Language of alchemy

We must also notice that, although there cannot be the slightest doubt that the great majority of alchemists were engaged in problems and experiments of a physical nature, yet there were a few men included within the alchemistic ranks who were entirely, or almost entirely, concerned with problems of a spiritual nature Thomas Vaughan, for example, and Jacob Boehme, who boldly employed the language of Alchemy in the elaboration of his system of mystical philosophy. And particularly must we notice, as Mr. A. E. Waite has also indicated, the significant fact that the Western alchemists make... 

Elkins, James, ed. What Painting Is How to Think About Oil Painting Using the Language of Alchemy. New York and London Routledge, 1999. 

One of the oddest named pieces of equipment was the Philosopher s Egg. It was a retort— that is, a vessel into which substances are distilled—but an espeddly important one. The alchemist hoped that it would eventually contain the substance that constituted the Philosopher s Stone. It could then be said, in the strange allegorical language of alchemy that so often mixed the symbolic and the mundane, that the Stone had hatched from the Egg. 

Jacob Boehme was another supporter of the Rosicmcians. He was bom in Germany in 1575 and started work as an itinerant shoemaker. When he finally settled down, he began to study alchemy. He soon abandoned the practical work, but he used the symbolic language of alchemy to describe his mystical visions. The Philosopher s Stone became the Spirit of Christ which must tincture the individual soul. 

The man was speaking the language of alchemy. But the boy knew that he was referring to Fatima. 

However, the art of alchemy was most often what today we might categorize as both external and internal, embodied and spiritual, practical and abstract. The language of alchemy is one that combines sensory observations of materials and processes with a language for the phenomenology of inner experience. The concrete and the symbolic are interfused, eluding a clear distinction. 

Traditional accounts of Robert Boyle s matter theory, such as Marie Boas Hall s 1952 Establishment of the Mechanical Philosophy, explicitly view Boyle s mechanical philosophy as an importation from physics, which he grafted onto a radically rewritten chemistry. As Boas Hall puts it, Boyle s new chemistry was a chemistry in which was incorporated a physicist s view of matter. The physicist s matter theory refers, of course, to the very corpuscularian philosophy to which Boyle devoted his life s work, the explanation of phenomena in terms of matter and motion at the microlevel. According to Boas Hall, this physicist s theory was radically opposed to the chymical theory that predated Boyle and that he sometimes criticized—particularly the theory of three principles, mercury, sulfur, and salt, invented by Paracelsus in the early sixteenth century. The Paracelsian concept of the tria prima was, to paraphrase Boas Hall, a theory of forms and qualities, an animistic rewriting of Aristotle in the language of alchemy. A brief glance at Steven Shapin s 2996 The Scientific Revolution will show that the approach of Boas Hall is alive and well, hr his treatment of the mechanical philosophy as a whole. 

Nomenclature is the compilation of descriptions of things and technical terms in a special field of knowledge, the vocabulary ofa technical language. In the history of chemistry, a systematic nomenclature became significant only rather late. In the early times of alchemy, the properties of the substance or its appearance played a major role in giving a compound a name. Libavius was the first person who tried to fix some kind of nomenclature in Alckeinia in 1,597. In essence, he gave names to chemical equipment and processes (methods, names that are often still valid in our times. 

The investigation of molecular structures and of their properties is one of the most fascinating topics in chemistry. Chemistry has a language of its own for molecular structures which has been developed from the first alchemy experiments to modem times. With the improvement of computational methods for chemical information processing, several descriptors for the handling of molecular information have been developed and used in a wide range of applications. 

Smith, Pamela H. Alchemy as a language of mediation at the Habsburg court. Isis 85 (1994) 1-25. 

In this essay I argue that alchemy, a quintessential noble activity, was employed at the court of two Habsburg emperors as a discourse of mediation. Rudolf II (ruled 1576-1612) patronized alchemy as a language of mediation between religious confessions, while at the court of Emperor Leopold I (c. 1658-1705), almost a century later, alchemy became a route to favor, a language of monarchical self-presentation, and also, in at least one case, an activity that mediated between noble and commercial culture. ... 

The Book of Alchemy teaches its readers how to penetrate the obscure symbolic language of the alchemists. . . understand how alchemical transformation can initiate a profound change of consciousness, claimed by practitioners to bring eventual union with the Divine. . . practice traditional meditations and exercises. . . prepare herbal alchemical elixirs to benefit the body. . . and discover how the alchemists search for purity can become a twenty-first- century model for spiritual development"... 

This is a chart showing the history of alchemical publication in all languages. Note the three main peaks the first in 1560-70 - the second 1610-1620 during the Rosicrucian period - and the third 1650-1685. There is a gradual dimishing in the number of alchemy books published through the 18th century with a small increase in publications around 1785... 

A friend who has done extensive research in the historical background of Alchemy and who is well versed in languages suggests the word Gur (see Parachemy, Spring 1977) is a bad literation of the Persian Gohr which means essence"... 

Leer, David Van. "Hawthorne s alchemy The language of science in "The Scarlet Letter"." In Nature transfigured Science and literature, 1700-1900, eds. John Christie and Sally Suttleworth, 102-120. Manchester Manchester Univ P, 1989. 

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