Alchemy; Alchymy

Alchemy; Alchymy. The most prominent theme of Alchemy was the effort to discover the universal solvent or philosopher’s stone which would transmute base metals into gold, and the elixir of life that would heal disease and prolong human existence. Hermes Trismegistus, and others in various countries, including Caligula, Democritus, Geber, Pope John XXII, Tully, or Tullius, Paracelsus, Roger Bacon, Basilius Valentinus, and many others are listed among the dabblers in Alchemy. Their writings were often couched in cabalistic, cryptic, and symbolic language.

There has been a tendency for two centuries among imaginative and sensational writers to corrupt Freemasonry by coating it with all sorts of mystical and occult veneers, of which Alchemy is but one. So successful have they been that many within and many without the Society assume that there is some affiliation of Freemasonry with theosophy, astrology, spiritualism, occultism, magism, or even fortune telling and slight of hand. There has never been any association between Freemasonry and mystical arts, especially, alchemy, though, doubtless, the formulators of the numerous Hauts Grades and other higher degrees around the middle of the 18th century resorted to many such sources for interesting and impressive material, which was valuable in proportion as it was supernatural. Accordingly, the 28th degree of the Scottish Rite, called Knight of the Sun is partly Hermetic, just as the 21st or Prussian Knight furnishes an example of sorcery.

Macoy Collector's Note: Coil sets a firm boundary here, protecting orthodox Craft Masonry from being grouped with the occult and mystical fads that heavily influenced 18th-century European high degrees.