Lives of alchemystical philosophers based on materials collected in 1815 : and supplemented by recent researches with a philosophical demonstration of the true principles of the magnum opus, or great work of alchemical re-construction, and some account of the spiritual chemistry / by Arthur Edward Waite ; to which is added a bibliography of alchemy and hermetic philosophy.

  • A. E. Waite
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lives of alchemystical philosophers based on materials collected in 1815 : and supplemented by recent researches with a philosophical demonstration of the true principles of the magnum opus, or great work of alchemical re-construction, and some account of the spiritual chemistry / by Arthur Edward Waite ; to which is added a bibliography of alchemy and hermetic philosophy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    stead of truth; but this class of men wrote no books upon alchemy. Many of them no doubt died over their furnaces, ' uttering no voice] and none of them wrote books upon the philosopher's stone, for the simple reason that they never discovered anything to write about. I know that some impostors purposely wrote of mysteries to play upon the credulity of the ignorant, but their works have nothing alchemical about them. It is true also that many books were written by men who really imagined that they had discovered the secret, and were nevertheless mis- taken. But this imaginary success could never have had place when gold was the object, because in the bald fact no man was ever deceived: no man ever believed that he had discovered a method of making gold out of inferior metals. The thing speaks for itself. It is impossible that any man can ever be deluded upon this bare fact; but it is quite otherwise with the real object of alchemy, in which men have been deceived in all ages . . . for the subject is always in the world, and hence the antiquity claimed for the art by the alchemists. This passage is a long series of simply incredible mis- statements. The history of chemistry and the lives of the adepts alike bear witness against it. My object in publishing this book is to establish the true nature of the Hermetic experiment by an account of those men who have undertaken it, and who are shewn by the plain facts of their histories to have been in search of the trans- mutation of metals. There is no need for argument; the facts speak sufficiently. It is not to the blind followers of the alchemists that we owe the foundation of chemistry; it is to the adepts themselves, to the illustrious Geber, to that grand master Basilius Valentinus, to Raymond Lully, the supreme hierophant. What they discovered will be found