alchemy

The practice of using chemical experiments or processes for such purposes as making potions of immortality or transmuting commoner metals into gold. Alchemy was widespread in the Middle Ages and early modern times in Europe, China, and elsewhere. In Europe a supreme goal of the practice was isolating what was called the "philosopher's stone," which was believed to give eternal life. Alchemy was intertwined with the origins of modern science, and even as great a fi gure as Isaac Newton was involved with it. As alchemy sought to transmute "base metals" into nobler ones like gold, create better medicines, and fashion the "elixir of life," some fundamental discoveries about chemistry and medicine were made. Even with these discoveries, alchemy itself fell out of favor by the end of the 17th century. Chinese alchemy, which fl ourished from the fi fth to ninth century, was largely focused on the quest for immortality. Scholars of alchemy, such as Carl Gustav JUNG and Mircea ELIADE, have shown that alchemy often had a profoundly religious or psychological signifi cance, in which various elements and chemicals were seen as symbolic of spiritual qualities, and a whole procedure was like a religious rite.