Albedo
Also: whitening
The whitening named in some alchemical color sequences, after blackening in the sequence discussed by this source.
Reference · Glossary
Glossary
A guide to the words used across this site and in the texts behind it. Definitions describe historical usage, not proven supernatural effects. A term may mean different things in different traditions; the tradition label tells you which sense is meant here.
Looking for a sign rather than a word? Symbols draws the signs of astrology, alchemy and geomancy and links each to what this study says about it.
30 terms · page 1 of 2
Alchemical transmutation
The proposed change of one substance or metal into another. Making gold from a less valued metal was a famous goal, not an established result of the old recipes.
Alchemy
Also: alchemist, alchemists
A historical family of practices and theories about changing matter, especially metals. Its laboratory work, coded language, medicine and philosophical aims varied considerably across places and centuries.
Alembic
A distilling vessel or still, used to heat substances and guide the vapor toward collection.
Athanor
A furnace associated with sustained heating in an alchemist's workshop.
Calcination
Strong heating that leaves a powdery residue or changes a material's properties. An alchemical operation, not a universal spiritual stage.
Chrysopoeia
The making of gold: a traditional name for the gold-making ambition within alchemy.
Chymistry
An early modern name for practices that combined what later became chemistry with alchemical theories, medicine, metallurgy and craft.
Citrinitas
The yellowing named in some four-color alchemical schemes; many other accounts use different stages or images.
Coagulation
Thickening or solidifying a material; one of the operations named in alchemical accounts of transformation.
Crucible
A heat-resistant vessel for melting, heating or reacting materials at high temperatures.
Digestion
Keeping materials under gentle, sustained heat for an extended period in a laboratory process.
Dissolution
Breaking down or dissolving a material in a liquid. Alchemical writers could describe this materially or figuratively.
Distillation
Also: distilling
Heating a mixture and collecting its condensed vapor to separate or concentrate materials, a central operation in early chemical work.
Elixir
A prepared substance credited in some alchemical writing with restorative or transformative powers; the claimed powers are part of the historical vocabulary.
Filtration
Separating solids from liquid through a porous medium, one of the practical operations found in alchemical laboratories.
Fixation
An operation meant to make a volatile substance stable under heat, described in historical alchemical procedures.
Magnum opus
Also: Great Work
The 'great work' of an alchemist, often the long process imagined to yield the philosopher's stone. Texts do not agree on one recipe or sequence.
Mercury in alchemy
A metal and a recurring theoretical or symbolic term in alchemical writings. Context matters: an author may mean the material, an imagined principle or a coded ingredient.
Nicolas Flamel
A historical Parisian scribe later recast in legend as an alchemist. The legend is not evidence that he made the philosopher's stone.