Alchemists have always been reticent. In every age, their silence or camouflage in the most erudite symbolism, or simply the exclusive prerogative of closed communities, occupies the greater part of their revelations. Apparently, they cannot speak without adopting a language that insiders define as technical; in reality, for laypersons, it is just an esoteric lexicon. Schwaller de Lubitz accused Fulcanelli of speaking like Basilius Valentinus, a fifteenth-century alchemist – among other things, a legendary and difficult-to-identify figure. Canseliet forcefully affirms that in Alchemy there is nothing that should remain hidden and then he himself writes like his master Fulcanelli.
However, there is and has existed, at least since the curiosity for observing nature will survive, a category of people who have always openly written what they know, or at least have heard. They are the philosophers, the historians like Herodotus or Cicero, the naturalists like Pliny the Elder, the men of letters like Homer, Virgil, up to Arthur Rimbaud, the Renaissance artists, the exhibitionist aristocrats, the physicians like J.J. Becher, the iatrochemists like Glaser or Lancillotti, the masons, the army engineers, mathematicians like Luca Pacioli, farmers, astronomers, geologists like Wallerius, miners, priests, Jesuits like Lana Terzi or Athanasius Kircher, bishops like Isidore of Seville, and the abbesses who had their rooms decorated by Parmigianino. I definitely forgot some categories. In any case, everyone.
Without the generous and naive contribution of these people, Alchemy would be without logical explanations, without a reason for being, and above all without those many necessary and revealing details which, apparently, were not hidden at all, but were still part of the common daily knowledge of their era. I am thinking, for example, of the iatrochemists of the Baroque age who dared, knowing they were daring, to clearly reveal proceedings that had everything in common with the first alchemical work. To then also make suggestions for the second one.
Not the alchemists, they were different. Philalete, in his Introitus, wrote: “I put down these lines to make me known to my peers”. And before him, Trevisanus said he wanted to present himself to the world of the wise.
Of course, we all know about the two Hollandus, Orthelius, the Testamentum Fraternitatis, and up to the present day as far as Alexander von Bernus, Archarion, Roger Caro-Kamala Jnana, the humble Rubellus, the elusive Atoréne, the quite fanatic Solazaref, Manfred Junius the musician, Lucarelli the historian and Pancaldi the spagyric. But these are only outline figures. They are not the “Names”. Okay, let’s not syndicate this now. Let’s go back to the incipit: the laypersons.
Well, this site intends to continue presenting the work of people who have nothing to do with Alchemy. But which nevertheless speak, reveal, are indispensable. Even modern scientists.
So why this page? Because I’m more and more baffled to see that the most viewed articles and the most searched names are still those surrounded by the aura of mystery.
P.S: If you want my opinion, I’ll tell you that Canseliet was right: nothing should remain hidden… because anyway, who gets to the goal?