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be achieved by trusting to the allegories of the adepts or the many
charlatans who crowded the ranks of the art. Gold may be made, or it
may not, but the truth or fallacy of the alchemical method lies with
modern chemistry. The transcendental view of alchemy, however, is
rapidly gaining ground, and probably originated in the comprehensive
nature of Hermetic theory and the consciousness in the alchemical mind
that what might with success be applied to nature could also be applied
to man with similar results. Says Mr. Waite, "The gold of the
philosopher is not a metal, on the other hand, man is a being who
possesses within himself the seeds of a perfection which he has never
realized, and that he therefore corresponds to those metals which the
Hermetic theory supposes to be capable of developing the latent
possibilities in the subject man." At the same time, it must be
admitted that the cryptic character of alchemical language was probably
occasioned by a fear on the part of the alchemical mystic that he might
lay himself open through his magical opinions to the rigors of the law.
RECORDS OF ACTUAL TRANSMUTATIONS: Several records of alleged
transmutations of base metal into gold are in existence. These were
achieved by Nicholas Flamel, Van Helmont, Martini, Richthausen, and
Sethon. For a detailed account of the methods employed the reader is
referred to several articles on these hermetists. In nearly every case
the transmuting element was a mysterious powder or the "Philosopher's
Stone".
MODERN ALCHEMY That alchemy has been studied in modern times there
can be no doubt. M. figuier in his "L'Alchimie et les Alchimistes",
dealing with the subject of modern alchemy, as expressed by the
initiates of the first half of the nineteenth century, states that many
French alchemists of his time regarded the discoveries of modern science
as merely so many evidences of the truth of the doctrines they embraced.
Throughout Europe, he says, the positive alchemical doctrine had many
adherents at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the
nineteenth. Thus a "vast association of alchemists", founded in
Westphalia in 1790, continued to flourish in the year 1819, under the
name of the "Hermetic Society". In 1837, an alchemist of Thuringia
presented to the Societe Industrielle of Weimar a tincture which he
averred would effect metallic transmutation. About the same time
several French journals announced a public course of lectures on
hermetic philosophy by a professor of the University of Munich. He
further states that many Honoverian and Bavarian families pursued in
common the search for the grand arcanum. Paris, however, was regarded
as the alchemical Mecca. There dwelt many theoretical alchemists and
"empirical adepts". The first pursued and arcanum through the medium of
books, the other engaged in practical efforts to effect transmutation.
M. Figuier states that in the forties of the last century he
frequented the laboratory of a certain Monsieur L., which was the
rendezvous of the alchemists in Paris. When Monsieur L`s pupils left
the laboratory for the day, the modern adepts dropped in one by one, and
Figuier relates how deeply impressed he was by the appearance and
costumes of these strange men. In the daytime, he frequently
encountered them in the public libraries, buried in gigantic folios, and
in the evening they might be seen pacing the solitary bridges with eyes
fixed in vague contemplation upon the first pale stars of night. A long
cloak usually covered the meager limbs, and their untrimmed beards and
matted locks lent them a wild appearance. They walked with a solemn and
measured gait, and used the figures of speech employed by the medieval
illumines. Their expression was generally a mixture of the most ardent
hope and fixed despair. Among the adepts who sought the laboratory of
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