanied by certain words, spells, incantations or rituals. And in prescribing, the patient was given the medicine with instructions to repeat a spell or prayer. The proper timing of these things was equally important.
In the Egyptian Mysteries, Man was composed of various spiritual and mental components as well as the physical component and each had its proper "medicine." These Secret Sciences advanced over time and tales of wondrous healing oils, life-giving potions, and imitations of gold and precious stones have survived even to our day.
When ancient tomb robbers would plunder a pharaoh's tomb, these precious oils were one of the first things to be stolen. They were considered to be as precious as gold and easier to carry and sell. Stolen gold was heavy and had to be melted down before you could sell it.
When Alexander the Great arrived in Egypt around 300 B.C.E., he fell in love with the whole culture, and the Egyptians welcomed him with open arms. This began the so-called Greco-Egyptian or Ptolemaic period of Egyptian history.
The Greeks called Egypt Khem or Khemet. This literally meant "The Black Land" and is in reference to the thick layer of dark fertile soil deposited by the annual flooding of the Nile. Knowledge of Egyptian Secret Sciences made its way into Greece where it was called Khemia "The Black Art" and spawned a long line of Greek alchemists.
In Egypt, Alexander initiated a sweeping campaign of construction and restoration, including the city named after himAlexandria. The Great Library of Alexandria is legendary. It has been estimated that this library contained nearly a million volumes of the collected writings of the known world. Scholars from everywhere flocked to Alexandria and it became a melting pot of ideas and philosophies. It is here that the Hermetic Philosophy and alchemy congealed as a Path to Spiritual Attainment and its secrets were only revealed to initiates under an oath of silence.
By around 30 B.C.E., the Roman legions had swept the world and the last of the Egyptian Ptolemies had fallen to Roman rule. During this insurgence, a very large part of the Great Library was destroyed by fire. Initially, Rome was tolerant of Egyptian ways. In fact, the worship of Isis spread well into the Roman world with temples in Rome itself. As the early Roman Emperors became converted to Christianity, this level of tolerance dropped off.
In 290 C.E., the Emperor Diocletian feared that the influx of imitation gold produced by the Egyptian Art could disrupt the Roman economy. Fearing also that it would allow someone to gather enough wealth to form an army which could move against Rome, Diocletian passed an edict calling for the destruction of all texts and materials dealing with the manufacture of gold and precious stones. This order was carried out with great severity.
Great masses of information were indiscriminately destroyed as well as what remained of The Great Library. In 325 C.E., Rome officially became Christian and in 391 the Emperor Theodosius made heresy punishable by death and ordered the destruction of pagan temples. In the Roman world, which at the time covered quite a large area, you were either a Christian or you were exiled or killed.
Most of those practicing the Hermetic Philosophy fled the country and migrated east to Arab lands not occupied by Rome. The early Persian Caliphs were much more hospitable 11 to the alchemists and the center of The Art shifted there, although in a much more guarded capacity. It was here that the Arabic prefix Al was added to the Greek Khemia to give us AlKhemia, later to become Alchemy.
Scientific pursuits in early Christian Rome became dormant for centuries. With the fall of the Roman Empire, the "civilized world" was thrown into chaos. Thus began "The Dark Ages."
Beginning with the Islamic invasions around 800 C.E., knowledge of alchemy spread into Western Europe, largely through the works of Ibn Sinna (also known as Avicenna.) He formulated a medical system that was popular for several centuries. Another was Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayaan. Jabir had a very cryptic style of writing, designed to conceal alchemical secrets. It is from his name that we derive our word for Gibberish. They collected many of the ancient Egyptian and Greek alchemical works and translated them into Arabic, which were later translated into Latin in Europe.
In Medieval Europe, alchemy became very fashionable. By now, kings and rulers everywhere had heard of the wonders possible through alchemy, especially the turning of lead into gold. Alchemy, as a means to making gold, became a popular pursuit by the rich and the poor. There were also a great number of cons and scams perpetrated by those who pretended to know the secrets of the alchemists. Many unsuspecting people lost their life savings in hopes of finding the way to inexhaustible wealth.
Alchemy began to acquire a bad reputation as a fraud because of this, and people began to distrust the whole matter without really knowing anything about the true alchemical art. Then, around 1310, Pope John XXII issued a decree prohibiting the practice of alchemy, and gold-making in particular, with heavy fines against those who traded in alchemical gold
In 1404, King Henry IV of England issued an "Act" declaring gold-making a crime against the Crown. By the fifteenth century, the invention of the printing press made knowledge more available to the public. Texts about alchemy became very popular and began to multiply.
Paracelsus (born Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim in Switzerland 1493) revolutionized the Alchemical Art and is considered to be one of the fathers of modern chemistry and pharmaceutical medicine. A respected physician and university lecturer, Paracelsus was also skilled in all of the arts of the Hermetic Philosophy. Paracelsus repeatedly demonstrated the power and effectiveness of alchemically prepared medicines.
He stressed to his colleagues the importance of looking carefully into alchemy as a source for medicines far beyond what the current pharmaceutical technology could produce. 12 He was constantly at odds with the medical professionals of his day and was looked upon very suspiciously by the Church because of his views and opinions. Because of this some believe Paracelsus was murdered in 1541. However, his ideas and writings did not go unnoticed. In a strange twist of irony, these helped lead to the end of the Age of Alchemy and the beginnings of chemistry as we know it today
The writings of Paracelsus shifted the view on alchemy from the pursuit of gold into which it had fallen, back toward its original intentmedicines for the body and soul leading one to perfect health, wholeness, and initiation into Nature's mysteries. Paracelsus recognized man's physical and occult constitution according to Hermetic Principles.
By the seventeenth century, there was a growing religious freedom which sparked a wave of interest in all things Mystical. Alchemical texts became still more widely available, and scholars boldly identified themselves as Rosicrucians, Adepts or Alchemists. The spiritual aspects of alchemy appealed to many, apart from any practical works.
Robert Boyle (another "Father of Modern Chemistry") and Isaac Newton studied alchemy during this time. Newton was fully involved and produced volumes of work. In fact, he considered himself to be more of an alchemist than a physicist or mathematician. His notes indicate that he believed he was very close to success in the alchemical art of metallic transmutation.
Boyle was also an ardent student trying to clarify many alchemical concepts which were becoming obscured even in his day. He was a meticulous experimenter and realized the difference between Philosophical and Unphilosophical workings upon materials.
In his very influential book, "The Sceptical Chymist," Boyle called into question the number and nature of the elements and called for a more organized terminology. His alchemical insights have been largely misinterpreted to be a debunking of vitalistic alchemy in favor of a more rigorous concentration on the physical facts. It was the beginning of a more mechanical world-view, which would last into the twentieth century.
Around 1660, King Charles II signed the first Charter of the Royal Society and the study of chemistry soon became an officially recognized science.
America also had its alchemists, including several state Governors. There were groups in Pennsylvania who brought with them many of the early German alchemical writings (which were quite extensive).
By the 1800s, the practice of Alchemy had largely disappeared in the outer world in favor of its still young offshootchemistry. Alchemy survived underground in various 13 "Secret Societies" which became popular, especially towards the end of the nineteenth century.
In the early 1900s, H. Spencer Lewis received a charter from some of these European contacts to form the Ancient Mystical Order of the Rosae Crucis, better known as AMORC. Among other things, they taught laboratory alchemy as it was handed down by earlier Rosicrucian sources.
In the early 1940s, one student of these classes was Albert Reidel. Frater Albertus went on to teach these classes himself and then later split off on his own to establish the Paracelsus Research Society in 1960, which became accredited as Paracelsus College in the early 80s.
With the passing of Frater Albertus in 1984, there seemed to be a void in alchemical teachings and a lack of a central point where students could exchange information. By the early nineties, through the efforts of several PRS students, contact with a French group was made and the Philosophers of Nature (PON) was formulated to fill the void with fresh ideas and to carry on research in alchemy. The PON closed in the late nineties. Now we have the Internetthe new "Library of Alexandria." As we shall see, chemistry, left to grow unfettered, has nearly come full circle to rediscover the Hermetic Philosophy
Sources:
Real Alchemy: A Primer of Practical Alchemy by Robert Allen Bartlett