Note 12 — Chapter I · THE MEANING OF ALCHEMY

Arthur Edward Waite: Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers (1888), pp. 30, 31. As says another writer of the mystical school of thought: “If we look upon the subject [of Alchymy] from the point which affords the widest view, it may be said that Alchymy has two aspects: the simply material, and the religious. The dogma that Alchymy was only a form of chemistry is untenable by any one who has read the works of its chief professors. The doctrine that Alchymy was religion only, and that its chemical references were all blinds, is equally untenable in the face of history, which shows that many of its most noted professors were men who had made important discoveries in the domain of common chemistry, and were in no way notable as teachers either of ethics or religion” (“Sapere Aude,” The Science of Alchymy, Spiritual and Material (1893), pp. 3 and 4).

[13] M. M. Pattison Muir, M.A.: The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry (1902), pp. 105 and 106.