"O, he sits high in all the peoples hearts; And that which would appear offence in us, His countenance, like richest alchemy, Will change to virtue and to worthiness."
Alchemy is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first attested in a number of pseudepigraphical texts written in Greco-Roman Egypt during the first few centuries AD. Greek-speaking alchemists often referred to their craft as "the Art" (τέχ
"What a lovely afternoon On a cloudbusting kind of day. We took our own Mystery Tour And got completely lost somewhere up in the hills. And we came up on a bee-keeper, And he said "Did you know they can change it all?" They got alchemy. They turn the roses into gold They turn the lilac into honey Theyre making love for the peaches. And theyll do it, Do it for you."
Alchemy"[A]n art without principles, the beginning of which was deceit, the progress delusion, and the end poverty."
Alchemy"Alchemy is an erotic science, involved in buried aspects of reality, aimed at purifying and transforming all being and matter."
Alchemy"The matter lies before the eyes of all; everybody sees it, touches it, loves it, but knows it not. It is glorious and vile, precious and of small account, and is found everywhere... But, to be brief, our Matter has as many names as there are things in this world; that is why the foolish know it not."
Alchemy"[E]very relation must be considered as suspicious, which depends in any degree upon religion, ... and ... everything that is to be found in the writers of natural magic or alchemy, or such authors, who seem, all of them, to have an unconquerable appetite for falsehood and fable."
Alchemy"It is necessary to deprive matter of its qualities in order to draw out its soul. ... Copper is like a man; it has a soul and a body; ...the soul is the most subtile part, ... that is to say, the tinctorial spirit. The body is the ponderable, material, terrestrial thing, endowed with a shadow. ... After a series of suitable treatments copper becomes without shadow and better than gold. ...The elements ... grow and are transmuted, because it is their qualities, not their substances, which are contrary."
Alchemy