Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
course to female biology, and which we hope to enslave. In contempo-
rary biological terms, cloned organisms, genetic engineering,
in vitro
fer-
tilization, and embryo transfers involve a comparable desire to take con-
trol of the genesis of organisms, especially in relation to humans.
3.
The Public Image of Alchemists
Because alchemy re-entered Europe through translations of Arabic writ-
ings, it became a casualty of transferred racism and religious prejudice.
Its practical and socially acceptable origins in metallurgy and medicine
were soon obscured and instead it was associated by name and origin
with a race regarded as infidels. Linked with the black arts, with heresy,
astrology, and magic, it was decried and finally outlawed by the Church.
A series of Acts were passed forbidding the practice of alchemy,
culminating in Pope John XXII's formal edict
Spondent
, denouncing the
alchemists as tricksters and counterfeiters (Duncan 1968, pp. 636f.). It
was widely believed that alchemists were in league with the devil and
that those who patronized their services were in danger of eternal
damnation. Concealment, isolation, and the arcane symbolic language of
the Hermetic tradition were evolved not only as a mechanism to guard
secret knowledge, but also as a strategy for survival in the face of
persecution. At first the astrological signs of the planets were used as
alchemical symbols; later alchemists invented their own secret symbols.
The 'Table of Chemical Symbols' in the
Encyclopédie
of Denis Diderot
and Jean d'Alembert in the late eighteenth century still resembles the
medieval alchemists' symbols. These characteristics, accidents of histo-
ry, have been perpetuated in fiction, not only in relation to alchemists but
as essential features in the characterization of modern scientists, especial-
ly chemists, as cloistered, secretive, engaged in practices that violate the
norms and moral values of society, speaking a language and writing in
symbols designed to exclude the uninitiated.
Despite this reputation of illicit practices and even condemnation by
the Church, alchemists exerted a continuing fascination because of their
alluring promises. In various forms these all represented power to tran-
scend the normal limitations of the human condition - the power of
wealth, power over ageing and death, and power over the creation of life.
