Transmutation, alchemical doctrine

His ideas on atomism can be summarized under three main points. First, Dalton assumed that all matter was composed of atoms that were indestructible and nonchangeable, thus denying the possibUity of the transmutation of elements. Dalton thus belonged to the new chemical tradition that consciously distanced itself from the alchemical doctrine of transmutation. Dalton was not the only one to do so, but he provides an interesting contrast to Robert Boyle, for example, who 150 years earlier also did important quantitative work in chemistry while at the same time being steeped in alchemy, as recent scholarly work has shown. 

The author traces the positions that writers of histories of chemistry took toward alchemy as a total phenomenon, how they regarded the experimental-practical and philosophicoreligious components of it and what stand-points they adopted relative to such alchemical theories as the doctrine of transmutation and the sulfur-mercury theory... 

In the early years of Theosophy during Blavatsky s lifetime, the modem science that most occupied the movement was, without doubt, the theory of evolution rather than Victorian discoveries in physics and chemistry.4 While Blavatksy in Isis Unveiled and Secret Doctrine grappled in a limited way with modem physics and chemistry, she engaged much more fully with the work of alchemists, especially that of Paracelsus. Her defense of alchemical transmutation was based not upon contemporary science—though she asked of transmutation, Is the idea so absurd as to be totally unworthy of consideration in this age of chemical discovery (Isis 1 503)—but rather upon the exalted reputation of medieval and early modem scientists and alchemists who claimed to have witnessed transmutation (1 503-504). Moreover, the major events that launched modem particle physics—the discoveries of X-rays, the electron, radiation, radium, and radioactive decay—all occurred after Blavatsky died in 1891. 

But the result of the alchemical art-nature debate was not merely to provide a seed around which the learned world could crystallize into two actively opposed parties. The discussion found in alchemical texts spilled over into other disciplinary venues, where it produced surprising effects. One of these was the literature of the Great Witch Hunt. Some writers in that genre used alchemy to defuse the power of demons and witches, in the tradition of the medieval Canon episcopi with its incredulous view of witchcraft, while others, like the authors of the infamous Malleus malefi-carum, weakened the doctrinal opposition to alchemical transmutation in... 

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