"We think Artificial Intelligence is a brand new frontier, but is it? Or is it just the latest chapter in a 1,000-year-old quest? In this deep dive, we uncover the startling parallels between modern AI development and Medieval Alchemy. From the "black box" problem to the promise of eternal life and the "perfected man," the ambitions of Silicon Valley's biggest CEOs like Sam Altman and Jensen Huang look identical to the dreams of medieval alchemists like Paracelsus and Roger Bacon."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb1RMuwbzhE

The Invisible Fire: Alchemy and the Birth of Newtonian Physics

Moreno Nourizadeh 

"A meticulous archival forensic investigation demonstrating that modern physics is the mathematical transfiguration of alchemy. Isaac Newton completed the Hermetic tradition by translating its operative ontology into the language of mathematics. Drawing on over a million words of Newton's chymical manuscripts, laboratory notebooks, and theological writings. Term-by-term correspondence between alchemical operations and Newtonian physics traced manuscript by manuscript. Force descends from active principle. Vis insita preserves vegetative spirit. The calculus enacts solve et coagula. Universal gravitation mathematises "as above, so below." Chapter 16 provides the Rosetta Stone: five documented correspondences from George Starkey's chymical theory through Newton's transitional vocabulary to the published Principia. The argument stands on Dobbs, Newman, and Westfall while taking the step they prepared. The foundational concepts of modern science, force, field, law, carry within them an operative structure inherited from the alchemical tradition. Understanding this genesis illuminates both what physics can do and what it cannot know about itself. 35 chapters. 165,000 words. 300 scholarly references. The furnace never went out. It was transformed into mathematics."

https://philarchive.org/rec/NOUTIF

Alchemy, Magic and Moralism in the Thought of Robert Boyle

Originally published in British Journal for the History of Science (ISSN 0007-
0874), 23 (1990), 387-410. Reprinted in Michael Hunter, Robert Boyle (1627-
91): Scrupulosity and Science (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 93-118 (ch. 5).


https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/56618/1/56618.pdf

Taoist books and paraphernalia:

https://longhumountain.com/

A beautifully illustrated introduction.


"Internal Alchemy (Neidan) is the advanced Taoist practice of consciously transforming one’s inner energy, not just calming the mind. Building on Yang Sheng, Wu Wei, and Qigong, Neidan refines essence (Jing) into energy (Qi), and energy into spirit (Shen), ultimately returning awareness to harmony with the Tao. Using the body as an alchemical laboratory, practitioners work with the 5 Elements as internal forces—aligning intention, calming spirit, unifying experience, releasing attachments, and cultivating stillness. The goal is not power, but De: quiet, integrated presence and a return to profound simplicity."

https://lets-see-america.com/neidan-inte...formation/

"Boleskine House is honoured to announce the acquisition of the McLean Collection, the personal scholarly library of the internationally respected Scottish alchemical scholar Adam McLean. This significant gift marks a major milestone in the Foundation’s mission to restore Boleskine House as a centre for heritage, learning, and academic study of esoteric traditions."

https://boleskinehouse.org/boleskine-hou...iterature/

Acts of Improvement: On the Use of Tonics and Elixirs in Sanskrit Medical and Alchemical Literature

By Dagmar Wujastyk

"In Sanskrit medical literature, rasāyana is defined as one of eight subject areas of medicine. The proclaimed aim of rasāyana therapies is to preserve or promote health and well-being, but also to prolong life, to halt degeneration caused by aging, to rejuvenate and to improve cognitive function. The term “rasāyana” describes the therapies that together constitute this branch of medicine; the methodology and regimen of treatment; and the medicinal substances and formulations used in these therapies. In Indian alchemical literature, the Sanskrit term “rasāyana” is predominantly used to describe the final stages of alchemical operations, i.e. all that is involved in the taking of elixirs for attaining a state of spiritual liberation in a living body. Rasāyana in this sense describes a series of related processes, including the preparation of the elixir; the preparation of the practitioner; the intake of the elixir and finally, the process of transformation the practitioner undergoes after intake of the elixir. In my paper, I present examples of rasāyana sections from a selection of medical and alchemical treatises to explore their connections and divergences. I also discuss how the connections between medical and alchemical rasāyana sections reflect the development of iatrochemistry in alchemical literature."

https://www.academia.edu/36321661/Acts_o...Literature

By Matteo Soranzo

This article breaks down my research for the general public, and especially younger readers.

https://www.academia.edu/145189834/The_h...of_alchemy

Importance of Ananda kanda in the history of Indian alchemy

By Sreekumar Parampathu

https://www.academia.edu/1863621/Importa...an_alchemy

Ivana Horacek

2015


"This dissertation examines the material potentialities embodied in Kunstkammer works of art that were exchanged as gifts with the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612) and his contemporaries at the end of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Within this context, extraordinary, expertly crafted, and inventive gifts of things—such as paintings on semi-precious stone, commesso di pietre dure landscapes, magical natural objects (such as rhinoceros horns and bezoar stones), and books of instruments—were key players in political and social affairs, between courts and individuals separated by distance, religion, and political divides."

https://www.academia.edu/76372002/Alchem..._Rudolf_II