Goals Of The Alchemist

Alchemy’s Goals

When alchemy is mentioned, people immediately think about magic and potions. They associate alchemy with the witchcraft and wizards of the 12th century. People do not realize how much the experiments that the alchemists were doing started modern chemistry. Almost all alchemists had the goal of changing one element into another, more valuable element. Most of the time this was trying to turn lead into gold. This required a broad knowledge, so alchemists were knowledgeable in medicine, astrology and magic. This also led to alchemists making discoveries in other areas of science. While the main goals of alchemy were to make gold and the elixir of life, the process led to many discoveries that would change the world.

One of the major goals in alchemy is to change another element into gold. Many alchemists tried a lot of different things to try and find the perfect combination of elements to turn it into gold. In the 1600s, Hennig Brand thought he had discovered an elixir to turn base metals into gold, but he had actually discovered phosphorus.

The elixir of life was the alchemists way of trying to make it happen. It is believed by many researchers that the philosopher's stone was also known as the key to immortality, spiritually. One of the more surprising alchemists that believed in this was Sir Isaac Newton. While he is well-known for his contributions in other scientific fields, Sir Isaac Newton spent a lot of his time and intelect on alchemy. His experiments ranged from scientific discoveries to attempts to turn lead into gold. His experiments were vast and provided a lot of insight unto the idea of philosophers stone. While he was attempting the impossible, his belief in the idea shows people of modern times how believable most of these experiments were. A lot of people truly believe that these alchemists were really going to create the philosophers stone and be able to live