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Abu Ali ibn Sīnā, 'Avicenna' in Europe, was the greatest of the Golden Age of Islam intellectuals. He wrote, probably, 450 books, of which 250 survive, most on philosophy and medicine. He worked from about 1000 to 1037 A.D. His pharmacology was extensive, l...

In 200 AD, the land of Spain was occupied and controlled by Rome. When Rome began to decline in 400 AD, the Huns, in the steppes of Mongolia into Europe, and the peoples there in Germany, known as the Alans, the Sueves and the Vandals, began to migrate south i...

Albertus Magnus, "Albert the Great", was a German who became a monk then a university lecturer, at the University of Paris, 1240. He stayed only five years, as he moved a lot during his lifetime. He was a lifelong learner and complete fan of Aristotle, and, fo...

Roger Bacon (1219 - 1292) was also a monk (Franciscan friar) teaching at the University of Paris. He was the Aristotle lecturer there. Needless to say he was also an Aristotelian, and wrote after the manner of Aristotle. Woodcut of Bacon presenting a work to ...

Arnold of Villanova, born near Valencia, Spain, in 1235, was a renowned physician and contrarian. His abilities as a physician brought him in the the highest circles of society, and his contrarian nature got him exiled from those same circles. His prowess a...

Raymond Lull (or Ramon or Lully or Llull or Lullii, 1232 - 1315) is a highly influential author. He will be quoted extensively for the next 400 years. He is one of the very few considered both a saint and a heretic by the Church. He began life as a troubado...

Geber was invented in Europe, probably after 1300 AD. he wrote in Latin, was not a numerologist, and had no significant indication that he was reading anything in the Arabic. The "G" in Geber is soft, like a "J" in Jabir. The books with no Arabic originals, pu...

Petrus Bonus wrote one very influential work, The New Pearl of Great Price in 1330 AD. This book was held in very high esteem by other alchemists and is quoted often by them. The only English translation we have is by a fellow named A. E. Waite, who's translat...

John Dastin (or Dastyn or Dastain or Dausten) defended alchemy when it was attacked by Pope John XXII in the 1320's.  Here is the Pope's decretal:   Spondet quas non exhibent"Guarantees they do not offer" Poor themselves, the alchemists promise riches wh...

Symbols have almost always been used in alchemy. It took two forms: typographic symbolism, literary symbolism, and pictorial symbolism. In alchemy the typographical symbols were used to represent substances, Sulfur or soul, the principle of combustibility:...

There is a long history of alchemists conning the gullible out of their riches. We've just seen a papal bull telling the Church that alchemy is not to be practiced because the alchemist cannot produce what is promised.  But the art of the con goes far deeper ...

Nicholas Flamel is probably the most famous non-existent alchemist. I think he didn't not exist, but stories of Flamel abound in alchemy and even into our culture. perhaps a real Frenchman, we don't know his birth and death dates because no record exists of hi...

In the 1500's and 1600's, a series of compilations of alchemical texts were published. This has always been a thing since Al-Khalid began summarizing the Alexandrian alchemy back in the 800's. One thing these compilations do is introduce new texts, manuscripts...

George Ripley (1415 - 1490) holds a semi-special spot in my alchemical education. He wrote a long alchemical poem to King Edward IV, which I didn't understand, called The Compound of Alchymy. But later, George Starkey, an American alchemist writing under the p...

On May 29th, 1453, the great city of Constantinople, which stood for over 1000 years, assaulted by the Arabs and Turks for most of that time, finally fell. When the Roman Church moved to Byzantium in 330 with the power and wealth of the Constantine empire, the...

Behind Nicholas Flamel in popularity as an alchemist is Paracelsus, born Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hoenheim in 1493 in Switzerland. A wandering physician, alchemist, theologian, anti-extablishementarian, contrarian, and generally unlikeable...

Aurum Potabile, drinkable gold, was a Paracelsian idea based on the perfection of gold being used as a perfect medicine. In reality, it is a deadly poison; the gold, as Au+3 ions, takes the place of iron, Fe+3, but will not change it's charge as iron does, as ...

In the early 1600's there was one emperor, Rudolf II in Prague, who funded much alchemy. The story starts with a Scottish alchemist named Alexander Seton, who bragged about his successful transmutations and was believed by Christian II of Saxony, who imprison...

Peter Rami, or in Latin, Petrus Ramus, was a student at the Collège de Navarre in 1536. He started there at age 12, and his thesis was titled,  Quaecumque ab Aristotele dicta essent, commentitia esse (Everything that Aristotle has said is false). It was the ...

The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, or Rosicrucians, was founded in Germany in 1614 by the publication of three manifestos, all by the pseudonymous "Christian Rosenkreuz." These were the Fama Fraternitatis RC (The Fame of the Brotherhood of RC, 1614), the Confe...