"However we approach the subject of Alchemy, we are rewarded with a mystery, until the entire subject becomes an infinite regression of mirrored mysteries. And so, if we are not careful, we end up finding only the face of our own bias. The secret protects itself, even when it is displayed in plain sight. Fulcanelli serves as an example. The occult savants of Paris wanted to believe in the possibility of physical transmutation, therefore the suggestion that someone had actually done it grew into an obsession. A modern day Flamel, they thought, a renegade physical chemist who, like the Curies, had stumbled on a way to manipulate the radioactive “light” locked within matter. No matter that not a trace of such speculation could be found in Le Mystere; all alchemist wrote in code anyway. So the mystery focused on who was Fulcanelli? If his identity could be discovered, then the transmutation could be verified. Unfortunately, no one ever claimed the title and presented his proof."


http://www.vincentbridgeslegacy.com/the-...the-cross/

H. Stanley Redgrove

"THE problem of alchemy presents many aspects to our view, but, to my mind, the most fundamental of these is psychological, or, perhaps I should say, epistemological.  It has been said that the proper study of mankind is man; and to study man we must study the beliefs of man.  Now so long as we neglect great tracts of such beliefs, because they have been, or appear to have been, superseded, so long will our study be incomplete and ineffectual."

https://www.worldspirituality.org/phallic-element.html

The Dragon Gate—The Longmen Tradition at Mount Jingai and its Alchemical Practices

Monica Esposito

This PhD thesis was presented at Paris VII in 1993, under the direction of Isabelle Robinet. The original French typescript with handwritten emendations is available here in two volumes, with searchable text and English table of contents as per the editor’s preface.


En français.

https://www.themathesontrust.org/library...ragon-gate

"Ya'qub b. Ishaq al-Kindi was an early Arab scholar of the 9th century, one of the first great scientists... His works in philosophy, cosmology, mathematics, optics, music, cryptology and medicine had a tremendous influence on later centuries."

https://muslimheritage.com/al-kindi/

Nicely-illustrated general article.


https://www.royalartsociety.com/2018/04/...lchemists/

"The medieval and Renaissance era is rich in allusions to alchemy and studies have analysed its impact on male writers such as John Donne and Andrew Marvell. Now an EU study has looked at the writing of female alchemists to gain a more inclusive picture."

https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/4305...alchemists

"Fermentation is a funny thing in the wine, bread and beer world, causing extreme changes to ingredients with seemingly little input. As such, fermentation was — up until fairly recently — hailed as a semi-mystical process, and was widely revered in medicine and alchemy."

https://medium.com/vinia-magazine/the-ra...bca3d9d6b3

"Alchemical symbols represent chemical, elements and substances used in alchemy, an ancient branch of natural philosophy. Unicode has a separate block for alchemical symbols with the allocated code point range from 1F700 to 1F77F. Here is the alt code shortcuts for alchemical symbols to insert them on documents and conversations."

https://www.webnots.com/alt-code-shortcu...l-symbols/

"This special issue of Ambix is an outgrowth of the Tenth Annual Postgraduate Workshop titled “Society and the Creation of (al)Chemical Knowledge” hosted by the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam, 29–30 November 2019. This meeting of early career scholars with a shared interest in the history of alchemy and chemistry illustrated the diversity of methodological approaches that contribute to this subfield."

Megan Piorko et al

Full text

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....22.2035572

"Dozens of early modern treatises claim to offer straightforward instructions on the theory and practice of alchemy, including all the steps necessary to produce the philosophers’ stone and a range of medicinal elixirs. Yet the resulting works often seem to obfuscate more than they explain: omitting vital information, disguising ingredients and practices behind cover names, and describing outcomes that seem, to modern eyes, impossible."

Full text

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/...22F4553ACF