Talk:Alchemy

This was a university research paper I wrote at USC and contributed to Wikipedia early on. The original is at http://www.neptune.net/~bryce/alchemy.txt. --BryceHarrington

The link doesn't work.

I've changed "heremitical" to "hermetical" throughout. Heremitical relates to hermits; hermetical relates to Hermes.

Alchemists are more properly proto-scientists than pseudo-scientists; the latter term can't really be applied to a time before the development of the scientific method. I've removed a reference to something that Carl Jung supposedly missed. From my understanding of Jung this does not seem likely. I've removed the "golden goal" reference; that specific term does not appear to have been used by alchemists, and now its very common use in football becomes a significant distraction.

The references to various authors are in the format (Name, page) leaves something to be desired. Are these direct quotes? Are there copyright issues involved? (Nobody has raised this issue in the last six months so it's probably okay for now.) The Paracelsus quote should fall within fair use, but the page is from what edition? Burckhardt appears to be Titus Burckhardt (b. 1908) Eclecticology 13:23 Aug 8, 2002 (PDT)

No, exactly quoted material is in quotation marks or indented. All fall under fair use, and in fact most are from translations of documents hundreds of years old. The paranthetical references indicate from whence the concepts, ideas, or assertions are taken, thus allowing the reader to verify their correctness or to gain further information along those lines. I left the attribution list off the original submission since at the time Wikipedia wasn't tracking that, and the list added length to an already long document. In any case, if folks think the info's worth having, the references are below. --BryceHarrington

Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans by

 Rex Warner (1963)

Burckhardt, Titus, Alchemy, (1974)

Debus, Allen G. and Multhauf, Robert P., Alchemy and

 Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century (1966)

Edwardes, Michael, The Dark Side of History (1977)

Gettings, Fred, Encyclopedia of the Occult (1986)

Hitchcock, Ethan Allen, Remarks Upon Alchemy and the

 Alchemists, (1857)

Hollister, C. Warren, Medieval Europe: A Short History

 Sixth Edition (1990)

Lindsay, Jack, The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman

 Egypt  (1970)

Marius, On the Elements trans. by Richard Dales (1976)

Norton, Thomas, Ordinal of Alchemy ed. by John Reidy

 (1975)

Pilkington, Roger, Robert Boyle: Father of Chemistry

 (1959)

Weaver, Jefferson Hane, The World of Physics (1987)

 includes:

Aristotle, "Natural Science and its Principles"

Bacon, Roger, "On Experimental Science"

Paracelsus, Book of Vexations

Wilson, Colin, The Occult: A History (1971)

Zumdahl, Steven S., Chemistry 2nd ed. (1989)

Thanks, You alleviated my concerns on the copyright issue. Actually a modern translation of an ancient work could have its own separate copyrights, but that would be covered by fair use anyway. Following this subject (i.e. alchemy) is like walking along a mountain ridge where you can easily go over the edge on either side. I've clarified the source of the Paracelsus quote in the text. Eclecticology 11:12 Aug 28, 2002 (PDT)

IANAL; Just remember that by having our text under the GNU FDL we have to follow a less liberal definition of fair use even though we otherwise technically fall under the umbrella of "educational, not-for-profit purpose". The GNU FDL lets anybody copy our material and then sell it. Thus we have to follow a more conservative policy in regards to fair use which prevents the copying of entire works or substantial parts of works. With that said the stuff here seems to be OK in this regard. --mav