Alchemy

The alchemy is one of the sciences whose single name already evokes the most contrary and diverse reactions: attraction, scorn, curiosity, uncertainty… opposed feelings, caused partly by the lack of concise information on their origin and development.

L to same word, alchemy, seems to have a doubtful origin. Many affirm that the current expression, bequeathed directly by the Arab, it can be divided in two parts: the article "to the" and the term "chemia" that means "earth or black floor." According to this hypothesis, the Muslims referred to the dark lands of Egypt where they would have learned the first secrets of the mysterious science.  The Egyptian philosopher’s figure Hermes Trimegistus would be considered then as father of the human knowledge and of there it would derive the term "hermetic" that appears related with the alchemy with so much frequency.
But not single domestic Egyptian the first writings come on this activity, but also of the distant lands of China. In the year 140 appeared in that country the first treated alchemical and the ideas that it contains they appear closely related with the Taoism.
The fact is that they have been so much Greek writings mentioning the oriental as Egyptian references in the Arab texts. At the present time the main documents are in the National Library of Paris and in Leyden, where the texts alchemical have been ordered in two big groups: those of Greek origin and those other ones signed by a mysterious called character Jabir ibn – Hayyan, called Geber that is supposed also lived in the century VIII of our era. More careful studies have demonstrated that not all the works attributed originally to Geber were written in fact by the Arab scientist.
As the Arab influence went going into in Europe, new men were devoted to the study of the new discipline. The names that the history points out are very well-known and among them they highlight those of San Great Alberto (1193-1280), the mallorquín Ramón Llull (1232-1315), Roger Bacon (c. 1213-1294), Arnaldo of Vilanova (c. 1250-1311), Paracelso (1493-1541) and even Newton, the first great modern scientist that, although he/she was not devoted completely to the alchemy, it frequently mentioned it in their works and it is said that it ordered to build a small laboratory in the Trinity College to study the mysteries of the transmutation.
Leaving their mysterious and hidden facet separated, it is necessary to make notice that the alchemy contributed from a very important way to the progress of the laboratory chemistry. New apparatuses like the still and new techniques as the distillation became the something of daily use, at the same time that they were discovered substances until then unknown as the vitriol oil (sulfuric acid), the regal water, the strong water (nitric acid), the ammonia, etc.
But the alchemy was above all a hermetic science around which left knitting a mystery halo and secret, originated partly by the strange and often incomprehensible aspirations of some of its followers, as well as for the symbolic and almost undecipherable form of its writings. It is not easy to summarize in few words the work of an alchemist. This it was centered especially in three different facets: on one hand the search of the stone philosopher, in presence of which all the metals could be transformed into gold; in second place the discovery of the elixir of long life, imagined as a substance able to avoid the corruption of the matter and lastly the attainment of the "Great Work" whose objective was to elevate the own alchemist to a superior state of existence, in a privileged situation in front of the Universe.

The language alchemical

The reading of a work alchemist is extremely arduous for a no-initiate one. The language alchemical seems abstract, absurd, incomprehensible, but in fact it is occult and mystic, saturated of codes, of symbols, of references that confuse the layman. Traps and deviations are frequent.
"The alchemist considers essential this access difficulty, since it is to transform the reader’s mentality in order to make it able to perceive the sense of the described acts", the French writer explains to Michel Butor. "The language alchemical is an instrument of extreme agility that allows to describe operations accurately and, at the same time, locating them with regard to a general conception of the reality."
As sample of the above thing, it is included in this page an annex that leads to an old text of one of the respected alchemists. It is advisable to read it with a completely open mentality and, at the same time, to try to be located in the time in that it was written.

Tags: alchemy, Chemistry