The Hermetic Museum

...but not its reality. They put forward the following opinion, which, however, experience and reason already refute: because Nature has drawn a veil over that most refined alkaline earth In alchemical theory, this refers to a specific, purified mineral "salt" or "body" thought to be essential for the growth of metals. which she requires, in addition to the formative water original: "Webungswasser" - literally "weaving water," a term for the liquid medium or mercurial substance in which metals are "woven" or generated in the earth. of metals, for their creation; and because man knows neither its true nature nor the weight with which it must be combined with that water; thus the reality of the art of making gold and silver The alchemical practices of chrysopeia (gold-making) and argyropeia (silver-making). will remain impossible as long as the secret earth required for it remains a mystery to mankind.

Following this pattern, one still finds many doubters, who differ from one another only according to the concepts they have formed regarding the natural birth and ennobling of metals The process by which "base" metals like lead were believed to naturally mature into "noble" metals like gold over vast periods of time.. This was its ancient fate, and its current one is not a hair better. Scholars of all ranks, professional analytical chemists original: "Scheidekünstler," literally "artists of separation," an early term for chemists or assayers who specialized in breaking substances down into their components., and even those wretched creatures, the writers of novels and comedies, have the audacity to mistreat this great art, to make it look ridiculous, and thereby still the rumblings of their own shriveled stomachs A biting metaphorical suggestion that these writers only mock alchemy to produce popular, profitable works to pay for their meals..

In general, it belongs nowadays to those things which one must flatly deny, if one