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  Allegedly not all men were as miserable with transmutation. Also in the Metamorphoses, Ovid portrayed Pythagoras as a master of change, and ascribed these words to him: “nothing in all the world remains unchanged. All things are in a state of flux, all shapes receive a changing nature.” Ovid's Pythagoras spoke of “the change of times from gold to iron,” and of various transmutations: a stream of water that turned the drinker's entrails to stone, other streams that “will turn the hair to something like clear amber or bright gold,” rotting horses generating hornets, dead humans' spine marrow mutating into snakes, and mud giving birth to green frogs.6 He claimed that even the elements can change. Yet Ovid's poem was grossly ahistorical: the character of Pythagoras, for example, described events that did not happen until centuries after his death. Pythagoras, proponent of the idea that souls are repeatedly reborn, had a unique connection to gold. In Lucian's stories (ca. 170 CE) Pythagoras appeared as having a golden thigh, which proved his relation to the sun god Apollo. In one place Lucian described Pythagoras, after seven transmigrations of the soul, this way: “the entire right half of him was gold.”7

  The association of Pythagoras with alchemy was also plausible because some writers claimed that he had studied magic and mastered the medicinal properties of plants. Many alchemists claimed that minerals had vegetative qualities. Around 78 CE, Pliny the Elder claimed that Pythagoras had written an entire book on the medicinal and magical properties of bulbs and herbs, assigning his discoveries to Apollo.8 According to Pliny, Pythagoras celebrated the virtues of cabbage and mustard, declared that epileptic seizures cannot happen to one who holds anise in hand, and he claimed that squills hung on a doorway would keep out evil spirits.9 Apparently Pythagoras also claimed that when cabbage, wheat, hemlock, and violets are in bloom, certain diseases strangely attack the human body. Another ancient writer noted: “Pythagoras and the group of those who said of matter, that it is susceptible to change, asserted a becoming and dissolution in reality. For they believed, that the becoming happens because of the transmutation and motion of elements.”10

  Moreover, according to Heraclides Ponticus, Pythagoras was reputed to be the son of Mercury. This god had granted him the gifts of “the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into whatever plants or animals it pleased; and he had also received the gift of knowing and recollecting all that his soul had suffered in hell, and what sufferings too are endured by the rest of the souls.” Pythagoras seemed to be a master of the occult, because he had “requested that whether living or dead, he might preserve the memory of what had happened to him.”11

  Hence, one of the earliest Latin texts on alchemy featured Pythagoras. It appeared in the thirteenth century, translated from Arabic, and tells of a gathering of nine philosophers convened by Pythagoras to clarify obscurities in ancient alchemical books. Pythagoras spoke of “the stone that is not a stone,” common but hidden, and known by many names: Spume of the Moon and Heart of the Sun. Then a fellow philosopher described the process of transmutation: “when first cooked it becomes water; then the longer it is cooked, the more it thickens until it becomes a stone, as the envious call it, but really it is an egg that tends to become a metal. Afterward it becomes saturated and breaks, when you must roast it in a fire even more intense, until it gains the color of blood, when it is placed on coins and changes them into gold, according to Divine desire.”12 Pythagoras argued that the philosophers used marvelously varied expressions to convey the same art and to keep hiding the precious art from the vulgar and foolish. The characters were historical, but the dialogue was fictitious—though it echoed viewpoints of pre-Socratic philosophers.

  The growing legend of Pythagoras crept into the history of alchemy and chemistry.13 The association of Pythagoras with the secrets of the Egyptians illustrates the kind of syncretism of Greek and Egyptian myths that is often embodied by the legendary figure of Hermes Trismegistus. In the words of Johannes Kepler, “either Pythagoras hermeticizes, or Hermes pythagorizes.”14

  For centuries, writers have claimed that Pythagoras traveled to Egypt and learned various secrets from the Egyptian priests.15 But which disciplines he supposedly studied there vary: geometry or astronomy, architecture or alchemy, religion or others. Actually, we do not even know whether he really ever traveled to Egypt. The earliest extant account of such travels, written more than a century after his death (Isocrates, ca. 375 BCE), only states, with derision, that in Egypt Pythagoras studied religious rituals, not necessarily to impress the gods but to enhance his reputation.16 Earlier, Herodotus made several claims (ca. 430 BCE) that from Egypt some of the Greeks copied practices, ceremonies, and names of gods.17 And Herodotus, who traveled to Egypt, made a comparison between burial practices that were “Egyptian and Pythagorean: for it is impious, too, for one partaking of these rites to be buried in woolen wrappings. There is a sacred legend about this.”18

  Herodotus did not mention whether Pythagoras traveled to Egypt or whether he studied alchemy—which does not mean that he did not do those things. Isocrates later claimed that Pythagoras traveled to Egypt—which does not necessarily mean that he truly did. What matters to me is that in this connection a recent commentator on Isocrates, Niall Livingstone, neatly pinpointed a pattern by which stories grow, how associations give rise to legends. Livingstone suggests that Herodotus indirectly originated the story that Pythagoras visited Egypt “by taking the first two steps of the reasoning which leads to the idea of a visit (similar feature, therefore same feature; same feature, therefore borrowed feature).” Herodotus noted that the burial practices of the Pythagoreans and the Egyptians were similar, and hence he seems to imply that they were identical. Then our interpretive drift leads us to imagine a causal connection, that the Pythagoreans copied the Egyptians: “Someone, perhaps Isocrates, then followed Herodotus' hint and took the third step of asserting that Pythagoras visited Egypt, an idea which was eagerly accepted by later Pythagoreans and biographers of Pythagoras.”19

  I do not mean to argue that Pythagoras did not visit Egypt, I simply do not know. What I do want to highlight is that this pattern—similar therefore same, same therefore borrowed—seems to recur in the growth of the legends about alchemy. Moreover, such tales serve to apparently give substance to the early roots of a discipline, as such stories about Pythagoras's imports from Egypt have propagated in fields as varied as mathematics, architecture, astronomy, religion, and alchemy. Regardless of whether Pythagoras actually traveled anywhere, writers added colorful and significant details to such tales over time. The most moving and inspirational version I have read is the following—in a book dedicated “To the Sacred Majesty of Truth.” Note how it connects to common notions of a hero's journey, a lost paradise, the noble struggle against deaf mediocrity:

  Led by a desire of this, as by some guiding star, Pythagoras travelled into Egypt, and cheerfully encountered the greatest difficulties, and maintained the most obstinate perseverance, until at length he happily penetrated the depths of Egyptian wisdom, and brought into Greece a treasury of truth for future speculation. But these were happy days; this was the period destined to the reign of true philosophy, and to the advancement of the human soul to the greatest perfection its union with the terrene body can admit. For in our times, the voice of wisdom is no longer heard in the silence of sacred solitude; but folly usurping her place, has filled every quarter with the barbarous and deafening clamours of despicable sectaries; while the brutal hand of commerce has blinded the liberal eye of divine contemplation. For unfortunately, the circle of time, as it produces continual variations, at length reverses the objects of pursuit; and hence, that which was once deservedly first, becomes at length, by a degraded revolution, the last in the general esteem.20

  One of the legends that grew up around Pythagoras was that “Pythagoras and many others possessed in silence the Medicine of the Blessed Stone, and neither used it for evil purposes, nor revealed it to the wicked; just as God himself alwa
ys has concealed this knowledge from the proud, the impure, and the presumptuous.” Allegedly some used it to extend their lives, including the Biblical figure of Adam (said to live five hundred years) and Noah (said to live nine hundred years), and others, such as Pythagoras himself.21

  Alchemy became secretive partly because it was often a fraud. But it was also dangerous even if the alchemists truly believed that they were pursuing a noble art, because if someone were to discover how to manufacture gold, that person could then gain immense power and even undermine established rulers. If gold became increasingly available, the values of old riches would diminish; currencies could collapse.

  The wealthiest rulers opposed the alchemists' enterprise. The Catholic Church condemned alchemy and denounced it as forgery. In 1404, King Henry IV enacted the Act against Multipliers, a law that prevented anyone from using alchemical crafts to produce silver or gold. Alternatively, other rulers also sought to command the secrets of alchemy. King Henry VI appointed royal commissions to investigate the alchemical arts to try to manufacture more wealth for the crown. He also asked the Catholic clergy to produce gold—after all, they routinely claimed to transubstantiate bread into the body of Christ. They refused, offended. In several countries, accused alchemists who were not supported by a royal license were persecuted, indicted, exiled, excommunicated, imprisoned, hanged, burned at the stake, or immersed in boiling oil.22

  Gold, what substance has caused more bloody theft, deception, and murder? Ironically, it is one of the most useless metals: too soft for tools and construction, inconveniently heavy, and chemically un-reactive. Yet gold not only looks good, it lasts; other metals such as iron and copper tarnish and rust, but not gold, as if somehow it holds onto youth, just as humans wish they could. Beauty, youth, and wealth were represented by gold.

  In the Renaissance, Bernard Trevisan sought alchemists' secrets. One autobiographical text explains his struggles for the Philosophers' Stone. His family was wealthy, and Trevisan invested much money to study alchemy. He praised Hermes and Pythagoras, but complained that impostors deceived him. He worked with minerals, metals, vegetables, blood, hair, and excrement, praying for God's help. With a collaborator, he spent over a year trying to use salt to make the Stone. At age forty-six, he bought two thousand eggs, separated yolks and whites, putrefied them in horse manure (later distilled thirty times to extract a white liquid and red oil). He worked two years on those residues, then gave up and spent eight years on other experiments. Trevisan worked with silver, mercury, sulfur, olive oil—again with no results. Relatives ridiculed him. He stopped eating and drinking and became emaciated. He traveled, spent more money, sold properties. Poor by the age of sixty-two, he retired to the isle of Rhodes, still seeking men who claimed to know the Stone. Taking loans, he mixed gold, silver, mercury, horse manure, fire, and urine for months, but still saw no results. Sleepless, old Trevisan suspected that Nature cannot be altered, that those writing about transmutations were damnable cruel thieves.23

  But apparently, not all alchemists were so unlucky. One intriguing alchemist wrote under the name Basil Valentine. Allegedly he was a Benedictine monk, but his identity and when precisely he lived remain a mystery. He wrote about various occult and alchemical topics, such as the use of certain poisons as medicine.24 One of his short treatises, first published in 1599, discussed secret powers and virtues which, he claimed, God had put into metals and minerals. It became known as The Twelve Keys of Basil Valentine.

  The author claimed to have spent years at a monastery, where through his devotion to God and by studying old texts he eventually progressed toward an earthly treasure. He claimed that one of the brothers in the convent suffered from a severe disease that physicians had failed to cure. To help him, Valentine worked with vegetable substances for six years. But he too failed, so he proceeded to labor with minerals and metals. He claimed to have managed finally to concoct a colorful mineral substance from which he extracted a “spiritual essence” that then served to completely cure the ailing brother. Allegedly, it was the Stone of the Ancients.

  Valentine argued that to receive the knowledge of the Stone, one first had to show devotion and gratitude to God, help the needy and the poor, and truly repent of one's sins. Valentine added various other requirements involving discipline and dedication that would help one to attain the ancient secret knowledge of the Stone. He also explained that he was forbidden from plainly revealing some secrets by the law of God, whose wrath he feared. Yet he did express a desire to share his findings with other practitioners of the secretive art.

  One example of Valentine's keys, the second, depicts two swordsmen lunging toward one another. On one sword clings a serpent, and on the other an eagle. Between the two stands a naked man, readily identifiable as the god Mercury, because the symbol for that god is over his head and because he has wings on his back and at his feet. In each hand, Mercury holds a caduceus, that is, a staff entwined by a pair of serpents facing each other. In the background landscape, the sun and moon appear near the ground. What did this image mean?

  Valentine accompanied this image with several paragraphs alluding to a palace, the sea, and the marriage of the gods Apollo and Diana. He argued that although such divine bride and groom be gloriously adorned by their wedding garments, they must be naked and clean in the bridal night. He explained that the King Apollo should be cleansed by two “hostile” substances, and then wrote:

  But if you cast the Eagle onto the icy Dragon who for a long time dwelled in the rocks and has crawled out from the caverns of the Earth, and you place both of them together on the infernal chair, then Pluto will blow wind, and, from the icy Dragon there will arise a volatile and fiery spirit, which by its great heat will consume the wings of the Eagle and produce a perspiring bath so extraordinary that the snow from the highest mountaintops will begin to melt and become a water, with which the invigorating mineral bath may be prepared, to thus give to the King fortune and health.25

  Such cryptic expressions, simultaneously intriguing and silly, drew the attention of practicing alchemists for centuries. Were there really any alchemical secrets hiding in Valentine's keys?

  In the early 1980s, an undergraduate student at the University of Delaware named Lawrence Principe became fascinated by Valentine's keys. Principe spent a lot of time deciphering texts and reproducing alchemical processes in a laboratory. Proceeding to graduate school to study organic chemistry at Indiana University, he continued to painstakingly study the old emblems and language of alchemy and to recreate the experimental procedures that the alchemists obliquely described.

  Looking at the words and image for the second key, Principe realized that the moon and the sun represent silver and gold. The sun was a traditional symbol for the god Apollo and the moon represented Diana. But what about the two fighters wielding swords with an eagle and a snake? And what about the winged figure of Mercury standing between them? In alchemical emblems, weaponry often designated a philosophical fire, a way to kill one substance to make it become another.26 Principe reasoned that the clash of the swordsmen represented the mixture of two substances, which in turn would yield something symbolized by the winged Mercury. The snake entwined on a sword recalls “serpentine powder,” an old kind of gunpowder that includes the substance saltpeter (crystals that grow like brushes in dank caves, produced by bat guano or urine and rotting manure). On the other sword, the eagle was the traditional symbol for a rare, volatile substance, sal ammoniac (also found in bat guano and volcanic vents).

  Principe realized that these two substances, saltpeter and sal ammoniac, joined, produce a volatile acid, depicted by the winged figure of Mercury. This acid would serve to corrode silver and dissolve gold.27 In present-day terms, the second key describes a reaction between potassium nitrate and ammonium chloride:

  Does that look more obvious than the image of the two fighters? In the right proportions, the two substances can make the potent acid that is actually a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric aci
d:

  It's a dangerously corrosive yellow liquid that spews toxic fumes as it quickly expends its potency. This acid, which the alchemists called aqua regia (royal water), dissolves gold.

  Through further analysis, Principe came to think that Valentine's third key discussed how to use the royal water and the fourth showed how to volatize gold. But that seemed unlikely: could alchemists possibly have known the subtle procedures by which gold actually can be made into gas? In his ensuing research, Principe found an article from the late 1800s that discussed the volatility of gold chloride, and that cited an old work by the famous chemist Robert Boyle.

  Robert Boyle is famous for advancing chemistry into what we consider a science. His many experiments involved clever techniques and important instruments such as the air pump. In schoolbooks, he shows up for having formulated “Boyle's law,” PV = k. This law, that the product of the pressure and volume of a gas has a constant value k (if the temperature is kept constant), was confirmed by Boyle, but not discovered by him.28 Boyle devised useful classifications of substances, stressed the importance of securing experimental evidence that is repeatable and publicly witnessed, advanced the use of quantified analysis of chemical transformations, and advocated the value of mechanical explanations in order to make sense of puzzling phenomena. Boyle believed that material bodies are all composed of atoms in various arrangements.

  In 1661, Boyle published a book titled The Sceptical Chymist, in which he critically analyzed and shattered old theories of matter, including the ancient theory that all was made of earth, water, air, and fire. Thus Boyle became famous for having separated science from nonsense by debunking the phony quackery of alchemy. He became known as “the father of modern chemistry.”29