(31-12-2020, 01:14 AM)RenegadeHealer wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.bi3mw, I've seen you use the wink emoji () when talking about alchemy's goals in several posts now. I'm pretty sure I'm in on the joke, but I wanted to make sure: You're referring to the fact that a lot of alchemists seem to have been scammers sharing secret recipes for making passable fake gold, right?
Well, I used that wink emoji in the last post because I realized that I ended up back with the elements. I actually wanted to argue for my point of view but in alchemy you quickly get from one point of view to another. Systemically, this is here from one level (substances) to the next higher (four elements).
In general, I would assume that there were charlatans among the alchemists who were out for "quick money", but the recipe I described in post #19, for example, is so crude (and short) that even the inclined readers might have realized how little useful the implementation is.
On the other hand, alchemy was without question the pioneer of modern chemistry. To reduce them to would-be goldmakers would be unfair. The improvement of distillation, for example, is an achievement that the alchemists could claim for themselves. The invention of European hard porcelain came later, though more by accident. Black powder is also an alchemical (re)invention. There are certainly other examples that I can not think of at the moment.
The idea of inner alchemy, that is the idea of a development of the personality, is certainly difficult to evaluate. That lies in the eye of the beholder.