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R 1
TIME NTS
For more than two and a half millennia, philosophers and
scientists have tried to understand what the universe is made
of and the principles on which it operates. Philosophers
engaged in this kind of speculation in classical times, and physicists
and cosmologists engage in it today. Although their methods are very
different, modern scientists share the goal of the ancient philosophers:
to find the key to understanding the universe.
The first philosopher to theorize about such matters was Thales
of Miletus, at the time, the sixth century B.C., the greatest Greek city
Asia Minor. According to Thales there was one fundamental element:
water, the material of which everything was made. To the modern
mind, such an idea seems absurd. However, it is much more reason-
able than it might appear. Lacking evidence to the contrary, it must
have seemed very plausible that everything was ma(le of some primal
material. And if it was, water was really not a bad can(li(late.
Thales must have noted that evaporation turned water into mist
and that it solidified when it froze. Aristotle suggests that Thales got
1
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the idea"perhaps from seeing that the nutriment of all things is moist
and kept alive by it.... He got his notion from this fact that the seeds
of all things have a moist nature, and water is the origin of the nature
of moist things." Of course, Aristotle was guessing when he said that.
However, it is clear that be believed that Thales had a plausible, if
incorrect, idea.
Thales's successor, Anaximander the exact dates of his birth and
death are unknown, but he was said to have been 64 years old in
546 B.C. agreed that there was one primal material. But he (li(ln't
think it was ever encountered on Earth in its pure state. According to
Anaximander everything in the world was made of apeiron, a sub-
stance that was infinite and eternal, and which could take on numer-
ous forms, including those of all the familiar terrestrial materials. "It
is neither water nor any of the so-called elements," Anaximander said,
"but a nature different from them and infinite, from which arise all
the heavens and the worlds within them."
The last of the Miletus philosophers was Anaximenes. His dates
are also uncertain, but he must have created his theory before 494 B.C.
when the Persians destroyed Miletus. Apparently Anaximenes did not
find Anaximander's ideas very convincing, because he maintained
that the fundamental element was air. Anaximenes maintained that
fire was rarefied air and that air could be condensed into all known
substances. Progressive condensations successively condensed it into
wind, clouds, water, and finally into earth and stone. "lust as our soul
being air, holds us together," he said,"so do breath and air encompass
the whole world."
EMPEDOCI~E~
In classical times stories circulated about Empe(locles, a philosopher
who lived in Agrigentium, in southern Sicily, around the mi(l(lle of
the fifth century B.C. It was said that he performed miracles, that he
could control the winds, and that he had brought a woman who had
seemed dead for 30 days back to life. Empedocles was the leader of
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the democratic party in his native city, and he claimed to be a god.
According to legend, he died when he jumped into the crater of
Mount Etna in an attempt to prove that he was a god. Whether he
actually did this is uncertain, however. According to Diogenes, who
related this tale, "Timaeus contradicts all these stories, saying
expressly that he departed into Peloponnesus, and never returned at
all, on which account the manner of his death is uncertain."
Empedocles made no attempt to create a new theory of matter.
Instead, he tried to reconcile the thoughts of his various predecessors.
He took Thales's theory that everything was made of water and
Anaximenes's idea that the primal substance was air, and added two
more elements, earth and fire. Empedocles didn't believe that one
kind of matter could be transformed into another. Earth couldn't be
changed into water, or water into earth, for example. Thus there had
to be more than one element.
Empedocles didn't speak of earth, air, fire, and water as "elements,"
but as "the roots of all." Nevertheless, each was eternal, and they could
be mixed together in varying proportions to produce the substances
encountered in the terrestrial world. According to Empedocles, the
elements were combined by love and separated by strife. The theory
was not as mystical as it sounds. Empe(locles seems to have thought
of love and strife as physical forces that could act on the particles of
matter. "Love," in other wools, was a force of attraction.
Empe(locles's theory of the four elements was to (laminate
Western thought for nearly two and a half millennia. It wasn't until
the eighteenth century that it was overthrown, because it was
endorsed by Aristotle, whose authority was so great that his dogmas
often impe(le(1 scientific progress. Aristotle a(l(le(1 a fifth element, of
which the heavenly bodies were supposedly composed. But he agreed
with Empe(locles that all earthly objects were ma(le of earth, air, fire,
and water.
Aristotle elaborated on the theory by assigning qualities to the
four elements. Fire was hot and (fry, air was hot and moist, water was
cold and moist, and earth was cold and (fry. This implied that it was
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possible for one element to be transformed into another. In Aristotle's
(lay it seemed a reasonable theory, one that was supporte(1 by
common observations. For example, if the "cold" in water were made
hot, then the water would be transformed into air. And indeed this is
what appears to be happening when water is boiled. When wood was
burned, smoke (air), pitch (water), ash (earth), and fire were
produced. If two pieces of flint were struck together, a spark was
produced that could be used to kindle a fire. Thus it seemed that the
fire element must be present in rock.
ALCHEMY
Alchemy was born of a fusion of Greek philosophy and the Egyptian
chemical arts in Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander the Great
at the mouth of the Nile in 331 B.C. The Egyptians had for centuries
practice(1 embalming, (lyeing, glassmaking, an(1 metallurgy, each
requiring knowledge of the relevant chemical processes. There were
numerous recipes, including ones for making artificial gems and
false gold.
Perhaps it was only natural that people steeped in Greek philosophy
would think of trying to make gold when they encountered the rich
Egyptian tra(lition of practical chemistry. Hadn't Aristotle said that
transformations were possible? Isn't that what happened when, for
example, cinnabar (mercury ore) was heated? Heating the red
material, cinnabar, caused a pool of liquid metal to form. Didn't other
chemical transformations take place when substances were heated,
lissolve(l, melte(l, fiItere(l, an(1 crystallize(l?
In one sense, the creation of alchemy represented a step back-
war(l. The Egyptians ha(1 known seven metallic elements: gold, silver,
copper, tin, iron, lea(l, an(1 mercury, which they associate(1 with the
seven planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, an(1 Saturn,
respectively). The Greeks, however, failed to recognize them as
(listinct elements. According to the Aristotelian theory, the metals
were mixtures of the traditional four elements. This idea seemed to
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support the theory that one metal could be transformed into another.
All that was needed was to find the chemical procedures that would
remove some of one element and add some more of another, or that
would change one element into another.
Alexandria was a place where many different religions and cul-
tures encountered one another and where different philosophies
flourished. The city was home to Greeks, Egyptians, Jews, and people
who had migrated from many places in the Middle East. There were
Zoroastrians, Neoplatonists, Mithraists, Christian Gnostics, and
adherents of a number of other philosophies and faiths. Alexandria
had sober believers in Greek rationalism and also wizards and
sorcerers, mystics, astrologers, and prophets.
By A.D. 300, Alexandrian alchemy had become almost entirely
mystical, perhaps because the alchemists were influenced by the cur-
rents of mystical thought they encountered, perhaps because attempts
to transform base metals into gold had failed. One suspects that the
latter played at least some role. It is certainly easier to dwell on the
idea of the spiritual gold in one's soul than to follow long complex
procedures in an attempt to actually make the metal.
At one time scholars believed that the Roman Emperor Diocletian
decreed in A.D. 292 that all alchemical books be burned and that the
alchemists be expelled from Egypt. But this story is probably
apocryphal. At the time, alchemy was unknown in the Roman west.
In any case, no decrees were needed. Alexandrian intellectual culture
was past its prime by then, and alchemy simply participated in the
(recline.
After Constantine proclaimed Christianity to be the official cult
of the Roman Empire around A.D. 330, the Christians sought to
eradicate pagan philosophies, inclu(ling alchemy. Most likely they
would have succee(le(1 if members of a heretical Christian sect, the
Nestorians, had not preserved alchemical writings. After Nestorius,
the leader of the sect, was excommunicated around A.D. 430, he fled
to Syria with his followers. The Nestorians took as many pagan manu-
scripts and books with them as they could and kept them in the mon-
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asteries they founded. Around A.D. 500 the Nestorians were expelled
from Syria. They moved on to Persia, where they founded schools
and translated Hellenistic writings into Syrian. One of the subjects
taught in their schools was alchemy.
ARAB I ~ SCHEME
The years 640 to 720 were an era of Muslim conquests. At the end of
the period, the Islamic empire stretched from Spain to Egypt and
from North Africa to Persia. The Muslims engaged in wars of expan-
sion, not in religious war. They didn't seek to convert the peoples they
conquered. Although non-Muslims were taxed, they were permitted
to exercise their religions freely.
Unlike Christians, who wanted to eradicate pagan philosophy,
Muslims had great respect for learning. Muslim rulers patronized
scholars, whatever their religion, and had Greek and Syrian texts
translated into Arabic. Thus Arab scholars gained knowledge of the
thoughts of Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers and also of
alchemy. It was the Muslims who gave alchemy its name. The word is
derived from the Arabic alchymia. al is the Arabic definite article;
words beginning with those two letters, such as alcohol and algebra,
are generally of Arabic origin. The exact meaning and origin of
chymia are uncertain. It used to be thought that it derived from Them,
the ancient name of Egypt. However, recent scholars have cast doubt
on this idea. The Arabs were not much interested in the mystical
accretions that alchemy had acquired. They pursued it in a more
([own-to-earth manner, as the early Alexan(lrian alchemists had (lone.
Thus, centuries later, alchemy reached Europe as a collection of
chemical recipes and techniques, not a set of esoteric doctrines.
It is in Arabic alchemy that two concepts that were to become
central to European alchemy are encountered for the first time: the
Philosopher's Stone and the elixir of life. The Philosopher's Stone
was a substance reputedly able to transform base metals into gold. In
spite of the name, it wasn't thought of as a stone and was often
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described as a "red earth," for example. The elixir of life, as the name
implies, was something that could restore youth and prolong life. Pre-
sumably it could be made from alchemical gold. But this isn't all there
was to alchemy. Its more practical side included procedures to pro-
duce dyes and medicines. Since the first stirrings in the alchemist's
cauldron, there was always more to alchemy than the quest to make
gold.
Arabic alchemy was unknown in the west until the eleventh
century when the first translations from Arabic into Latin were made.
Two Arab alchemists were especially well known and widely read:
Tabir ibn Hawan, known to Europeans as Geber, and Abu Bakr ibn
Zakariwa al-Razi, known as Rhazes. Of more than 2,000 pieces of
writing attributed to Jabir, most were compiled by a Muslim religious
sect called the Faithful Brethren or Brethren of Purity after he died.
The works are written in different styles, which would indicate that
they were penned by different authors. The compilation was com-
pleted around the year 1000, more than a hundred years after Tabir
died. However, it has been established that the work translated into
Latin under the title Summa Perfectionis was based on translations of
Tabir's writing. Thus, although little is known about his life, we know
something about the role Tabir played in the evolution of alchemical
theory.
Tabir introduced a theory, which was to influence much of later
alchemy, that metals were mixtures of sulfur, mercury, and arsenic,
except for gol(l, which was ma(le up of sulfur and mercury alone. The
sulfur and mercury of which Tabir spoke were not the substances
found in nature. They were purified essences which European alche-
mists later called"philosophical sulfur" and"philosophical mercury."
They were supposed to be quite unlike the common substances. For
example, it was said that philosophical sulfur (li(ln't burn. According
to Jabir, of all the metals, gold contained the most mercury and the
least sulfur. Thus other metals could be transformed into gold if ways
were found to increase their mercury content.
We know somewhat more about al-Razi's life than Jabir's. He was
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a Jewish convert to Islam who became a physician and alchemist in
Persia, and he wrote a text on alchemy called Secret of Secrets. While
the title seems to promise something esoteric, al-Razi's book isn't like
that at all; on the contrary, it is a comprehensive and practical labora-
tory manual that became a valuable too] for European alchemists.
The Secret of Secrets contains huge lists of chemicals and minerals
and comments on their origin. It describes alchemical apparatus,
including several kinds of glassware, and chemical techniques. Many
of the recipes are stated so clearly that they could easily be followed
and carried out in a chemical laboratory today. Unlike most alche-
mists, al-Razi seems not to have regarded the transmutation of metals
as the main goal of alchemy. As a physician, he emphasized the
importance to medicine of knowing the chemical substances in
medicine. However, the wealth of laboratory techniques described in
his book proved invaluable to generations of European alchemists,
whatever their goal.
It is said that Al-Razi became blind in his later years, spending
them in poverty because he was no longer able to practice medicine.
His eyes might have been damaged by chemical fumes. Other stories
about him sound a bit fanciful. According to one, a high-ranking
individual (said by some to have been the Emir of Khorassan) asked
al-Razi to demonstrate a procedure for making gold. When he
refused, the Emir lost his temper and struck him on the head with his
own book, causing him to become blind. According to another
version of the story, the Emir became angry when al-Razi did attempt
to make gold but failed. Curiously, this story didn't deter the gold-
seeking alchemists who, over a period of centuries, pored over al-
Razi's writings.
EUROPEAN ALCHEMY
The appearance of Arabic alchemical works in Latin translation
launched European alchemy during the eleventh and twelfth centu-
ries. Although the European alchemists never succeeded in making
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gold or the elixir of life, they did make some important discoveries.
For example, in the early fourteenth century an alchemist known as
the False Geber (because he called himself Geber, after his Arab
predecessor) discovered how to make strong sulfuric and nitric acids.
This was a significant advance. The ancients and the Arabs had known
only weak acids, such as acetic acid from vinegar and lactic acid from
soured milk. Unlike the weak acids, strong acids are extremely corro-
sive and capable of dissolving most metals.
But of course discoveries such as these were only incidental to
the quest for the Philosopher's Stone, which was often (lescribe(1 by
European alchemists in paradoxical ways. For example, according to
the sixteenth-century work on alchemy, the Gloria Mundi, the
Philosopher's Stone is
. . . familiar to all men, both young and old, is found in the
country, in the village, in the town, in all things created by God; yet
it is despised by all. Rich and poor handle it every day. It is cast into
the street by servant maids. Children play with it. Yet no one prizes
it, though, next to the human soul, it is the most beautiful and
precious thing upon earth, and has the power to pull down kings
and princes. Nevertheless, it is esteemed the vilest and meanest of
earthly things.
The Gloria Mundi seems to imply that anyone who found the
Philosopher's Stone would surely fad] to recognize it. Yet thousands of
alchemists, some relatively unlearned and others with a vast knowI-
edge of alchemical literature, continued to seek it. They pored over
cryptic alchemical recipes and performed intricate experiments in
their quest for the Stone, which they called the "Great Work."
Alchemical literature is almost always so cryptic, and contains so
much obscure symbolism, that it bowlers on the unintelligible. For
example, mercury was ordinarily not referred to by its common name.
Instead it might be called doorkeeper, our balm, our honey, oil,
May-dew, mother egg, green lion, bird of Hermes, or any of a large
number of other names. Birds flying to heaven might represent distil-
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ration, and devouring lion might mean a strong acid. Copulation or
marriage might represent certain alchemical procedures. A serpent
or dragon could symbolize matter in an imperfect state.
There were probably many reasons for writing alchemical recipes
in code. The Church frowned on the practice of alchemy so the prac-
titioners must have wanted to maintain a certain amount of secrecy,
which helped to avoid other dangers too. There was always the chance
that some prince might demand that the alchemist produce gold, and
then become very angry if the claimant couldn't.
Jabir had admonished:
For heaven's sake do not let the facility of making gold lead you
to divulge this proceeding or to show it to any of those around you,
to your wife, or your cherished child, and still less to any other
person. If you do not heed this advice you will repent when repen-
tance is too late. If you divulge this work, the world will be
corrupted, for gold would then be made as easily as glass is made for
bazaars.
The message was clear: don't tell anyone how it might be done, or
the gold you make might become worthless.
A I,IFEI,ONC; QUEST
For some of the alchemists, the search for the Philosopher's Stone
became a lifelong quest. One of the more extreme examples is Bernard
of Treves, who sought the Stone from the time he was 14 until his
(leash at the age of 85, squandering a fortune in the process. Bernard
was born into a wealthy family in either Treves or Padua in 1406. As a
child he often heard stories told by his grandfather about the
alchemists' quest. Bernard became fascinated with the idea of seeking
the Philosopher's Stone and began an intense study of the works of
the Arabian alchemists. His family approved, having no objection to
making the family fortune even greater.
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The first book that Bernard discovered was al-Razi's Secret of
Secrets. Setting up an alchemical laboratory, he spent four years and
800 crowns attempting to make gold. Unsuccessful, he turned to the
works attributed to Jabir. By this time, news of what Bernard was
doing had spread, and other alchemists flocked to him, offering their
secrets and help. Neither their lore nor the writings of Tabir brought
any success. But his assistants did succeed in parting him from a great
deal of his money. After two years, Bernard found that he had spent
another 2,000 crowns and was no nearer success.
When Bernard was 20, he met a Franciscan friar who told him
stories about Pope John XXII, who had supposedly practiced alchemy,
amassing a fortune of 18 million florins while issuing bulls against
competition from other alchemists. Bernard and the friar studied the
works of two well-known alchemists, Tohannes de Rupecissa and
Tohannes (le Sacrobosco, and (leci(le(1 that preparing highly (listille
"spirit of wine" (alcohol) might help them achieve transmutation.
They distilled the alcohol 30 times, until, as Bernard puts it, "it went
off in such acridity that no glass could contain it." But again Bernard
encountered only failure. The "Philosopher's Stone" that he created
by this method did nothing.
Bernard next applied alchemical procedures to a vast number of
different materials. He described his labors as follows:
Twelve or fifteen years having been consumed in this manner
and innumerable monies, without benefit, after the experiments of
many received ones, in dissolving and congealing common, ammo-
niacal, pineal, saracen, and metallic salts, then more than a hundred
times calcining them in the space of two years; also in arums of all
kinds, in marcasites, blood, hair, urine, human dung and semen,
animals and vegetables, in copperas, vitriols, soot, eggs, by separa-
tion of the elements in an Athanor by the alembic, and the Pelican,
by circulation, boiling, reverberation, ascension, descension, fusion,
ignition, Cementation, rectification, evaporation, conjunction,
elevation, subtilation, and commixtion: and other infinite regimens
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15
In Prague for a time, he invited two dozen of them to a banquet and
in the course of the evening announced that he could demonstrate a
metho(1 for multiplying gold. Everyone who contributed a hun(lre
marks, he promised, would receive a thousand when the procedure
was completed.
After collecting the gold from his guests, the host took them to
his laboratory, where he placed the coins in a crucible along with
various alchemical preparations. He placed the crucible on a fire and
seized a bellows with the intention of making the fire burn hotter.
Suddenly there was an explosion, which filled the laboratory with
scattered live coals, smoke, and noxious fumes. At the same time the
laboratory was plunged into darkness.
Some of the guests soon found some candles and went back into
the laboratory to see if their host was badly injured, but all they found
was the broken alchemical apparatus and an open window. The Arab
was gone. And of course the 2,400 marks had disappeared with him.
This story might be somewhat embellished it is the kind of tale that
often is but it certainly indicates that the con men of those days
were not lacking in imagination.
Some of the pseu(loalchemists succee(le(1 in making o~with large
quantities of money. But others suffered less fortunate fates. In 1575 a
woman named Marie Ziegler was roasted alive in an iron chair after
failing to provide Duke Julius of Brunswick with a recipe for trans-
mutation. In 1597 Georg Honnauer, who had promised to transmute
iron into gold for the Prince of Wurtemberg, was caught putting gold
into his crucibles. Honnauer was hanged on an iron gallows. One
noble, Frederick of Wurtzburg, maintained a gilded gallows that was
reserved for hanging alchemists who failed to keep their promises to
make gold. On the gibbet there was the inscription, "I once knew how
to fix mercury and now I am fixed myself."
In 1402 England passed an act of parliament that forbade the
making of gold or silver by alchemical metho(ls. The idea wasn't really
to outlaw the practice but to give Henry IV, who was entitled to grant
the right to make gold to certain people, a monopoly on gold making.
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Henry hoped that alchemical gol(1 might help him to pay state (lebts.
In 1445 Sir Edmund Trafford and Thomas Asheton were duly granted
the right to make gold, and coins were actually minted from the
product they pro(luce(l. But their alchemical "gold" later prove(1 to be
an alloy of mercury, copper, and gold.
Medieval literature has numerous references to pseudoalchemists
and satires of alchemy. For example, around 1390 Chaucer satirized
the alchemists in The Canon Yeoman's Tal/e, as did the English
Renaissance poet John Lyly in his comedy Gal/l/athea and Samuel
Butler (the seventeenth-century English poet, not the nineteenth-
century novelist of the same name) in Hudibras.
One of the best-known satires is The Al/chemist, a comedy by
Shakespeare's rival Ben Jonson, that targets not the pseudoalchemists
but rather the gullible rich, who are so easily taken in. The play centers
on the activities of Subtle, a butler who poses as an alchemist in his
master's absence. With the aid of two accomplices, Face and Doll
Common, Subtle swin(lles a number of people by engaging in
quackery and he claims to be able to transmute gold. But of course
comedies are supposed to end on a happy note. At the conclusion of
the play Subtle's master returns unexpectedly, and his fraud is
exposed.
The character of Subtle might be based on Simon Forman, who
is mentioned by name in another of Tonson's plays. Forman, born in
1552, seems to have been a me(lical quack who sol(1 love philters as a
sideline. He was fined several times for pretending to cure the ill and
was also sent to prison a number of times. In 1594 he began to tell
fortunes and to experiment with transmutation. He attracted several
wealthy customers, mostly women. Once he was asked to provide
philters to the countess of Essex, who wanted to (1ivorce her husban(1
and win the love of the ear] of Somerset. These facts came out during
the murder trial of a woman who had acted as a go-between on behalf
of the countess.
Alchemical frauds continued long after alchemy had fallen into
lisrepute. In 1867 three frauds bilke(1 Emperor Franz Joseph of a sum
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equal to $10,000. In 1929 a plumber named Franz Tausend swindled
a number of prominent German financiers after convincing them
that he could make gold from lead. When Tausend was arrested, he
claimed that his method was based on modern scientific ideas and
asked for a chance to demonstrate the efficacy of his methods. He was
taken to the State Mint where, in the presence of the director of the
Mint, some police detectives, the state's attorney, and a judge, he
produced a tenth of a gram of gold from one and two-thirds grams of
lead. Because Tausend and all of his chemicals and apparatus had
been searched before the demonstration, it appeared that the
transmutation was genuine. However the following day it was
discovered that gold had been smuggled to him in a cigarette while he
. · ·.
was In fall.
THE DAN CLERK OF DECEPTION
In 1701 the 19-year-old Frederick Bottger, a German apothecary's
apprentice, finding himself in need of money to continue his alchemical
experiments, performed faked transmutations before some friends.
If they gave him money to continue his quest, he told his onlookers,
he would repay the money many times over. Bottger wasn't trying to
defraud them, although that was how it turned out. He seems to have
genuinely believed that he was on the verge of discovering the secret
of the Philosopher's Stone. Indeed, he was so convinced that around
this time he wrote to his mother assuring her that she would never
lack for money again.
Bottger was aware of the dangers of performing such demonstra-
tions. More than one avaricious prince had meted out severe punish-
ment to alchemists who claimed to be able to produce gold and then
failed, so the alchemist pledged the witnesses of his transmutations
to secrecy. This didn't prevent rumors from spreading, but rumors of
this sort were common in those days, and in any case they didn't
spread widely enough to get Bottger into trouble. But then he made a
big mistake. In October 1701 his employer, the Berlin apothecary
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Frederick Zorn, released Bottger from his apprenticeship. He was now
a journeyman who could work for wages. During the years of his
apprenticeship Zorn had always been critical of his alchemical
experiments. Alchemists had been searching for the Philosopher's
Stone without success for centuries, Zorn said, and added that Bottger
would do better to master the preparation of medicines than pursue
some hopeless quest. So when Bottger left Zorn's employ he staged
yet another (remonstration for Zorn and two of the apothecary's
friends, melting down some silver coins and turning them into gold.
One might think that Zorn would guess that the demonstration was
fraudulent. If Bottger really could make gold, he would not have had
to continue apprenticeship. But apparently this (li(ln't occur to Zorn
and his friends. They were convinced that the transmutation was real.
And in spite of Bottger's request that they remain silent, they began
to talk. Their talk aroused great interest in Bottger's feat. After all,
Zorn was no impulsive youth spouting tales of another youth's
demonstration. He was a leading Berlin apothecary, and his words
carried weight.
It (li(ln't take long before the Prussian king, Frederick I, heard
about what happened in the apothecary's shop. Frederick immedi-
ately summoned Zorn and questioned him about the transmutation
that he had witnessed. Frederick seems to have been impressed by
Zorn's account because he ordered the apothecary to return the next
(lay with his former apprentice. Meanwhile he confiscate(1 the gold
that Bottger had suppose(lly manufactured. When Bottger heard of
the interview, he realized that this wasn't good news and immediately
went into hiding. But Frederick was not to be denied. When Bottger
failed to appear at his court, he offered a substantial reward for the
alchemist's capture. This was enough to convince Bottger that his only
recourse was to slip out of the country. Fortunately, he was able to
persuade an acquaintance to hide him in a covered wagon that was
being ([riven to nearby Saxony.
Bottger enrolled as a medical student at the University of
Wittenberg. But Frederick soon discovered his whereabouts and sent
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a detachment of troops to capture the young fugitive. But Frederick
couldn't just take Bottger back to Prussia without the consent of the
Saxon authorities. Doing so would damage relations with Augustus,
the elector of Saxony. Besides, by now the Wittenberg authorities
weren't anxious to let Bottger go. The tales of his gold making had
spread, and it did little good for the Prussians to insist that the fugi-
tive was just a common criminal. The Wittenberg authorities sent to
the elector, asking for instructions about handling the affair. They
were not answered immediately because Augustus, who was also king
of Poland, was then in Warsaw. Weeks passed, during which nothing
happened. The Prussians continued to (leman(1 that Bottger be given
into their custody, and the Saxon officials continued to delay.
Finally a message from Augustus arrived. He ordered Bottger
imprisoned in Dresden, the capital city, until he revealed his method
for making gold. The Saxons knew that the Prussian soldiers might
become desperate and use force to seize the prisoner while he was en
route from Wittenberg to Dresden so they provi(le(1 Bottger with a
military escort. Meanwhile, in order to preserve the illusion that he
was still in Wittenberg, Saxon sol(liers continued to stand guard
outside Bottger's lodgings, and food was carried in for the next
two days.
IMPRISONMENT IN DRESDEN
In Dresden Bottger was confined in a section of the royal castle that
was equipped with a laboratory. He was given three assistants to help
him pursue his quest for gold, and two members of Augustus's court
were assigned to supervise the work. Bottger was allowed to talk to no
one other than these five. But of course they were not his only human
contacts; he also had his guar(ls.
Augustus was impatient to witness a transmutation. He ordered
his prisoner to send a sample of the Philosopher's Stone to Warsaw as
soon as he could. This created a dilemma. Bottger could hardly admit
that he didn't know how to make gold. If he did and he was not
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THE LAST SORCERERS
believed, there was a good chance that he might be tortured for the
recipe he didn't have. So he sent a box containing some alchemical
apparatus and some mercury and other ingredients to Augustus,
along with instructions for making a small quantity of gold. Bottger's
instructions were followed in an experiment performed in Augustus's
Warsaw palace, but ah that was produced was a metallic mass that
looked nothing like gold. But this didn't discourage Augustus, who
commanded that the alchemist continue to be confined while he
carried out further experiments.
Augustus also or(lere(1 that Bottger be allowed a more comfort-
able imprisonment. The alchemist was given two rooms in Augustus's
Dresden palace and allowed contact with people other than his
assistants and jailers. Bottger respon(le(1 by making grandiose
promises to the king. He cIaime(l, for example, that he would soon be
producing large quantities of gold every month. He must have quickly
regretted these promises and, fearful of the consequences if Augustus
discovered he hadn't made any gold at all, he determined to escape.
Because he was lightly guar(le(l, he (li(ln't find it (lifficult to slip away
from the palace and make his way to a meeting place where a friend
waited with a horse. He ro(le into Austria and then hea(le(1 toward
Prague. But his freedom (li(ln't last long. A party of Augustus's sol(liers
traced him to an inn in the town of Enns, where he had stopped to
rest, took him into custody and brought him back to Dresden. He
enjoyed only five days of freedom.
The greedy king still believed that Bottger would eventually find
a way to produce gold. After consulting with members of his court,
he decided to spare the young man harsh punishment but kept him
un(ler closer guard than before. But Augustus was not a man of limit-
less patience. In 1705, when Bottger had been a prisoner for more
than three years, Augustus (leman(le(1 that his prisoner set a (1efinite
(late by which gold would be pro(luce(l. Bottger again ma(le grandiose
claims. He wrote a document promising to produce gold within
16 weeks and to manufacture 2 tons of the precious metal during the
following 8 days.
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When Bottger failed to fulfill his promises, the king was furious
and was inclined to have his prisoner summarily executed. However
his advisers pointed out that doing so would cast doubts on Augustus's
judgment. After all, he had spent large sums of money over a period
of years financing Bottger's experiments. One of these advisers was
Ehrenfried Walter van Tschirnhaus, whom the king employed to find
new mineral deposits and inaugurate new manufacturing projects.
One of Tschirnhaus's pet projects was finding a way to manufacture
porcelain. Bottger would be an excellent candidate to continue the
project when Tschirnhaus grew too old to continue the quest himself.
Not only was Bottger a brilliant chemist, he was also still a young
man. Tschirnhaus, on the other hand, was growing old. Augustus
listened. He was an enthusiastic collector of porcelain himself.
WHITE ClOI,D
From the time that they first appeared in Europe during the sixteenth
century, Chinese porcelain objets (['art were highly prized. Porcelain
was far harder than any other ceramic material, and it exhibited a
translucence that no European pottery could match. The first porce-
lain pieces to arrive in Europe inevitably found their way into the
treasuries of European rulers. Then, as the porcelain tra(le grew,
wealthy aristocrats began collecting objects made of the precious
material. Europeans potters naturally looked for ways to manufacture
porcelain themselves. If they discovered the secret, the profits would
be immense. However, the secret of manufacturing porcelain turned
out to be as elusive as the secret of the Philosopher's Stone.
The translucence of porcelain suggested to most European
potters that the material must be a combination of clay and glass, and
they tried using many (1ifferent combinations of glass, clay, and other
materials. Some of them succeeded in producing materials that bore
a superficial resemblance to porcelain, but the pottery lacked the fine-
ness of Chinese porcelain. Their mistake was assuming that glass was
an ingredient. It wasn't. Chinese porcelain was made by mixing white
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THE LAST SORCERERS
clay with a pulverized stone that contained feldspar and then firing
objects fashioned from these materials at high temperatures. During
firing the two materials fused together, producing a hard, flawless,
non-porous material.
When Tschirnhaus suggested that Bottger be put to work on the
porcelain project, the king listened with great interest. He quickly
decided that there was no reason why Bottger couldn't find a way of
making porcelain while continuing his alchemical experiments. He
had Bottger transported to the Albrechtsburg, a royal castle at
Meissen, 9 miles from Dresden, which had ample space to set up a
larger laboratory. Bottger's life at Meissen was not as comfortable as
the one he enjoyed in Dresden. The Albrectsburg had been unused
for some time and had been pillaged during the Thirty Years War.
However, Augustus cared much less about his prisoner's comfort than
about the money that a successful porcelain factory might earn.
Bottger was provided with five assistants, and 24 furnaces were
built in the laboratory. Samples of clay from all parts of the kingdom
were sent to him. The windows of the castle were bricked up so that
passersby could gain no inkling of what was going on, and Augustus
ordered Bottger and his assistants not to discuss their work with any-
one but the courtiers that Augustus appointed to supervise them.
Bottger ma(le no attempt to produce porcelain by mixing clay
and glass together. He knew that this had been tried many times and
had led only to failure. Instead, he began a series of careful experi-
ments in which he mixe(1 various (1ifferent clays with (1ifferent kin(ls
of rock and fired them at high temperatures. Only at high tempera-
tures, he realized, would the rock was be melted. Within a year,
Bottger had achieved some success. He hadn't produced porcelain,
but he had learned how to make a red stoneware that was finer than
anything produced by other German potters. It wasn't white, and it
wasn't translucent, but it was a new ceramic material. He had every
reason to expect further progress.
But then his work was suddenly interrupted. As king of Poland,
Augustus was at war with Sweden. He had suffered a disastrous defeat,
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THE FOUR ELEMENTS
and Swedish troops were now advancing toward Dresden. Augustus
ordered his most valuable possessions transported to Konigstein, an
impregnable country fortress that stood on a rocky plateau above the
Elbe River and was used as a prison. And of course these valuable
possessions included Bottger. Augustus couldn't let his prize alchemist
fall into enemy hands.
Bottger remained at Konigstein for the next year. It was a time of
inactivity. There was no laboratory in the castle and few ways to pass
the time. In effect, he had been transferred to the eighteenth-century
equivalent of a maximum-security prison. At first Bottger was not
allowed to have even books, ink, or paper. When, after some time, he
was given writing materials, he wrote a series of despairing letters to
the king, pleading for a chance to continue his work. The political
situation was too unsettled for Augustus to allow that. If Bottger was
allowed to leave Konigstein, he could easily fall into the hands of the
Swedes. But in 1707, Augustus abdicated as king of Poland and the
Swedish forces withdrew from Saxony. Augustus soon ordered that a
new laboratory be set up in Dresden, and when it was finished,
Bottger was allowe(1 to leave Konigstein. However Augustus was in
no mood to be told of any more failures. He informed Bottger that, if
he failed to produce either gold or porcelain, he would be executed.
Bottger apparently decided that he had a better chance of making
porcelain than of transmuting base metals into gold in the foresee-
able future. He resume(1 his series of experiments with (1ifferent com-
binations of clay and minerals. A material he thought especially
promising was China clay, a mineral that was mine(1 in Germany but
also found in China. China clay contains feldspar, but Bottger
achieved nothing with it because the temperatures that his furnaces
could achieve were too low to melt the material. So he decided to try
alabaster, a type of gypsum that is snow white and translucent.
Bottger mixed clay and alabaster together in different ratios and
found that if he used seven to nine parts of clay to one of alabaster, a
hard, white, translucent material was produced. He had succeeded in
making porcelain! There was, of course, much more to be done.
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Bottger's first porcelain pieces were not of the same high quality as
those imported from China, and he did not yet know how to produce
a glaze. However he was confident that he could perfect his techniques
and eventually produce porcelain of finer quality.
Augustus was pleased but he kept Bottger confined, still expecting
him to find a way to make gold and intending to keep him imprisoned
until he did. The alchemist was still kept in Dresden, even after a
porcelain factory was set up at Meissen and he was appointed its director.
Augustus made Bottger a baron in 1711, and thereafter the
alchemist lived the life of an aristocratic gentleman. Nevertheless, his
imprisonment continued. The king (Augustus had regained the
Polish crown in 1710) had no intention of letting him go free before
he found the Philosopher's Stone. Augustus relented only when
Bottger became very ill in 1714. Although he was only 32, his eyesight
was failing, and he began to super epileptic seizures and a consump-
tive fever. Bottger's illness probably had a number of contributing
causes. Ever since Augustus first imprisoned him, he had been a very
heavy drinker. It was said that during the latter part of his life he
rarely spent a day sober. And of course anyone who labored in an
alchemical laboratory was likely to inhale poisonous fumes, especially
from arsenic and mercury, which were commonly used in alchemical
experiments at the time.
Once he was free, Bottger's health seemed to improve, but it soon
became obvious that this was an illusion. During the next few years
he became increasingly weak and died in 1719 at the age of 37. He
had spent more than 12 years as a prisoner and had been free only
during the last 5 years of his short life.
THE NEVER-ENDING QUEST
Alchemy was supposedly superseded by chemistry in the eighteenth
century. But alchemical practices never really died out, and today
there are still people who persist in practicing the art. There are pub-
lishers and book dealers who specialize in alchemical books, and there
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are alchemical groups and societies. Alchemical elixirs and tinctures
can be purchased on the Internet, and one can study alchemy at
Paracelsus College in Australia.
Modern alchemists do not always attempt to make gold. The
mystical alchemy that I previously spoke of still exists today. It is caped
esoteric alchemy, and it often becomes intermixed with other"new
age" and mystical ideas. For example, the various Rosicrucian groups
make use of alchemical concepts and mysticism, and herbal remedies
are sometimes said to be made by alchemical methods. Sometimes
alchemy is seen as nothing more than a path to spiritual growth. For
example, one website that I consulted informed me that"the main
goal of Alchemy is the creation of a spiritually complete in(livi(lual
whose several components of consciousness are united, resulting in
an integrated, independent, enlightened human being." In other
words, it is spiritual gold that is sought. However, you shouldn't
imagine that modern alchemists have given up their quest to make
gold. In fact you can find recipes for doing precisely that at the
following website: www.dnai.com/~zap/gold.htm.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
alchemical experiments
