Alchemy: how a tradition spanning millennia became modern chemistry

MAY 16, 2015 BY THE SPACED-OUT SCIENTIST


Alchemy is generally seen as an archaic proto-science based on superstition that is of little interest to the modern chemist. In truth, chemistry owes much to alchemy, which covers philosophical traditions and chemical history spanning several millennia in the Middle East, China, India and Europe. Alchemy has played a significant role in the development of modern chemistry, medicine and psychology.

The etymology of the modern word, chemistry, comes from the Arabic alkīmiyā (al ‘the’ + kīmiyā), which comes from the ancient Greek word chēmeía, meaning “black magic”. The Greek word is derived from the ancient Coptic word for “Egypt”, “kēme”, which means “black earth”, a type of fertile soil that is left after the annual flooding of the Nile.

Alchemy can generally be defined as an ancient art form that seeks purification of the soul and immortality in parallel with the transmutation of chemical elements where gold symbolizes perfection. Alchemists made medicines and pharmaceuticals, and endeavoured to understand the material basis of the world. Although the alchemists practiced actual chemistry and medicine, turning lead into gold symbolized a spiritual transmutation equivalent to an awakened consciousness present in all forms and which created the universe.

Mandala illustrating key alchemical concepts, symbols, and processes. 1615 AD

In Western alchemy, perfection is achieved through the action of the Philosophers Stone. Alchemists believed that it could turn any substance into gold, prolong life and cure illness. The Philosophers Stone is created from “prima materia”, which is the primitive formless base of all matter, similar to our modern concepts of dark matter or chaos.

Western alchemy: from ancient Egypt to Renaissance Europe

The Ancient Egyptians were some of the first practitioners of alchemy around 2000 BC, and much of the early chemical knowledge in Egypt was linked to embalming the dead and religious ritual. The Ancient Greek king, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and founded Alexandria in 331 BC, which became the intellectual and cultural center of the ancient world. Alexandria became a major hub for alchemy, bringing together Egyptian, Greek and Jewish knowledge and culture.Roman floor mosaic of Alexander the Great, originally from the House of Faun in Pompeii, 100 BC

Between 400-600 AD, most Alchemical texts were lost and the remainder shifted to the Islamic world due to the repeated destruction of the Library of Alexandria and of non-Christian texts during the late Roman Empire. The Islamic world became a melting pot for alchemical knowledge.

The crusades, which began in 1096 AD, brought the West into contact with Islamic knowledge, which contributed to the re-emergence of alchemy in medieval Europe. It re-gained popularity in Renaissance Europe, and until as late as the 17th century, many notable modern scientists were also alchemists, including Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle, who is considered the father of chemistry.

Alchemical apparatus. 1681 AD.

Indian alchemy

Alexander the Great invaded India in 325 BC, which suggests that there may have been some influence between Indian and Greco-Egyptian alchemy. Indian alchemy or Rasayana, which means the art of manipulating Rasa, meaning nectar, mercury or juice, was closely associated to the Dharmic faiths (Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism). Indian alchemy began in approximately 1200 BC and is an early from of Ayurvedic medicine focused on extending lifespan. Indian alchemists created medicines composed of various metals, including mercury and other substances that were combined with herbs.

Chinese alchemy

The beginnings of Chinese alchemy are unclear but probably emerged sometime between 400 BC – 100 AD. It is closely associated to Taoism and Chinese traditional medicine, Acupuncture, Tai Chi, Qigong and focuses on the purification of the body in spirit in the hopes of obtaining immortality. The Chinese alchemists concocted alchemical medicines or elixirs, which were often composed of metals like gold and silver, and other compounds.

Chinese woodcut: Daoist internal alchemy. 1615 AD. Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images

Much of the central concepts between Chinese, Indian and Western alchemy are remarkably similar. It is unknown whether these forms of alchemy share common origins and whether they influenced each other. However, from 334-323 B.C., Alexander the Great conquered many parts of the East, which helped exchange knowledge between Eastern and Western cultures, so it is possible that influence occurred.

The decline of alchemy

How did such an important intellectual and philosophical tradition existing for several millennia suddenly disappear from Western thought?

Aspects of Indian and Chinese alchemy were absorbed by modern science and chemistry, and other aspects were preserved in other systems such as Hindu traditional medicine, Ayurveda, as well as Chinese traditional medicine, Acupuncture and modern Tai Chi and Qigong.

In the 18th century, Western alchemy was in decline due to the birth of modern chemistry, which detached itself from religion and spirituality, and embraced a more precise and empirical framework based on the scientific method. Alchemy was then generally understood to mean “gold making”, which gave rise to the popular belief that alchemy is charlatanism and superstition. Poor translations of adulterated documents with esoteric and spiritualistic interpretations also contributed to alchemy’s decline.

Alchemy is still practiced today by a small number of practitioners who focused symbolic and spiritual aspects of alchemy, combined with a “New Age” approach. Some alchemical techniques are still actively practiced in traditional medicine, using a combination of pharmacological and spiritual techniques. Many secret societies, such as the Freemasons and Rosecrucians have also always been interested in alchemical symbolism.

Alchemy’s influence on modern science

Alchemy made important contributions to metalworking, refining, production of gunpowder, ceramics, glass, ceramics, ink, dyes, paints, cosmetics, extracts, liquors etc. Alchemists conceptualized chemical elements into the first rudimentary periodic tables and introduced the process of distillation to Western Europe. They were also among the first to extract metals from ores and compose various inorganic acids and bases.

Some examples:
Sulfuric acid was first described (approx. 1300 AD) by the alchemist, Pseudo-Geber. Sulfuric acid is the most used substance in chemical industries today after water, air, coal and oil.
The alchemist Andreas Libavius (1555 – 1616 AD) was the first to describe the preparation of free hydrochloric acid, of tin tetrachloride, and of ammonium sulfate.
Libravius and Pseudo-Geber described the preparation of aqua regia (“royal water”), a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, which can dissolve gold.
The alchemist Albertus Magnus (1193-1280 AD) is often credited for the discovery of arsenic, although it was probably known to earlier alchemists.
Chinese alchemists invented gunpowder or black powder in the 9th century.
Indian alchemy made important contributions to metallurgy. High-quality, high carbon steel was already being produced in India between 300-200 BC, and was exported throughout Asia and Europe.

A replica of Libavius’ laboratory

But there is much more than early chemistry to the story.

Alchemy was influential in the formulation of Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and universal gravitation, as well as in his work on optics. Alchemy is also central to Jung’s idea of the Collective Unconscious. Much of the vast array of symbols used in alchemy draws from the Collective Unconscious of the West. The history of alchemy is very complex, and it is impossible to even scratch the surface in this article.

Next week, we’ll focus on Western alchemy, a tradition that began in ancient Alexandria and eventually emerged in medieval Europe, in order to elaborate on some central concepts and figures: Hermetic philosophy, Hermes Trismegistus and some of the key surviving texts, such as the legendary Emerald Tablet.

THE SPACED-OUT SCIENTIST
Spaced-out thoughts from a mystical scientist
A CANADIAN SITE

Circumambulating the Alchemical Mysterium

AARON CHEAK, PHD

The following article is reproduced from my book, Alchemical Traditions. 

‘One is the serpent whose poison is doubly composed’ — Cleopatra.

A L C H E M Y  may be described, in the words of Baudelaire, as a process of ‘distilling the eternal from the transient’. [1] As the art of transmutation par excellence, the classical applications of alchemy have always been twofold: chrysopoeia and apotheosis (gold-making and god-making)—the perfection of metals and mortals. In seeking to turn ‘poison into wine’, alchemy, like tantra, engages material existence—often at its most dissolute or corruptible—in order to transform it into a vehicle of liberation. Like theurgy, it seeks not only personal liberation—the redemption of the soul from the cycles of generation and corruption—but also the liberation (or perfection) of nature herself through participation in the cosmic demiurgy. In its highest sense, therefore, alchemy conforms to what Lurianic kabbalists would call tikkun, the restoration of the world.

Almost invariably, the earliest alchemical texts describe procedures for creating elixirs of immortality—of extracting transformative essences from physical substances in order to render metals golden and mortals divine. Through this, the earliest alchemists innovated physical processes such as distillation and fermentation, extraction and refinement, and the analysis and synthesis of various chemical substances. However, it must not be forgotten that the earliest contexts of ‘material’ alchemy were not proto-scientific, but ritualistic. Whether one looks at the Taiqing (Great Clarity) tradition of third-to-sixth century China, the Siddha traditions of early medieval India, or the magical and theurgical milieux of Hellenistic Egypt, the most concrete alchemical practices were always inseparable from ritual invocations to and supplications of the divinities whose ranks the alchemist wished to enter. Moreover, in east and west alike, the alchemical techniques themselves were allegedly passed down from divinity to humanity. Alchemy was a divine art (hieratikē technē).

Whether stemming from the entheogenic properties of physical elixirs, or developing independently, the desire to encounter the divine directly through inner experience (gnōsis, jnāna) was soon cultivated via internal practices of a meditative or metaphysiological character. Here the elixir began to be generated within the vessels of the human body in order to transform it into an alchemical body of glory. Thus, the two basic traditions—external and internal alchemy; neidan and waidan, laboratory and oratory—can, in the final analysis, be regarded as complimentary approaches to the same end: the attainment of perfection through liberation from conditioned existence.

Despite these generalising remarks, and despite the unusual aptness of Baudelaire’s phrase, it must nevertheless be conceded that the effort to define alchemy to everyone’s satisfaction may well be impossible. On one hand, alchemy needs to be defined in a way that encapsulates the living breadth and depth of the world’s alchemical traditions. On the other hand, such a definition must also be internally consistent with the many specific, historically contingent (and at timescontradictory) expressions of alchemy. Moreover, the very attempt to strike such a ‘golden mean’ between the universal and particular, between the ‘synchronic’ and the ‘diachronic’, is something of an alchemical act in and of itself—the elusive, indeed transformative, point where ‘art’ becomes science and ‘science’, art. In this respect, alchemy may well be seen to inhere precisely in such ‘nodal points of qualitative change’ (as Jack Lindsay called them in his landmark study of Graeco-Egyptian alchemy), [2] or in instances of ‘qualitative exaltation’ (as the twentieth-century alchemist, René Schwaller de Lubicz, described them with regards to the ‘teratological proliferations’ of biological species). [3]

Rather than offer a single, rigid definition (which will quickly become restrictive), what I would like to do in this introduction is present a series of linguistic, historiographical, and phenomenological ‘circumambulations’ around the alchemical mysterium. In so doing, I seek to trace some of the more salient contours of the alchemical landscape, and, if possible, glimpse the presence of its elusive ‘centre’. One of the merits of approaching alchemy by circumambulation is that it affords a much wider circumscription of the phenomenon than the narrowly fixed parameters of disciplinal specificity usually permit; it therefore allows a more eidetic or phenomenological insight to develop—an approach that, in German philosophical traditions, is seen to promote actual understanding (Verstehen) rather mere explanation (Erklären). [4] As Hans Thomas Hakl points out in a recent study of Julius Evola’s alchemical works, circumambulatio is precisely the approach taken in order to engender an actual experience of the realities that allegedly underpin the multiplicity of Hermetic symbols. [5] It is, potentially, a method of ‘knowledge by presence’ rather than simple ‘representational knowledge’. Of course, such approaches, which are fundamentally morphological in their method, are also ahistorical in character, and so what must be offered here is not an exclusivelyphenomenological approach, but a circumambulation that is also tempered in the fires of historical rigour. Such an approach, in my experience, is fundamentally more balanced than either of the extremes.

At the same time, it must be recognised that there is an inherent tension to this balance; a tension that requires one to embrace a Heraclitean ‘harmony of contraries’ between deeply opposed methodologies. In circumambulating a centre, whether as an ‘essentialist’ or ‘relativist’, the ultimate nature of the centre, indeed the substantial existence of the centre itself, must remain an open question. As the Dao de Jingremarks, ‘thirty spokes meet in the hub of the wheel, but the function of the wheel is in the empty part’. Without the concrete spokes of empirical-historical data, we may not become aware of the centre, and yet this centre, which is empty, is precisely the function (the phenomenological Verstehen) around which the spokes revolve, giving them their form, their function and thus their meaning. Both aspects are interdependent and both must be equally accounted for. Thus, before we open up to any deeper phenomenological perceptions, our circumambulations must begin by first situating alchemy in its concrete historical-linguistic and historiographic contexts.

AL-KIMIYA

Etymologies

The historical purview of what came to be called alchemy includes an undeniable current of influence stemming from Pharaonic and Hellenistic Egypt on one hand, and another stemming from ancient China, medieval India and Tibet on the other―currents that appear to have cross-fertilised before converging in Arabic alchemy, whence the term proper: al-kīmiyā. [6] Scholars have long known that the word alchemy points to an Arabic transmission (alkīmiyā becomes Spanishalquimia, Latin alchimia, French alchimie, German Alchemie, etc.) [7] The Arabic definite article al- points clearly to this, yet the precise origin of the lexeme kīmiyā is far from certain. Academic consensus has generally favoured Greek sources, notably those published by Marcellin Berthelot, [8] suggesting an origin from the term chyma(‘that which is poured out’; ‘flows, fluid’; ‘ingot, bar’; metaphorically, ‘confused mass, aggregate, crowd’; ‘materials, constituents’), whence chymeia, ‘the art of alloying metals’) named from its supposed inventor, Chymēs. [9] As Harris observes in his 1704 Lexicon Technicum:

Chymisty, is variously defined, but the design of this Art is to separate usefully the Purer Parts of any mix’d Body from the more Gross and Impure. It seems probably to be derived from the Greek word chymos, which signifies a Juice, or the purer Substance of a mix’d Body; though some will have it to come from cheein, to melt. It is also called the Spagyrick, Hermetick, and Pyrotechnick Art, as also by some Alchymy. [10]

The idea of fluid essences, extracts or elixirs is clearly central to the alchemical purview, and as will be seen throughout this volume, it is also inherent to the very names for alchemy in Chinese and Indo-Tibetan traditions (Chinese dao jindan, Sanskrit rasāyana, Tibetan bcud len). In addition, the Greek etymology distinctly emphasises the idea of metallic fusibility, and the idea that metals are fundamentallyfusible entities proves central to the alchemical perception. The word ‘metal’ itself (metallon, metalleion) is homophonous with—and most likely derived from—a whole series of words indicating ‘transformation’, such as metalloiōsis, which is formed from the preposition meta– (‘between, with, after; taking a different position or state’) and the substantive alloiōsis (‘alteration’ or ‘change’). [11]

Whether derived from chyma, chymeia, Chymēs, or chymos, the term alchemy appears to come to the Latin west from late Greek sources through the same kinds of channels that preserved Platonic and Aristotelian texts, in Arabic translation, after the fall of the Greek Academy. While the lines of historical transmission are well known, matters are not quite as simple as they first appear. Egyptologists and Sinologists have both brought forward diverging evidence that the origins of alchemy lay not in Greece but in the Ancient Near or Far East.

The Egyptian Etymology

In addition to the Greek etymology, the root kīmiyā has also been traced to the Egyptian name for Egypt, km.t (Coptic keme, kēmi), which Plutarch gives as chēmia,‘the blackest earth’ (malista melangeion). [12] The implications of this etymology are explored in detail elsewhere in this volume. [13] Suffice it to say for now that a wealth of theological and cosmological significations deeply pertinent to alchemy emerge from Plutarch’s identification of the name of Egypt with not only the blackness of the soil, but also with the blackness of the pupil of the eye. On a basic, symbolic level, this coheres with the fact that the Nilotic black earth, which literally (and geographically) defined Egypt, was fertile soil—the perfect receptor of life-giving seed; in the same way, the transparent openness that forms the pupil of the eye is the perfect receptor of light.

As will be seen, these significations directly tie the early conception of alchemy to genuine Egyptian theological conceptions on one hand, and to the Greek Hermetic corpus on the other, a point that has already been articulated in some detail by Erik Iversen with regard to the Memphite cosmology of the Shabaka stone and its clear recapitulation in the Corpus Hermeticum itself. [14] Furthermore, as the late Algis Uždavinys makes abundantly clear, this current of alchemy cannot be divorced from the numerous morphological continuities that exist between Egyptian mortuary cult on one hand, and Homeric, Orphic, Pythagorean, Platonic and hieratic Neoplatonic traditions on the other. [15] And as scholars such as Peter Kingsley have shown, these morphological connections are not merely apparent: they are deeply rooted in a fine web of mutual historical and geographical interactions between the initiatic traditions not only of Egypt itself, but those of southern Italy and Sicily (whence the Pythagorean current that would retain such a strong presence in the Hermetic tradition down through the centuries, from Bolus of Mendes to the Turba Philosophorum). [16]

The Chinese Origin of the Chem- Etymon

Joseph Needham, in the alchemical volumes of his magisterial Science and Civilisation in China, makes a very plausible case for the Greek and Arabic borrowing of the Chinese term jin (‘gold’) or jin i (‘gold juice, gold ferment’), terms explicitly linked to aurifaction, aurifiction and elixirs for perfecting bodies, all of which appears to place kīmiyā in an original context not only of Taoist metallurgical practices, but also of traditions of physical immortality (macrobiotics). [17] After one of the most lucid and thorough surveys of the existing etymological evidence for alchemy, Needham, concludes:

If some have found an influence of jin (kiem) on chēmeia (chimeia, chymeia) difficult to accept, there has been less desire to question its influence on al-kīmiyā. No Arabic etymologist ever produced a plausible derivation of the word from Semitic roots, and there is the further point that both jin i and kīmiyā could and did mean an actual substance or elixir as well as the art of making elixirs, while chēmeia does not seem to have been used as a concrete noun of that kind. We are left with the possibility that the name of the Chinese ‘gold art’, crystallised in the syllable jin(kiem), spread over the length and breadth of the Old World, evoking first the Greek terms for chemistry and then, indirectly or directly, the Arabic one. [18]

Needham makes it saliently clear that alchemy is not simply a product of Hellenistic culture. Although it is difficult to accept an exclusively Chinese origin for alchemy, the copious evidence adduced by Needham and his collaborators over four large volumes irrevocably transforms (and complicates) the overall picture of the genesis of alchemy. In short, not only must one come to terms with the Ancient Near Eastern influence upon Hellenistic and Islamicate alchemical traditions, one must also contend with the Ancient Far Eastern influences upon the intellectual and technical history of alchemy. This is especially pertinent given the attested lines of cultural exchange between the Asian, European and African landmasses along the Silk Road, which were established during the Han Dynasty (206 bce – 220 ce).

The most important Chinese term for alchemy was jindan, or ‘golden elixir’, which was conceived in both an external sense (as a macrobiogen) and an internal sense (as a spiritual embryo). [19] Jindan also referred especially to cinnabar, the red salt of sulphur and mercury, and the raw ingredient from which mercury was refined. As such, cinnabar points to one of the most ancient and pervasive mineral theophanies of the world’s alchemical traditions: the marriage of mineral sulphur and metallic mercury to form a red crystalline stone (mercuric sulphide). Around this naturally occurring substance, multiple layers of historical, cultural and mythological meaning would accrue not only in Chinese and Indo-Tibetan but also in Islamicate and European alchemical traditions.

With regard to our previous remarks on metal as a quintessentially fluid substance, it may also be added here that in ancient Chinese cosmology, metal (for which jin was also a generic term) was regarded as one of the five elements (wu xing); not only was it regarded as the ‘mother’ of the water element, the metal element itself was defined precisely by its double capacity to melt and to solidify into new form (as in a mould).[20] This ability to revert from a solid form to an amorphous or liquid state, and back again, is a very important principle. In the western alchemical canon it would inhere in the formula: solve et coagula, ‘dissolve and coagulate’, a formula that possesses deep symbolic value in regards to ontologies of ‘flux’ and ‘permanence’ (pointing to a more paradoxical ontology embracing both ‘permanence in flux’ and ‘flux in permanence’). It also underscores the universal value almost unanimously given to mercury as the ‘essence’ of metals. For next to gold and cinnabar, mercury figures as the most universal of all alchemical substances in eastern and western traditions alike. When alchemically refined, moreover, it came to be regarded less as a ‘substance’ per se, as more as the underlying principle of pure sublimity—of absolute volatility—with the unique power to penetrate and transform all things, especially minerals and metals (the most dense things).

HISTORIOGRAPHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Due to the very nature of the topic, the study of alchemy has bordered on a surprisingly large number of disciplines. Generally, and significantly, it may be said to straddle both the history of science and the history of religions. Moreover, due to the wide, cross-cultural purview of alchemy, these dual histories have converged in Egyptological, Sinological, Classical, Islamic, Indo-Tibetan, medieval western, early modern and modern western contexts. [21] More recently, following the efforts of scholars such as Antoine Faivre, alchemy has become a topos in the history of western esotericism (i.e. the history of Hermeticism, gnosis, alchemy and related currents), which has become increasingly established as an academic discipline. [22]

As in other areas, scholars have started to speak less of ‘alchemy’ and more of ‘alchemies’, and an increasing effort has been made to distinguish and contextualise the individual currents or expressions of alchemy over and against the idea of alchemy as a sweeping, monolithic tradition. With this distinction comes the recognition that the idea of alchemy as a single, unified phenomenon is more the product of an esoteric interpretation of history (e.g. metahistory or hierohistory) rather than a strictly empirical description of historical phenomena. The idea of a Hermetic or alchemical ‘tradition’ thus says as much about the formulation of esoteric identity as it does about the complex historical and social vicissitudes of the phenomenon in question; [23] and yet, as Kingsley has noted, the idea of Hermeticism itself is bound precisely to a tradition of interpretation and translation (hermēneus) between traditions. [24] Moreover, as Faivre has noted, alchemy, like magic and astrology, evinces a strong cross-cultural character. With these considerations in mind, it is important to speak of alchemical traditions in the plural to emphasise the diversity and uniqueness of the different historical expressions of alchemy; this is not to preclude the possibility that broader unities may be discerned among them, but simply to ensure that they do not displace the individual care and attention that each current or tradition requires in order to be understood on its own terms. At the same time, grand, unifying perspectives, often unpopular in the post-modern academy, should not be abandoned, for they provide important heuristic tools that help elucidate and coordinate deeper thematic and morphological integrities.

Because a large part of the historiography of alchemy has typically been formulated within the context of the history of science, and because a virulent polemic against alchemy was pivotal to the establishment of a rationalised science, this has resulted in an overwhelmingly positivist and dualistic intellectual heritage in the study of alchemy. In the one-sided criticism advanced by positivist histories of science, alchemy is summarily dismissed as merely erroneous proto-chemistry. Fortunately, much of the effort in the historiography of alchemy over the past fifty years has been successful in slowly dismantling this lingering attitude so that more balanced perspectives have been able to prevail. [25]

Misconceptions in the historiography of alchemy from the perspective of science are, of course, matched by those advanced from the perspective of religion and spirituality. With the turn of the scientific revolution towards the end of the seventeenth century, alchemy and chemistry, previously synonymous under the term chymistry, were vociferously differentiated and, although the esoteric rhetoric of alchemy continued, its operative aspect was largely (though by no means entirely) abandoned. [26] By the Victorian era, this current culminated in the works of Mary Anne Atwood and the affirmation of an exclusively spiritual alchemy in which the operative element would be dismissed entirely. [27] ‘There is no evidence’, remarks Principe, ‘that a majority, or even a significant fraction of pre-18th century European alchemical writers and practitioners saw their work as anything other than natural philosophical in character, as even the prolific occult writer, A. E. Waite (1857–1942) was forced to admit toward the end of his career in 1926’. [28] Such remarks are useful for establishing broad lines of development, and while on the large accurate, must also be taken with a grain of salt, especially in light of statements by pre-eighteenth century alchemists such as Stephanos of Alexandria (seventh century), who explicitly emphasises intellectual and theological aims, most notably in his admonition: ‘Put away the material theory so that you may be deemed worthy to see with your intellectual eyes the hidden mystery’. [29] (This counter-example is important, for Stephanos’ work is explicitly linked to the Byzantine and Arabic traditions that form the foundations of European alchemy).

Despite such nuances, many scholars remain increasingly critical of not only the spiritual interpretations of alchemy popular in the nineteenth century, but also the psychological interpretations of alchemy that emerged in the twentieth. The scholarly discontent with these interpretations appears to derive from the fact that they strongly colour many people’s assumptions about alchemy. These scholars therefore see themselves as undertaking the ‘continuous dismantling of erroneous views of alchemy promulgated since the Enlightenment which have, despite their dubious qualifications and origins, deeply tinctured a major part of the literature on alchemy written during the 19th and 20th centuries’. [30] Such attitudes are particularly directed against the very influential work of Carl Jung, for whom processes in the alchemical vessel are a screen for the archetypal projections of the psyche. [31] Not surprisingly, Jung has come under increasing historical criticism in this regard; Lawrence M. Principe, for instance, has suggested that the work of Jung is merely an extension of the ‘deleterious outgrowth’ of Victorian occultism. [32]Principe, whose own area of specialty is early modern European alchemy, is particularly critical of the occult-spiritual and psychological interpretations as he finds them in especial contrast to his findings in the works of early modernchymists, such as Starkey, Philalethes, Boyle, and Newton, among others.

While the excesses of the spiritualist and psychological interpretations are recognisable when circumscribed to their proper contexts, this by no means precludes more nuanced approaches to the question of psychological and spiritual alchemies. In this respect, in the early modern period alone, some of Principe and Newman’s own oversimplifications have been countered by the more nuanced studies of the spiritual dimension in early modern alchemy proffered by scholars such as Hereward Tilton, who observes: ‘The historiography proposed by Principe and Newman can only be upheld by portraying early modern laboratory alchemy as purely ‘chemical’ research (conceived in crypto-positivist terms), and by erasing from history the development of alchemical thought subsequent to the seventeenth century. For researchers in the history of western esotericism, this modus operandiis entirely inadequate’. [33] Indeed, too rigid an insistence on an overtly or exclusively operative alchemy cannot be sustained nor extended beyond its proper contexts, any more than can an exclusively spiritual alchemy; this becomes especially evident once one steps outside the relatively narrow period of early modern and modern western Europe, whereupon the picture changes drastically. The broader picture offered by the history of religions opens up a far deeper perspective on the relationship between operative and spiritual alchemies. David Gordon White’s magisterial study of rasāyana siddha traditions in Medieval India, for instance, lays bare a blatantly alchemical world in which the transmutation of the mortal human body into an immortal, divine body was explicitly homologised with metallurgical transmutations according to the formula: ‘as in metals, so in the body’. [34] Here, the whole elixir tradition takes centre stage, the origins of which take us back to the deeply Taoist alchemy of ancient China, which, per the work of Needham, Sivin and Pregadio, shows no contradiction at all between the inner (neidan) and outer (waidan) elixirs. [35] The case becomes even more explicit in the Tibetan Buddhist alchemy of the Kalacakra Tantra, in which metallurgical, medicinal, and metaphysical aims are thoroughly intertwined; here, metallurgical and botanical processes are used in the creation of iatrochemical elixirs designed to prolong life not for its own sake, but in order to ‘buy time’ to achieve liberation in life (jivanmukti) through the actualisation of the initiate’s Buddha Nature (buddha-dhātu,tathāgatagarbha). [36] Elsewhere, the work of Henry Corbin on the Persian alchemist Jaldakī shows the deep insistence that was placed in Islamicate tradition on alchemy as an ars hieratica, and the distinct relationship that was seen to exist between the metallurgical process, the animation of statues, and the creation of a resurrection body. [37]

The deep relationship that emerges here between metallurgical and physiological processes all pertain strongly to the hidden continuity between all bodies, from the mineral to the divine. Therefore, inasmuch as general statements about alchemy are to be advanced cautiously, if at all, the fact that alchemy has traditionally been studied from the twin vantages of the history of science and the history of religions appears to reflect a strong tendency in alchemy toward the unification of the material and the spiritual.

READ ON http://www.aaroncheak.com/circumambulating

Alchemy in the Making: From ancient Babylonia via Graeco-Roman Egypt into the Byzantine, Syriac and Arabic traditions (1500 BCE – 1000 AD)

ALCHEMEAST

HTTPS://ALCHEMEAST.EU/

Acronym: AlchemEast

The AlchemEast project is devoted to the study of alchemical theory and practice as it appeared and developed in distinct, albeit contiguous (both chronologically and geographically) areas: Graeco-Roman Egypt, Byzantium, and the Near East, from ancient Babylonian times to the early Islamic period. This project combines innovative textual investigations with experimental replications of ancient alchemical procedures. It uses sets of historically and philologically informed laboratory replications in order to reconstruct the actual practice of ancient alchemists, and it studies the texts and literary forms in which this practice was conceptualized and transmitted. It proposes new models for textual criticism in order to capture the fluidity of the transmission of ancient alchemical writings.


AlchemEast is designed to write the so far untold first chapters of the history of ancient alchemy. In fact, medieval scholars of Western Europe did not invent alchemy from scratch, but they reshaped an existing millennium-old tradition. AlchemEast will focus on the two and a half millennia that precede the conventional medieval origins of alchemy; it will look backwards and explore:
the Babylonian proto-alchemy,
the origins of alchemy in the Graeco-Roman Egypt,
its reception in the Byzantine handbooks,
the different forms in which Syriac and Arabic scholars repackaged the earlier tradition.

AlchemEast’s Chronological Framework (1500 BCE – 1000 AD)


AlchemEast will move the origins of alchemy back in time by looking east. Up to now, the Eastern alchemical tradition has only been superficially investigated. Even these few attempts were often led astray by out-of-date historical paradigms. Medieval and early modern alchemy has been often labelled as a ‘pseudo-science’ and described as a set of foolish attempts to transform base metals into gold.


AlchemEast will dismantle this pejorative paradigm. Ancient alchemy, in fact, went far beyond the making of gold, since it included a wide spectrum of techniques for manipulating row materials in order to produce dyed metals, artificial gemstones, coloured glass, purple textiles, and a variety of chemical compounds. The project will fully explore these techniques and investigate how they were described and conceptualized in dialogue with contiguous areas of expertise.

AlchemEast’s Geographical Framework


Particular attention will be devoted to the intersections between alchemy and medicine as well as alchemy and natural philosophy. Both alchemy and medicine, for instance, developed specific criteria for the classification of substances and their properties; ancient alchemical compendia include sections from the works of important physicians, who are even presented as distinguished alchemists in some instances. The explanations of specific dyeing procedures and the transformations that they were expected to produce were often developed in the framework of specific theories of matter. Moreover, alchemists sought to produce materials that were ontologically equivalent to the natural substances, suppressing the contrast between the realms of natural and artificial. These transformations were even conceptualized as a possible way of perfecting the work of nature in a dynamic interaction of alchemy with Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, and Hermeticism. Alchemical practices were therefore embedded in networks of theoretical assumptions, beliefs, and philosophical commitments, which were historically influenced by different milieux.

In order to fully reconstruct these networks, we will carry out a comparative investigation of cuneiform tablets as well as a vast corpus of Greek, Syriac and Arabic writings. We will produce reliable editions of so far unstudied alchemical sources in Akkadian, Greek, Syriac and Arabic. We will write a new history of alchemical ideas and practices in Antiquity, in order to provide an integrative, longue durée perspective on the many different phases of ancient alchemy. We will carry out philologically informed replications of ancient alchemical processes in order to restore the operational basis of ancient alchemy and anchor ancient alchemical texts in their chemical reality.

The project will thus offer a radically new vision of ancient alchemy as a dynamic and diversified art that developed across different technical and scholastic traditions. This new representation will allow us to connect ancient alchemy with medieval and early modern alchemy and thus fully reintegrate ancient alchemy in the history of pre-modern alchemy as well as in the history of science more broadly.

Near Eastern origins of Graeco-Egyptian Alchemy - MPIGW 2014
Article (PDF Available) · November 2014
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328809940_Near_Eastern_origins_of_Graeco-Egyptian_Alchemy_-_MPIGW_2014
Maddalena Rumor
Case Western Reserve University
Matteo Martelli


Graeco-Egyptian Alchemy in Byzantium
Michèle Mertens
University of Liège

https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/14188/1/205-230%20M.%20Mertens1.pdf

The main concern of this paper will be with the problems raised by
the reception of ancient alchemy in Byzantium. After a brief
introduction, I will start from the study of a pre-Byzantine author,
Zosimos of Panopolis, and deal with the following questions : How,
from a purely material viewpoint, were Zosimos’ writings handed
down during the Byzantine period? Did Byzantine alchemists have
access to his works and did they resort to them? Was Zosimos
known outside the alchemical Corpus; in other words, 
did GraecoEgyptian alchemists exert any kind of influence outside strictly
alchemical circles? When and how was the alchemical Corpus put
together? In a more general way, what evidence do we have,
whether in the Corpus itself or in non-alchemical literature, that
alchemy was practised in Byzantium? Answers (or at least partial
answers) to these questions should help us to understand and define
to some extent the place held by the ‘sacred art’ in Byzantium

Matteo Martelli (2017) Translating Ancient Alchemy: Fragments of Graeco-Egyptian Alchemy in Arabic Compendia, Ambix, 64:4, 326-342, DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2017.1412137 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00026980.2017.1412137

Episode 86: Matteo Martelli on the Pseudo-Democritus
Download audio file (mp3)


The author known as Democritus wrote four books some time in the first century CE: one book on gold, one on silver, one on gemstones, and one on dying techniques. These became one of the seminal documents of the alchemical tradition. None of them survives in its entirety, but we have extensive fragments, which allow us to see, to some degree, what the Pseudo-Democritus was up to. His works became one of the most important canonical sources for later alchemists, and he became a legendary figure.

We discuss how our Democritus became confused with Democritus of Abdera, the famous atomist philosopher of the fifth century BCE. We then look at two other important figures of the very early alchemical tradition, Bolus of Mendes (an Egyptian who lived some time probably in the second century BCE who wrote works on natural sympathies and antipathies and on artificial substances (χειρόκμητα)), and Ostanes, legendary Persian sage and alleged teacher of Democritus, both of whom represent earlier forays into natural science which fed into Democritus’ alchemical work.

Finally, Professor Martelli expands on the alchemical theory found in the Four Books: the concept of Nature is central, but is a multivalent and subtle category with several distinct usages. The four qualities (hot, cold, wet, and dry) are present as basic states of nature, following the Hippocratic and Aristotelean traditions, bringing about sympathies and antipathies in natural substances. We finish with a discussion of the anecdote wherein Democritus’ teacher dies without revealing the final secret of alchemy to him. Democritus then raises his spirit to question him, and learns that the secret has been hidden in an Egyptian temple, though its exact whereabouts remain obscure. Luckily, however, the temple collapses, revealing the message hidden within a pillar:

Nature delights in Nature. Nature overcomes Nature. Nature rules Nature.
Interview Bio:

Matteo Martelli is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Communication at the oldest university in the world, the University of Bologna. He has published widely on alchemy, specialising in early alchemy in particular, and heads the ERC research-project AlchemEast: Alchemy in the Making: From Ancient Babylonia via Graeco-Roman Egypt into the Byzantine, Syriac and Arabic traditions (1500 BCE -1000 AD).

Recommended Reading:

Check out Matteo Martelli’s many fascinating publications on ancient alchemy, some of which can be found on his Academia page. Also check out the ambitious AlchemEast project,’ of which he is the director, which is putting our understanding of the ‘lost centuries’ of alchemy on a much firmer footing, and keep your eye on the publishing project, Sources of Alchemy and Chemistry, from which we expect great things.
Joseph Bidez and Franz Cumont. Les mages hellénisés: Zoroastre, Ostanès et Hystaspe d’après la tradition grecque. Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1938.
Robert Halleux and Henri-Dominique Saffrey. Les alchimistes Grecs. Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 1981.
Jackson P. Hershbell. ‘Democritus and the Beginnings of Greek Alchemy’. Ambix, 34: 5–20, 1987.
Jack Lindsay. The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt. Barnes & Noble, New York, 1970.
Matteo Martelli. ‘“Divine Water” in the Alchemical Writings of Pseudo-Democritus’. Ambix, 56(1):5–22, 2009.
Idem. ‘Greek Alchemists at Work: ‘Alchemical Laboratory’ in the Greco-Roman Egypt’. Nuncius, 26:271–311, 2011.
Idem. The Four Books of Pseudo-Democritus. Sources of Alchemy and Chemistry: Sir Robert Mond Studies in the History of Early Chemistry Volume 1. Maney Publishing, Leeds, 2013.
F.S. Taylor. ‘A Survey of Greek Alchemy’. Journal of Hellenic Studies, 50:109–139, 1930.

Https://shwep.net/podcast/matteo-martelli-on-the-pseudo-democritus/

THE RECIPES PROJECT
Food, Magic, Art, Science, and About
Editorial Team
Credits
POSTED ON 31/10/2018 BY LISA SMITH

Alchemical Recipes in the AlchemEast Projet

By Matteo Martelli

What makes a recipe alchemical? Its inclusion in an alchemical treatise, one might suggest. Indeed, naïve as it may sound, such a simple answer opens an interesting perspective from which to look at the ancient alchemical traditionThe arliest alchemical writings produced in Graeco-Roman Egypt (1st-2nd c. AD) include recipes that describe a variety of techniques for dyeing and manipulating the natural world – a spectrum of practices that goes far beyond simple attempts to produce gold out of ‘vile’ metals. Some of these techniques, ancient authors claim, were inherited from the Egyptian or Babylonian tradition; others reached Byzantium or Baghdad, often through translations of Greek texts into Syriac and Arabic.

This long-lasting tradition is as fluid as the boundaries of ancient alchemy. By mapping the specific practices and recipes detailed in each alchemical work, it will be possible to investigate changing ideas of alchemy over time as well as how these ideas responded to specific technological settings. On top of that, it will also be possible to follow the trajectories of single recipes which moved across works written in different languages or pertaining to different disciplines, such as medicine or natural philosophy.

Cinnabar (from the Monte Amiata mine, Tuscany) and metallic mercury

But let’s take an example from a set of texts that are being investigated in the framework of the ERC project AlchemEast, acronym for “Alchemy in the Making From ancient Babylonia via Graeco-Roman Egypt into the Byzantine, Syriac and Arabic traditions (1500 BCE – 1000 AD)”. Ancient natural philosophers and physicians recorded specific techniques for extracting mercury from cinnabar, its natural ore.

In his book On stones, Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle as head of the Lyceum, explained that it is possible to produce mercury by grinding cinnabar with vinegar in a copper mortar with a copper pestle.[1] The same procedure is described by Pliny the Elder, in book 32 of his Natural History, where the medical uses of minerals – mercury included! – are illustrated (NH 32.123).

Modern chemists noticed that these accounts actually described a mechano-chemical reaction between copper and cinnabar, a mercury sulfide: copper would react with sulfur, thus liberating free metallic mercury (chemically speaking, a redox reaction).[2] With the assistance of Lucia Maini and Massimo Gandolfi, two chemists of the AlchemEast team, we did replicate the technique with some adjustments. Rather than using a copper mortar – which proved to be very difficult to find in the shops that supply chemical labs today! – we decided to use a ceramic mortar where to grind pure cinnabar, acetic acid and copper powder.

Pure cinnabar, acetic acid and copper powder in a ceramic mortar

After grinding the mixture for a while, we were actually able to produce a layer of blackish powder (a mixture of metacinnabar and copper sulfide) on which a few drops of ‘dirty’ mercury were moving.

Mercury “floating” on a blackish layer of residues

The same procedure is described in ancient alchemical texts as well. The Graeco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis (3rd-4th century AD) credits legendary figures, such as Maria the Jewess or Chymes, the eponymous hero of alchemy (called chymeia in Antiquity), with the use of similar technique for grinding cinnabar with vinegar in a lead or tin mortar.[3] Different metals were therefore used. In the lab, we actually tried to use tin rather than copper powder, thus obtaining a shiny mercury-tin amalgam.

Mercury-tin amalgam

We may preliminarily observe how this extraction technique was a kind of transdisciplinary know-how, shared by experts in different fields. A certain degree of variation is detectable in alchemical texts, which mention various metals. Moreover, ancient alchemists believed that mercury could be extracted from any metallic (or even mineral) body: did this idea in some way depend on the empirical evidence they tried to conceptualize when treating cinnabar with a variety of metals?

This kind of questions are at the basis of the AlchemEast project, which explores ancient recipes from a double angle: as textual units that travelled over time and space; as invaluable windows on a wide spectrum of real practices and techniques. Textual criticism, replications, and historical investigations are critical keys to unlock ancient alchemical sources, from Babylonian tablets to Greek, Syriac and Arabic manuscripts. This post is only a first, tentative attempt to illustrate how we applied this method, a preliminary result of our investigation, which, needless to say, is still “in the making.” We plan to continue keeping you posted in the following months.


[1] David E. Eichholz, Theophrastus, De Lapidibus, edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 81.
[2] Lazlo Takacs, “Quicksilver from Cinnabar. The First Documented Mechanochemical Reaction?” JOM. Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, 52 (2000): 12-13.
[3] Marcelin Berthelot and Charles-Émile Ruelle, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (Paris: G. Steinheil, 1887-1888), vol. 2, 172. Part of Zosimus’ writings is only preserved in Syriac translation, where one finds further interesting details: cinnabar must be ground in the sun; copper filings are added to cinnabar and vinegar before grinding. The Syriac books of Zosimus will be published within the AlchemEast project.

History of Alchemy from Early to Middle Ages

Term Paper (Advanced Seminar), 1997

13 Pages, Grade: 1.5 (A)

T B 

TORSTEN BOCK (AUTHOR)

Free online reading

contents

Introductory remarks

1. The dawn of Alchemy
1.1. The word Alchemy
1.2. Legendary origins of alchemy
1.3. The oldest written sources

2. Alchemy in the West
2.1. Egypt
1.2. The Hellenistic era
2.3. The Arabic era
2.4. The Christian Middle Ages

3. Alchemy in the Far East
3.1. China
3.2. India and Tibet

Concluding remarks

Selected bibliography

Introductory remarks

This paper seeks to investigate the origins and the history of Alchemy. Almost no art or science has been subject to such controversial discussion over centuries than alchemy. It must be said that the alchemists themselves very much contributed to this controversy by keeping their recipes and practices secret. Because of the highly encrypted language and the excessive use of symbols and pictures in many alchemical treatises and works it really does not make wonder that alchemy became denounced as pseudo-science, deception and quite in a few cases even as folly. However, on the other hand there were a number of famous and learned men who seriously believed in alchemy and its possibilities. Also it should not be forgotten that alchemy was the mother of modern chemistry and many alchemists, though by mere chance, discovered on their quest for gold chemical processes and substances that are still in use. Mentioning gold is not to say that this was the one and only aim of all alchemists. As we shall see, alchemists throughout the world actually strove for three aims: wealth, i.e. making and multiplying of gold, silver, and precious stones; longevity, i.e. the panacea universalis, a substance that cures all illnesses; immortality, i.e. the elixir of life which restores youth at any given age.1

In this paper I will try to present the appearances of alchemy in a chronological order, however sometimes it will be necessary to abandon this way because of the parallel development of alchemy in very different regions. Also of interest will be some of the main theories and their development and finally important representatives of alchemy.

1. The dawn of Alchemy

1.1. The word Alchemy

Scholars are not yet sure where the word alchemy actually originates from. The Arabic prefix al- was put in front of an, apparently, much older word. Burckhardt2 traces chemy back to Old Egyptian k ê me/ch ê me = 'black soil' ,which is a name for Egypt, or just 'black' . An argument for that theory is that alchemy later sometimes was named Egyptian Art. According to other theories the word was coined by the Greek alchemists in Alexandria. In Greek it is P0:,^", meaning the stirring of the melted metal. It was then applied to the whole art. Yet another possible origin of the word is in the field of legends to which I will come in the following.

1.2. Legendary origins of alchemy

Basically there are three legends going around about the origin of alchemy. According to the first and perhaps most wide-spread one alchemy was brought into this world by the deity Hermes Trismegistos, who in the course of an ongoing syncretism in Hellenistic Egypt and Greece was equalled to the gods Chnum, Thoth and Ptah. On the basis of that legend alchemy is called the Hermetic Art and if something is sealed air- and watertight it is hermetically sealed.

According to an other legend alchemy, together with magic and other occult arts, came to mankind after the battle of the angels when the Lord threw the rebellious angels out of the heaven. They came down to earth, got married with ordinary women and taught them everything they knew. This knowledge was written down in a book called Chem~. 3 This legend is also apt to explain a possible origin of witches because this book is nothing less than the first Grimoire.4

Finally the third legend says that alchemy was taught to Moses and Aaron by the Lord himself because they were chosen. according to an apocryphal biblical story Moses destroyed the Golden Calf, burnt it to ashes, dissolved the ashes in water and gave the people of Israel to drink. Now, for someone who hears this story it must be quite obvious that if Moses was able to destroy gold so completely he must as well be able to make it.

1.3. The oldest written sources

Unfortunately there are only a few examples of early alchemical writings that have survived till today. Among these artefacts are some fragmentary cuneiform script tablets from old Egypt that contain recipes for making alloys and colouring metals. Burckhardt says that in Egypt alchemy was considered a holy art and therefore was handed down orally. The big fire in the library of Alexandria, too, surely destroyed a number of precious works on alchemy .

The so far oldest known and most famous sources are two papyri from the 3rd century AD. They became known as Papyrus Leidensis and Papyrus Holmiensis5. Both contain a number of recipes for the imitation of gold and silver by forming either gold-containing alloys or simply golden-looking ones like brass. Furthermore they contain recipes for 'making' precious stones and pearls. Some recipes are open deception6. It is held by some scholars that both papyri are compilations of much earlier works. For a very detailed description of the two papyri see the outstanding work of Lippmann. Another source is the tabula smaragdina, ascribed to Hermes Trismegistos. Its authenticity has been doubted at7 not only because the oldest preserved version is an Arabic translation. It contains a very dense summa of alchemy and because of this density is very difficult to understand. There is a number of other works dating back to that period and published under famous names, but most of these works are pseudepigraphs and therefore cannot be taken as a kind of 'authentic' sources.

2. Alchemy in the West

2.1. Egypt

It is very difficult to investigate early alchemy in Egypt, meaning pre-Hellenistic Egypt. Lippmann, Burckhardt et alii hold that here is the true cradle of alchemy, though in a wider sense. The oldest evidences can be traced back to the Old Kingdom (c. 3200 BC). As early as that the Egyptians were good metallurgists. However this metallurgy was in the hands of the priestly caste who claimed to have their knowledge right from the gods Ptah and/or Thoth8. The workshops were in the temples of these gods and the artisans were either priests themselves or slaves of the temple. Bearing this in mind indubitably must have been highly respected for their secret wisdom, a fact that reinforced their power.

Around 1000 BC one can find the first hints of a theory, that there are four elements, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and everything consists of a mixture of them. If the mixture is changed it theoretically should be possible to transform one substance into an other. This theory usually is ascribed to Aristotle, but apparently similar theories, naming four and sometimes five elements, developed independently in different regions and cultures at about the same time. Also rather early emerged the concept of the seven planets and their corresponding metals, perhaps coming from Babylon.

In the course of time there developed a proper temple industry. They 'multiplied' gold by creating alloys, e.g. electron, with less valuable metals, were skilful in gilding objects for ritual purposes and even created alloys that merely looked like gold, e.g. brass. Apart from these metallurgical enterprises there also appeared the imitating of precious stones and the colouring of glass. The substances in use were mineral salts and certain ashes and slags. At quite an early stage the art of the priests became J,6<@B"D"*@J@H, i.e. was handed down from father to son in order to keep it secret. Burckhardt in particular explains the lack of written artefacts with this secretness.

However, step by step the Egyptian empire declined and foreign influences became stronger. Among those influences were all sorts of philosophical concepts and streams like platonic, pre-Socratic, and Aristotelian philosophy. A new age of alchemy was dawning.

1.2. The Hellenistic era

Several scholars and most encyclopaediae place the beginning of alchemy in this period. Indeed alchemy during this era reached a bright bloom. The centre of this new period became Alexandria with its great library. Characteristic of it was a heretofore unknown religious syncretism. As mentioned above, the Greek god Hermes Trismegistos in Hellenistic Egypt became mixed with the gods Chnum, Thoth, and Ptah and was equally worshipped. The Ouruboros, a snake that eats its own tail, is the symbol of two old Egyptian gods9 and at the same time of the Greek Agathodaimon, also a snake-shaped god. The latter later on was sometimes referred to as Egyptian philosopher, king, or god.10 The Egyptians readily accepted virtually every new philosophical idea and absorbed it into their own thinking, re-shaping and adapting it freely according to their needs. Among the important theories of the time is that of the ovum philosophicum, the egg that contains all four elements. Heraklitos and Xenophanes framed it in the formula ª< 6"Â B?< (one and all). Plato and Aristotle developed a transmutation theory on the basis of the four-element theory. A substance can be transformed into an other substance by adding or reducing certain features. For instance if you add heat to water it becomes steam, i.e. changes its state from liquid to gas. Likewise it must be possible to transmute base metals into silver or gold. The new concept here was that of the prima materia, the black original state of all matter without features. The process is described as follows: first reduce the base metal to the materia prima (black ash, coal, slag, blackness of crows), as the next step the salting ( taricheia, sepsis of Isis), Alloiosis and Metabolè under the influence of the sulphurs, salts, and 'waters' .11 In the phial there is a constant movement "<@(upward, male, active, fire, air, spirit of Mercury) and 6"J@ ( downward, female, passive, Water, Earth, spirit of Sulphur). The reaction of these two sprits creates the homunculus which is rising through the colours to gold. There were lots of imaginations about the time span required for the transmutation. Numbers vary between 9 hours, 7, 14, 21, 40, 41, 110 days and 4, 6, 9,12 months. Likewise there are to be found descriptions of 4 steps of transmutation (nigredo - black, reduction of the metal to the prima materia, albedo - white, adding of purified mercury, citrinitas - yellow, adding of purified sulphur, rubedo - red, the mixture of the ingredients results in gold); 7 steps in connection with the seven planets(calcinatio - Mercury, putrefactio - Saturn, sublimatio - Jupiter, solutio - Moon, distillatio - Venus, coagulatio - Mars, extractio - Sun); 10 steps12, and 12 steps in correspondence to the zodiacal signs ( Aries - calcinatio, Taurus - congelatio, Gemini - fixatio, Cancer - solutio, Leo - digestio, Virgo - distillatio, Libra - sublimatio, Scorpio - separatio, Sagittarius - ceratio, Capricornus - fermentatio, Aquarius - multiplicatio, Pisces - proiectio). There co-existed the concepts of the tetrasomy ( copper, lead, tin, and iron as dead bodies), which is resurrected by the pneuma theion (divine spirit), and the three principles of Mercury (soul), Sulphur (spirit) and Sal (body), the trinity of which was called Androgyn. The most influential concept, however, was the idea of a substance which accelerates or causes transmutation at all, respectively, a substance known as xerion, elixir, philosophers' stone. Natural philosophy of that time held that all metals will one day reach the perfection of gold and that the seed of gold is in every metal. By means of the stone they sought to speed up nature and produce gold or silver in a much shorter time. Another belief was that base metals are 'ill' and have to be 'cured' with 'the stone'. From the 4th century onwards there developed a theory that mercury instead of gold is original part of all metals.

With the decline of the old religion there of course was connected a decline of the status of the priests. In reaction to this the priests adopted the claim of not creating substitutes of equal value but of making gold and silver itself. Under the influence of the younger Stoa superstition and mysticism rose. Alchemy became increasingly connected with magic and mancy. Alchemical treatises began to demand outer and inner purity. The adept should be free from envy, hatred and avarice. What's more, the adept must be chaste and for the time of the work keep a strict diet. Magical formulas and invocations together with purifying rituals emerged. An oath of secretness was established that ruled to speak about the art either not at all, or tecte (encrypted). The alchemist now had to observe the stars and wait for favourable constellations and some authors claimed, that the work must be begun on special days or in a special season. The methods and substances were being more and more obscured and the practical value of the writings gradually sank. As possible causes for the failure of the work were listed envy of demons, bad influence of the planets, the wrong season, ignorance or inappropriate use of the rituals and formulas.

Let me now come to some of the representatives of that period's alchemy and, in passing, their works. The first one to mention is Bolos of Mendes (around 200 BC). He brought with him the idea of the unity of the cosmos and interpreted the works of the Egyptian in this way. He seems to have been a practically working man because he wrote a book called 'Physica et Mystica' (title of the Latin translation). It contains a number of, rather obscure; recipes for the making of gold and colouring of metals. The next one is the disputed Hermes Trismegistos. between the 1st century BC and the 3rd century AD there was been published a vast number of works under the name of Hermes. The actual Corpus Hermeticum consists of 18 works, none of which really speaks about alchemy.

According to Haage the Corpus Hermeticum realiter is more a Gnostic than alchemical work and it merely was interpreted alchemically. The most tangible and historically authentic alchemist of the Hellenistic period, and perhaps its last great one, was Zosimos of Panopolis. He lived at the turn of the 4th to the 5th century. He was both a critical and productive author who built several apparatus himself. Zosimos was convinced of the possibility of transmuting base metals into gold by means of a certain substance. He described it as a dry, intensively red powder and called it P¬D4@< (xerion). His works are 'the divine water', 'of chemical devices and furnaces' ( to him goes back the Athanor13 ), 'of chemistry' and 'of the holy art'. In all his works he stresses that the way to the xerion leads via observation of and insight into nature. He also repeatedly pleads for keeping the art secret and encoded. Those who are really learned and chosen will be able to understand, those who aren't should leave the matter untouched.

Throughout the whole period there emerged lots of pseudepigraphs ascribed to Democritos, Isis, Maria Hebraica, Cleopatra and Hermes Trismegistos. A quite famous example for these pseudepigraphs is the chryspoiia by an author who called herself Cleopatra. It uses lots of pictures and symbols, among these the Ouruboros as symbol of the great work with the words ª< Jò B?< (one is all) inside. The writings of Synesius of Kyrene, Heliodoros, Dioskoros et alii have come down to us, however their historical existence is disputed. The preferred genres of these alchemical works were recipe, allegory, riddle poetry, visions of revelation, didactic poetry and letters, dialogue treatises, and commentaries.14

Evidently the 'making' of gold was very popular and successful in Hellas, because in 296 emperor Diocletian of Byzantium saw himself forced to order the burning of alchemical works, either because he feared that Alexandria could stand up against his kingdom, or he as a Christian deemed these writings heretical. In fact he might have been afraid of an economic chaos because of counterfeit money.

2.3. The Arabic era

While in Hellenistic Egypt and Greece alchemy was still in full bloom a new era was approaching with the expansion of the Arabic influence from Syria and Persia. The Arabs conquered huge areas from Asia via Northern Africa to Spain. Unlike other conquerors they did not destroy the culture and philosophy they encountered on their campaigns but treated them with great interest and respect. According to Lippmann no other expanding culture ever was so tolerant towards other cultures. Unavoidably they came across the blooming alchemy at the school of Alexandria and soon after (c. 7th century) the first translations of Greek works emerged, first in Syrian, later in Arabic. At their work the translators did not hesitate simply to take over Greek terms for devices and substances and prefix them with the Arabic al-15. The Arabs had a slightly more technical view on alchemy. Of course they also worked on transmuting base metals into gold but increasingly they discovered its use for medicine, If 'the stone' (al-iksir, elixir) is able to cure metals it must also be able to cure humans. The Arabic physicians dealt with the humoral pathology of Galenos, a concept on the basis of the four bodily liquids blood, black and yellow gall, and mucus. Galenos thought that if all these liquids are in equilibrium, man is healthy and even-tempered. He explains the human tempers16 with the gaining of the ascendancy of one of the four liquids. The medicine so far depended on herbal remedies. The experiments of the alchemists, however, gradually led to a pharmacopoeia of mineral remedies which step by step replaced the herbs. The same experiments with 'strong, i.e. corrosive, waters' several hundred years later led to the discovery of the mineral acids. The alleged founder of Arabic alchemy is Prince Khalid Jazid Ibn Mu'awija (635-704) of the Umaiyade dynasty. He strove in vain for the crown of the caliph and therefore he allegedly occupied himself with medical, astrological, and alchemical studies. He initiated the translation of several Greek works into Arabic. He gathered a number of scholars of his time at his court but had them incarcerated and executed because the promised transmutation always failed.

A shining authority of Arabic alchemy was Djabir Ibn Hajjan (c.720-819), in the newer research called Geber arabicus, in order to contrast him from Geber latinus who lived at the end of the 13th century. He advocated the experiment and practical work as the sources of theory. According to him mere brooding is futile. He developed a new theory of transmutation. At the beginning the matter must be reduced to the four elements. As a second step the ingredients must be brought into an equilibrium. For that purpose Djabir worked out a system of mathematical proportions that basically goes back to neo-Platonian and Pythagorean ideas. Now the matter must be reconstructed to the configuration of gold. He also worked on the concept of the lapis philosophorum. He defined it as trinity of soul, spirit and body in an equilibrium. In that state it is both volatile and constant, male and female, hot and cold, and moist and dry.

The very voluminous Corpus Gabirianum (8th-10th century) in two versions, one in 112 volumes, one in 70 volumes, is ascribed to him and a man called Al-Hasan ibn an-Nakid al-Mausili who lived in the middle/end of the 9th and the beginning of the 10th century. The long version of the Corpus Gabirianum is an extensive treatise on antique sciences in general. The 30 volumes that have come down to us contain a number of methods to create the elixir out of mineral and/or organic ingredients. The short version, apparently written by Djabir himself, consists of 70 volumes and contains an again extensive but complete and systematic description of the Djabirian alchemy. In these books Djabir repeatedly refers to the works of Greek authorities, not knowing that most of these are pseudepigraphs. Later ( in the 12th century) Gerhard of Cremona translated them into Latin and published the under the title Liber divinitatis de LXX.

Another very influential alchemist was Abu Bakr Muhammed ibn Zakarija 'ar-Razi (c.865-925) , often called Rhazes. He was a famous and successful physician and managed a hospital in Baghdad. He occupied himself with the Greek philosophy of nature and the Galenic humoral pathology and alchemy. In general he accepted Djabir's theories except his idea of the proportions of the ingredients. He again adopted a Sal-Sulphur-Mercury theory. During his practical studies he worked out a new classifying system. He distinguished between animal, vegetable, and earth-like matter and sub-divided the latter into volatile (spirits), metals (bodies), stones, vitriols, boraxes, and salts, thus making a big step towards systematic chemistry. Another theory of his was a corpuscular theory according to which all matter consists of atoms. The properties of the single matters depends from the density of the atoms - a very progressive view regarding the time when it was formulated. He perhaps did not know how close he was to truth. His main work was the Liber Secretorum 17 in which he laid down his theories and methods. Towards the end of his life he re-edited it and published an abridged version under the title Secretum Secretorum.

The latest one who deserves mentioning in the context of Arabic alchemy is Abu Ali al-Hussain Ibn Abdallah Ibn Sina (980-1037), latinized Avicenna. Like his colleague Rhazes he actually was a physician of high reputation. He studies the works of his predecessors and comes to believe that a real transmutation of metals is plainly impossible. Alchemy and the alchemists only can copy and imitate nature. He occupies himself with the elixir only for medical purposes. The search for gold has been abandoned for the sake of longevity. His main work Canon Medicinae (in the 12th century translated by Gerhard of Cremona) is one of the fundamental works of mediaeval medicine. A large number of pseudepigraphs was published under his name.

2.4. The Christian Middle Ages

During the 11th and 12th century Christian scholars became increasingly interested in science and philosophy of the Greek and Arab and thus became aware of alchemy as well. Cities like Paris, Salerno and Toledo became centres of education and science. Many philosophical and alchemical were translated into Latin, first of all in Spain and Sicily, then still occupied by the Arab. These works were regarded as the wisdom of 'the Old' and avidly studied, however some scholars, among them Adelard of Bath (1070-1146), stood up against the blind and un-reflected reception of the works. After their opinion one certainly should read these works but should not see in them the ultima ratio but rather a basis for own research. His contemporary Hortulanus wrote a compendium and a dictionary of alchemy and published a commentary of the tabula smaragdina. Alanus ab Insulis (1125- 1203) again wrote against the lack of scholarly self-consciousness he encountered among his contemporaries. He was abbot of Clairvaux and a very learned man. Because of his almost biblical age his contemporaries believed that he must have found the elixir. he wrote a book of recipes in rather obscure language. The books that by that time were read most were Djabir's Liber divinitatis de LXX, pseudo-Rhazes Liber lumen luminum and De aluminibus et salibus, a mixture of exoteric- scientific parts and esoteric - mystical allegories.

One of the greatest scholars of the middle Ages, Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), dedicated much of his life and work to alchemy. He, despite the works of Avicenna which he should have read, believed in the possibility of the transmutation and accordingly took effort in research. The essence of his theories and ideas he wrote down in his important works De Alchymia, De rebus metallicis et mineralibus, and Octo capita de philosophorum lapide. His contemporary Roger Bacon (1214-1292), like Albertus Magnus a very learned man18, had studied and taught at the important universities of his time. Bacon enjoyed a high reputation for trying out all experiments he read about. His concern for alchemy, however, caused him, he was member of the Franciscan order, several problems because about that time beginning in Spain alchemy became banned as un-Christian and pagan. In his main works Speculum Alchimiae, Opus tertium and his other writings he turned against the rising influence of occultism and magic19. He pleaded for alchemy as a serious science and a basis of philosophy of nature, and its practical side has nothing to do with mysticism and occult practices.

Notwithstanding the opposition of the clergy, alchemy became very popular during the 13th and 14th century. For the first time alchemy was included into encyclopaedias, e.g. De proprietatibus rerum by Bartholomaeus Anglicus (end of 12th century), Liber de natura rerum by Thomas Cantimpratensis(1201-1262), and Speculum maior by Vincenz of Beauvais, and lots of books with sometimes very obscure recipes were circulating. Allegedly alchemy also found its way into art and literature. According to Haage the Grail in Wolfram of Eschenbach's 'Parzival' is an allegory of the lapis philosophorum. This sounds intelligible because one of the properties both shared by the Grail and the philosophers' stone is to cure all diseases. The making and multiplying of gold and silver, like in the Hellenistic days, must have been very popular and profitable. The clergy increasingly frowned on this phenomenon until in 1317 Pope John XXII. issued the bull ' Spondent quas non exhibent ' which strictly prohibited counterfeiting.

At the end of this chapter the attention should be drawn to the work of Geber latinus (end of 13th-beginning of 14th century) . It is not completely proved yet, whether he really lived or not, however in his corpus there are some ideas that cannot have been those of Djabir Ibn Hajjan, alias Geber arabicus. His view of alchemy is that of an applied natural science and he is in favour of experiments rather than mere theory. his main works are S umma perfectionis magisterii, Liber de investigatione perfectionis, and Theorica et Practica. As sources for his Summa prfectionis magisterii the following works can be identified: Rhazes Liber Secretorum de voce Bubacaris, Geber arabicus Liber divinitatis de LXX, pseudo-Rhazes De aluminibus et salibus, pseudo-Aristotle De perfecta magisteria, Avicenna De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum, pseudo-Avicenna De re recta, and Albertus Magnus De mineralibus. From these books and apparently after own studies Geber developed a new corpuscular theory and a new transmutation theory. To him all substances consist of corpuscles of different size which make them impure. Only if the alchemist is able to bring the substances into the state of mediocris substantia, i.e. all corpuscles are of the same size, they are fit for a transmutation. His recipe for a transmutation is as follows: 1. purify Mercury and Sulphur by sublimation, 2. fix the volatile Mercury by another sublimation, 3. sublime the Sulphur with iron and copper, and 4. bring the Mercury and the Sulphur, now both in mediocris substantia, to an reaction. As can be seen, the Sal is missing, to me a fact that clearly distinguishes him from Geber arabicus. Of his predecessors he picked up the idea that Mercury is a basic component of all metals and extended it to his theory of the lapis philosophorum being pure Mercury in mediocris substantia.

Like in all epochs before also in the Middle Ages of course there circulated pseudepigraphs in abundance. Again the names of the Greek philosophers, Hermes Trismegistos, but also of contemporary scholars like Arnaldus of Villanova and Raimundus Lullus, who somewhere in their lives occupied themselves with alchemy but never published own alchemical works, were to be found under sometimes obscure books of yet more obscure recipes.

3. Alchemy in the Far East

3.1. China

Let us now leave the West and direct our attention to the cultures of the Far East. Here in China and India also and alchemistic art developed but due to some cultural and historical peculiarities unfortunately the research so far did not quite succeed to detect the real origins of Eastern alchemy.

The roots of Chinese alchemy go far back into time, although most preserved written evidences are from the first few centuries AD. It can be held that they are compilations of much older works. An especially tragic date for the historians of China was the year 213 BC when emperor Shi-Huang-Ti ordered the burning of all books he could get, except those about farming, medicine, pharmacy, tree cultivation, and fortune-telling. Fortunately soon after him in the Han-period (205 BC-220 AD) there was much effort to replace the loss but lots of gaps evidently were carelessly filled with conjectures. Surely at these times forgery was booming.

The most striking difference to Western alchemy is that the Chinese give little or no importance to the making and multiplying of gold. The main goal of Chinese alchemy is the elixir of immortality. An argument for the old age Chinese alchemy is the belief in immortality which can be traced back to the 8th century BC, as early as in the 4th century BC it was believed that it is possible to attain immortality, and finally in the 1st century BC the corresponding drug was first mentioned in a treatise as 'drinkable gold'20. The Chinese philosophy already in ancient times developed the cosmic principle of Yin and Yang, represented by the symbol [. Either bears the seed of the other and neither could be without the other. The philosophy of nature is based on the concept of five elements (Fire, Water, Wood, Earth, Metal). In older research sometimes this is ascribed to Babylonian and/or Chaldean influences but more recent studies seem to have dropped that thought. Another philosophical root of Chinese alchemy is Taoism. This philosophical-religious movement was founded in the 6th century BC by Lao- Tse and its main work is the Tao-Te-King ('classic way of power'). From the beginning on the Taoists were outsiders and soon the movement split up into a purist and mystic fraction. The latter were said to possess super- natural powers and consequently the evolving alchemy was grafted onto them. Thanks to this and a collection called 'Yün chi ch'i ch'ien' ('seven tablets in a cloudy satchel') from 1023 AD we know some more about Chinese alchemy. The book 'Tan chin yao chüeh ('great secrets of alchemy'), ascribed to a certain Sun-Ssu -Miao (581-after 673), probably is the most famous Chinese alchemical work that has come down to us. It is a practical treatise on creating elixirs for attaining immortality, using organic and mineral ingredients (Mercury, Sulphur, salts of Mercury and arsenic are mentioned), and several recipes for the cure of diseases. Because some ingredients are highly poisonous it is no surprise that several monarchs died of elixir poisoning. Both alchemists and emperors became more cautious after a whole series of such royal deaths. In the centuries to come the Chinese presumably lost interest in alchemy because alchemical texts became more and more scarce and finally ceased completely.

3.2. India and Tibet

In India and Tibet there existed a kind of alchemy that strictly speaking was no alchemy in the true sense of the word but more or less pharmacy and, to apply the Paracelsian term, iatrochemistry. Lippmann reproaches especially Indian authors for a lack of chronological thinking. He criticises that newer findings simply were included into new editions of older works. Transmutation of metals into gold plays only a very marginal role in the older texts of that region. Immortality neither was a main objective of the Indians and Tibetans because their religions already offer a way to it. In India the Hinduistic god Shiva was thought to have invented alchemy, and Mercury, first mentioned in the Artha-sastra (4th-3rd century BC), was called the 'semen of Shiva'. In the oldest Indian texts, the Sanskrit Vedas, there are hints of alchemy close to that of China, and Lippmann thinks that there were mutual influences, at least after the rise of Buddhism. In Buddhist texts of the 2nd-5th century AD there emerges the idea of transmuting base metals into gold. According to Lippmann some alchemical knowledge was 'imported' from the West because the terms and processes are strikingly similar to Greek and Arabic ones. In Northern India up to the 8th century the existence of alchemy can be verified to a certain extent by Tibetan translations of alchemical texts, found in Buddhist stupas. These texts are about panaceae and transmutations of metals. As I said above, alchemy in India in fact was pharmacy. Accordingly the Indian 'alchemists' were mainly physicians. Unfortunately there are no names mentioned because almost every Indian alchemical work was published anonymously. They created very effective remedies using the salts of the metals, either of natural sources or chemically produced, sal ammoniac, sulphur, mercury, and other minerals. As a kind of 'spin-off' they also found methods for imitating precious stones and mixing colours for dyeing and colouring of cloth and, not to forget, make-up. With the rise of Tantrism between the 12th and 14th century alchemy, then surely influenced by the Western cultures, became associated with mysticism. Since there is no written evidence for alchemy after the mid of the 14th century it can be assumed that it died out as in neighbouring China.

Concluding remarks

In Europe alchemy did not simply fade away like in Asia. On the contrary during the renaissance and later in the 16th and 17th century it reached another climax. Generations of adepts were feverishly searching for the philosophers' stone and many of them ruined themselves completely. Nevertheless important inventions and discoveries were made, for instance the discovery of the mineral acids, the aqua vitae (alcohol), the Glauber salt, new methods for the production of steel, and so on. However, there were also very many cunning deceivers who roamed the land and pretended to be able to make gold. Many monarchs had their court alchemists because they hoped for an increase in their finance. Those court alchemists sometimes led comfortable lives but in many cases they also were hanged on the infamous gilded gallows when their patrons lost patience. A good example for recipes of the 17th century is a collection published 1992 by Heiko Skerra21. Parallel to the practical branch of alchemy there developed a mystical and occult movement. Secret societies and Hermetic orders emerged and worked out an inner alchemy. The transmutation was used by them as an allegory for the process of an inner catharsis the result of which should be an enlarged consciousness and a higher self.

Selected bibliography

Alchemie und die Alchemisten. Baden-Baden: AMORC-Bücher.1993

Brockhaus Enzyklopädie in vierundzwanzig Bänden: Neunzehnte, völlig neu bearbeitete Ausgabe. Erster Band A- APT, Mannheim: Brockhaus 1986

Burckhardt, Titus: Alchemie: Sinn und Weltbild. Neudruck Andechs: Dingfelder Verlag 1993

Haage, Bernhard Dietrich: Alchemie im Mittelalter; Ideen und Bilder - von Zosimus bis Paracelsus. Zürich/Düsseldorf: Artemis und Winckler, 1996

Lippmann, Edmund O. von: Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie. Mit einem Anhange: Zur älteren Geschichte der Metalle. Hildesheim/New York: Olms 1978

Schmieder, Karl Christoph: Geschichte der Alchemie. Halle 1832, Neudruck Langen: Roller 1987 Skerra, Heiko: Alchemie, der Stein der Weisen. Rhede(Ems):Ewert 1992

The New Enzyclopædia Britannica, Volume 25. Macropædia. Enzyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Chicago/Auckland/London/Madrid/Manila/Paris/Rome/Seoul/Sydney/Tokyo/Toronto

[...]

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1 In different cultures these aims were different in their importance

2 Burckhardt, Titus: Alchemie: Sinn und Weltbild, 2. Aufl., Andechs:Dingfelder Verlag 1992

3 see also Lippmann, Edmund O. von : Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie. Mit einem Anhang: Zur älteren Geschichte der Metalle. Hildesheim/New York: Olms 1978, pp 310-312

4 secret book of magic, according to a wide-spread vernacular belief each witch possesses an own copy of it5 after the names of the libraries which keep them: Leiden and Stockholm

6 cf. Haage, Berhard Dietrich: Alchemie im Mittelalter, Ideen und Bilder - von Zosimus bis Paracelsus, Zürich /Düsseldorf: Artemis und Winckler, 1996, p. 70

7 Lippmann: Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie... p. 558 8 the god of fire and the god of wisdom

9 Apophis, the incarnation of darkness, and the Mhn snake, that protects the sun-god Re from Apophis10 it became custom to put living snakes into the foundations of a new temple

11 the hydor theion (divine water, spirit of mercury ), which resurrects the black prima materia

12 see Haage: Alchemie im Mittelalter... pp. 16-17

13 special kind of alchemical oven

14 cf. Haage: Alchemie im Mittelalter... p. 110

15 as in Al-chemy, Al-embic ( from ambix), Al-embroth ( sal divinum)

16 sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic

17 'secret' in this respect meaning 'technical knowledge, know how'

18 and therefore called doctor mirabilis

19 especially see his Epistola de secretis operibus artis et naturae et nullitate magiae

20 the term aurum potabile in the West refers to / is synonymous to panacea universalis

21 Alchemie, der Stein der Weisen. Rhede(Ems): Ewert 1992

13 of 13 pages

Details

Title

History of Alchemy from Early to Middle Ages

College

University of Leipzig

Course

Alchemy in Art and Literature

Grade

1.5 (A)

Author

Torsten Bock (Author)

Year

1997

Pages

13

Catalog Number

V94692

File size

366 KB

Language

English

Notes

Auf Wunsch liegt auch eine (gekürzte) deutsche Version vor.

Tags

History, Alchemy, Early, Middle, Ages, Literature

Quote paper

Torsten Bock (Author), 1997, History of Alchemy from Early to Middle Ages, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/94692