Explores the origins and practices of early alchemy
- Examines the oldest surviving alchemical texts, the original purpose
of the "Royal Art," and the first alchemists, showing how women
dominated early alchemy
- Looks at the historical setting for the first alchemists, with
detailed accounts of their apparatus, recipes, chemical processes, and
the ingredients they used
- Reveals how changing the color of materials was more important in
early alchemy than transmuting base metals into gold
Investigating the origins of alchemy and the legend of the Philosopher's
Stone, Tobias Churton explores the oldest surviving alchemical texts,
the original purpose of the "Royal Art," and the first alchemists
themselves. He reveals the theories and philosophies behind the art and
how early apparatus and methods were employed by alchemists through the
ages.
Showing how women dominated early alchemy, Churton looks at the first
known alchemist, the Jewess Maria the Prophetess, inventor of the bain
marie, still in use worldwide today. He also looks at early alchemist
Cleopatra (not the well-known Egyptian queen) and 3rd-4th century
Egyptian female artisan Theosebeia, who had a guild of adepts working
under her. He examines in depth the work of Zosimos of Panopolis and
shows how Zosimos's historic work inspired the medieval view of alchemy
as an initiatory path whose stages follow the transmutation of base
metals into gold.
Exploring the latest research on early practices in Upper Egypt, the
author discusses the political and industrial realities facing the first
alchemists. He examines the late antique "Stockholm" and "Leiden"
papyri, which offer detailed knowledge of the first known Greco-Egyptian
chemical recipes for gold and silver dyes for metal and stone, and
purple dyes for wool. He emphasizes how changing color in early
alchemy was misinterpreted to imply transmutation of one metal into
another. He reveals how the alchemical secrets for working with the
"living statues" of the Egyptian temples was jealously guarded by the
priesthood and how secrecy helped to reinforce beliefs that alchemical
knowledge came from forbidden, celestial sources. He also investigates
the mysterious relation between alchemy, spiritual gnosis, Hermeticism,
and the Book of Enoch.
Revealing the hidden legacy of the early alchemists, Churton shows how
their secret workings provided a transmission line for ancient heretical
doctrines to survive into the Renaissance and beyond.
