Is The Alchemist No Better Than A Pseudo Scientist
January 23, 2012
To many people, the alchemist is a person that is some kind of pseudo scientist who tries to convert lead into the precious metal called gold. These people are also associated with meddling with magic and mysticism.
There is some truth to these believes but in an objective sense, the alchemist is a person that tries to explore and also find out more about nature. They have, in fact, been doing this even before tools and scientific practices were available.
They had to rely on simple rules of thumb and on tradition as well as on simple observations and perhaps even mysticism. The symbols associated with alchemy and their associated processes had reference to the development of spiritual practices and physical transformations were not considered very important.
In fact, alchemy has also been associated with astrology with which it shares many common features. In order to understand the alchemist, one must take into account the way that one substance can be transformed into another. This understanding does not involve any knowledge of chemistry or physics but depends of transmutation of certain base metals into the precious metal gold.
Alchemy involves four different elements and it also relies on principles of geometry and geology. This is a field that has continuously evolved over a very long time and it began when religions got involved in metallurgy and in medicine. Later, it began to evolve into an independent field.
It has also evolved into the field of mysticism and also charlatanism. However, at the same time, alchemy has also provided us with basic empirical knowledge about chemistry and medicine. The best known alchemists of our time in Europe included names such as Saint Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon as well as Sir Isaac Newton and even Sir Thomas Browne.
Alchemy is said to have begun in the ancient Egyptian times and has since then evolved dramatically, Thoth is the founder of this field and his 42 Books of Knowledge covered a variety of topics including those such as alchemy, medicine and law.
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