The Chemical Heritage Foundation wants to set the record straight about alchemy. The medieval practice, often perceived as a dark art or pseudoscience, actually helped form the process of scientific ...

Alchemy wasn’t fringe pseudoscience—it was mainstream intellectual pursuit. Medieval scholars believed matter, spirit, and ...

Part of the appeal of the Boyle myth may be that it promised a clean break: a waymark at which alchemy was cast aside and chemistry took over. But such changes rarely if ever happen in science, and ...

Jacques Lagniet, “Recueil des plus illustres proverbes, divises en trois livres…” (1657-1663), engraving, on view in The Art of Alchemy (courtesy the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles) The “Great ...

Can alchemy be described as a protoscience? Do ancient texts with obscure formulas and procedures describe mystic rituals and allegoric visions? Or do they record instructions to carry out real ...

Within a 20-minute walk from Notre Dame Cathedral, in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris, is the oldest house in the city: the house of Nicolas Flamel. If the name rings a vague bell, perhaps it’s ...

Work has begun in downtown Lancaster on a restaurant and events venue themed around the ancient and modern history of alchemy. House of Alchemy will take a spot at 51 N. Market St. that has most ...