ABSTRACT
Alchemy is commonly regarded as a search for personal enrichment, but the
alchemists themselves warned that anyone who desires occult knowledge ‘for the
purpose of procuring wealth and pleasure’ should not ‘think that he will ever attain
to it’. On the contrary,
In this furnace of the Cross, a man, like earthly gold, attains to the true black
Raven’s Head, i.e., loses all beauty and honour in the eyes of the world; and that not only during forty days and nights, but often during his whole life, which is
Far from seeking personal wealth, one alchemist went so far as to hope ‘that in a few
years gold (not as given by God, but as abused by man) will be so common that those
who are so mad after it shall contemptuously spurn aside this bulwark of
Antichrist’.2 The true alchemist seeks sanctity rather than wealth: ‘he on whom the
Most High has conferred the knowledge of this Mystery esteems mere money and
earthly riches as lightly as the dirt of the streets. His heart and all his desires are bent
upon seeing and enjoying the heavenly reality of which all these things are but a
figure.’3 Thomas Charnock advises the would-be adept that ‘if you thinke to
obtaine your Intent, / Fear God and keepe his Comandement’.4 Alchemy was not
intended for personal benefit, and we are told repeatedly that the Art should be used
for ‘the glory of [God and] His most Holy Name, and for the good of thy suffering
fellow man’.5 If you ‘desire to struggle with this process’, John Dastin advised, you
‘ought not to approach it unless you have a mind that is pure and dedicated to God,
and humbly beseech him for help’.6 Purity was an essential prerequisite of success
for the alchemist:
Iyfe thow wilt thys warke begyn,
Than schrevy the clene of alle thy Seyne:
And ever thenke on hym that the der bowght.
