Description
1. Pre-scientific chemical experimentation.
2. The theory and alleged practice of the transmutation of metals, particularly base metals (e.g. lead) into noble ones (e.g. gold). Also the method of obtaining an agent of transmutation, variously and allegorically named, in the form of a liquid elixir, a powder of projection, or a solid 'stone'. It is a practice associated with the preparations of medicines in the internal alchemy of producing and maintaining a healthy, long-living human body, and therefore also with a healthy psychology. The internal alchemy ultimately broadened its aims from long, healthy life, to immortality; and from a healthy psychology to a quest for superhuman knowledge and powers. In the latter form it became a species of magic. In both forms it was associated with delusion and charlatanism. In some aspects its practices required astrological considerations, and in others religious piety.
3. An occult art, one of whose objects is to provide a subtle vehicle for the soul, a second, spiritual body. For this purpose the physical body is viewed as a chemical chamber or vessel of some kind, for example, a distillation flask, a 'pelican' glass, etc., or, from more of a metallurgical point of view, as a furnace or crucible.