Alchemy is a discipline, somewhere between empirical science and art, aimed at transmuting metals into gold, in pursuit of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of long life. In seeking to penetrate the secrets of nature and replicate its processes, it paved the way for the first advances in chemistry. Its powerful symbolic meaning was ultimately rediscovered by Carl Gustav Jung.
Born from Egyptian, Greek and Gnostic roots intertwined with ancient Arab practices, alchemy fuses, from the 8th century onwards, on the basis of the texts of Hermes Trismegistus and Geber (Jābir ibn Hayyān), the beginnings of experimental science with elements of mysticism and a new symbolic alphabet.
Alchemy's highest aspiration was to extract from primordial matter, through various stages of purification, the philosopher's stone — a supremely pure substance that, by mere contact, could yield gold and silver — the metals of the sun and the moon — from common metals, heal the human body, distil a universal medicine, and arrive at the quintessence of nature. Archimagic, hermetic chemistry, chrysopoeia and spagyric medicine are all derivatives of it.
Its roots run deep in the ancient Greek Orphic rites, Egyptian magic, Gnostic mysticism and hermetic literature.
It was cultivated by distinguished scholars such as Roger Bacon, Ramon Llull, Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus. Making extensive use of imagery drawn from laboratory activity — with alchemists for centuries genuinely attempting to synthesise precious metals, and in doing so stumbling upon authentic scientific discoveries — it is, at its core, a doctrine of the purification of the soul, pagan and entirely alien to the Church. Indeed, at the close of its millennial arc, some of its tributaries flowed into Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, both of which were viewed as thorns in the side of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Alchemy lived its golden age from the 1400s through to the end of the 18th century: Humanism and the Renaissance, Neoplatonism, the mounting enthusiasm for a new idea of "nature", the rediscovery of ancient texts, the invention of the printing press — all of these combined to fan the flames of interest in this "search for the magic earth". Hundreds of adepts in cities across Europe devoured old esoteric books and new treatises by natural philosophers and, amid alembics, furnaces and potions, with ancient parchments, formulas and rites, between albedo and nigredo, elixirs and philosopher's stones, set out in search of the secret of secrets — the secret of nature, of the birth of matter and of the soul that brings it to life.
Before Carl Gustav Jung, alchemy tended to be considered solely from the perspective of magic or the history of science, and was conceived of as a practice that foreshadowed modern chemistry — given that alchemists did in fact make some remarkable findings: mineral acids, certain salts, aqua regia, alcohols.
But today its symbolic meaning — an allegorical map for the transmutation of consciousness — has received the attention it deserves.
Alchemy strives above all to expand the spiritual realm of light through a meticulous treatment of the world of matter, deemed earthly, heavy and — here echoing the sense found in various sects of late-antique gnosis — dark.
Alchemy creates and codifies a new vocabulary, with a bewildering quantity of symbolic-allegorical images already present in manuscripts from the early Middle Ages and in Renaissance and Baroque books of copperplate engravings. These are not intended to inform the outsider, but rather to offer support to the reflections of the initiate who already knows alchemical doctrine. Among the most recurring symbols associated with alchemy are the sun, the moon and Saturn, the androgyne, the ouroboros, the caduceus, magical animals (dragons, phoenixes, peacocks, lions, pelicans, toads, unicorns), the pentagram, the Star of David, and the glyphs of sulphur and mercury.
Alchemy is not a crude ancestor of chemistry: alchemy must be regarded as a complex way of interpreting nature — rational and irrational at once — of discovering its secret laws, of intercepting the invisible bonds between ourselves and the immense forces of nature, of feeling the strings of nature's invisible fibres vibrate. Augusto Piccini, a chemist and academic of the early 20th century, wrote:
Chemistry, like all sciences, especially experimental ones, has no time. Whoever distinguishes alchemy from modern chemistry makes a mistake. In the evolution of human thought and work there is continuity. Alchemy is not ancient chemistry, to begin with. Chemistry is chemistry from its beginnings to the present day. There are great pauses, like those of a man who is about to leap forward in progress.
The word alchemy was coined in the 13th century from the Latin chimia, alchimia (the occult science in search of the philosopher's stone), from the Arabic al kimiya, meaning "philosopher's stone", itself descending from a Coptic word chama, meaning "black", or from the Greek chyméia, "mixing of liquids", "universal reagent" and "the art of obtaining it". Elixir is originally "lo elisir, cioè la materia che tigne ogni metallo" ("the elixir, that is, the matter that dyes every metal") according to Giovanbattista Ramusio in Delle navigationi et viaggi of 1563; "La pietra de' filosofi, dagli arabi autori è chiamata elixir" ("The philosophers' stone, by Arab authors is called elixir") according to Tommaso Garzoni, Theatro de' vari, e diversi cervelli mondani, in 1583 — from the Arabic al iksir, "the philosopher's stone", effective also as a medicine in the form of a dry substance (from the Greek xeros, "dry").
The alchemical work does indeed repeat, in its meanings, the cycle of Osiris — that is, of the seasons: a cycle of death and rebirth, typical of agrarian cults originating as far back as the Neolithic, present throughout the Mediterranean and remaining at the foundation of the mystery cults known in historical times. The original meaning of initiatory cycles lay in overcoming the fear of death through participation in the cyclical rebirth of nature. The initiate thereby attained a higher understanding of reality. In this connection, it is worth noting that "dew" (Isis was called "the dewy one") remained of the utmost importance for alchemists, as the agent that generates the miracle of flourishing nature.
The phases of the alchemical process vary depending on the author, even though the meanings remain the same beneath the infinite variety of names. The number of these phases is linked to the magical significance of the numbers themselves; they are, depending on the author, 4, 3, 7 or 12 (according to Basil Valentine, Steffan Michelspacher, George Ripley), or as many as 14 (Samuel Norton).
It may nonetheless be said that initially the stages of the process, beginning with Zosimos of Panopolis, were four.
Four phases that owe their origin to the importance of the tetrad throughout all Greek wisdom — and ancient thought in general — and took their names from the four fundamental colours of Greek painting (black, white, yellow, red). A parallel was drawn between them and the four elements, the four hours of the day, and the seasons.
Of these, xanthosis disappeared with the rise of Trinitarian requirements; the three remaining ones correspond, in a evocative agrarian analogy, to sowing (winter), germination (spring–summer) and harvest (autumn). Other phases and other colours were subsequently introduced by some authors into the alchemical process (the 7 colours of the Iris, "cauda pavonis"; "viriditas", and, finally, blue).
On one side gold, the philosopher's stone, on the other the "coming to consciousness" of modern psychology: the alchemical tradition and analytical practice share in common the will to create a new and higher reality. Alchemy is the expression of a drive to transform the raw material of experience into knowledge: it seeks to bring to light the divine aspect that sleeps in chthonic darkness.
Carl Gustav Jung recounts having begun his journey into the unconscious in the second half of his life, and for this reason the encounter with alchemy proved decisive. Discovering singular affinities between ancient symbols and the dreams of his patients, he began to study the texts of the alchemists because they could provide him with the historical foundations for his psychological system. In 1914 he studied the Chinese alchemical treatise The Secret of the Golden Flower and the volumes Artis auriferae quam chemiam vocant by Konrad Waldkirch, which gathers the key texts of medieval alchemy. After fifteen years of work, in 1944, he published Psicologia e alchimia, which remains among his most fascinating works. Luigi Aurigemma writes in his introduction:
Alchemy allowed Jung to connect the insights he had gained through his personal "descent into the unconscious" to ancient, objective and available material. Jung frequently emphasised the immense help alchemy provided in understanding neurotic and psychotic processes. Concrete references to clinical practice are also numerous.
Alchemy was understood by Jung as a theoretical-practical discipline based on assumed correspondences, influences, between the various visible and invisible components of the cosmos. The work aimed