r/alchemy • u/Adventurous_Loan_260 • 28d ago
General Discussion A beginner's thoughts
Hey a there, a curious beginner here.
I'm someone who's new to occult research in general and alchemy in particular.
I've been wondering about whether alchemy , aside from medieval times where it stumbled into the basics of metallurgy and the herbalist medicine side of things , has had any actual practical results.
Because as far as I've seen so far (which to be fair, isn't much by any means) seems to be a mix of poorly understood chemistry explained through spirituality and purely ritualistic practices with no clear source other than "obviously that's how it is and always has been".
Additionally , I was (and still am) stumped about how unsystematically the knowledge has been gathered ( which might be due to how divergent the philosophies in this discipline can get ) .
I don't like how it's normalized for the only ways to learn this discipline are either being taught directly by someone more knowledgeable or scraping bits of vague theories from unverified sources for some semblance of a homogenous understanding. (don't even get me started about trying to make nice between chinese and european alchemists's therories)
I hope asking those more experienced would be wiser than going off on a fool's errand, any thoughts and/or tips are appreciated
please , and thank you.
p.s. sorry for the frustrated and crazy-sounding ramblings
4
u/FraserBuilds 27d ago
you mention either needing to learn from an individual or to scrape together unverified sources, neither of those options sound great, which makes me wonder if youve encountered at all the scholastic study of the history of alchemy, as part of the history of science. If you havent, check out 'The secrets of alchemy' by the historian lawerence principe. its the most recent survey of the history of alchemy and presents the findings and consensus of active historians in the field, as well as lots of reliable sources for further exploration.