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 lchemy is supposed to have originated in ancient Egypt, its name deriving from Khem, the black life-giving soil of the Nile. The Arabic prefix would have been added after Diocletian, in putting down a revolt in Egypt in 290 AD, outlawed alchemy. Greek alchemical texts from Alexandria were subsequently studied by Dark Age Arab writers such as Geber, Rasis and Avicenna. Alchemy developed independently in South-East Asia, India and Tibet. The Chinese Taoist tradition based on transmutation of metals and life-giving elixirs (first referred to in the second century BC) has always been less secret than the Western alchemy it predates. The earliest surviving Western alchemical manuscripts (presumably copies of Greek papyrus texts) are from eleventh century Venice. By the thirteenth century alchemy had become the object of learned scholarship in the Latin West. Here, under the influence of men such as Francis Bacon, the golden age of alchemy lasted from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. |
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| During this period alchemy enjoyed considerable prestige in scientific, religious and political circles. Its central premise (from Ovid's fables) was metamorphoses. The transformation, with the aid of gentle heat, of base metals into gold was merely one manifestation of this process. There was a religious, psychological and moral dimension to the principle of transformation: Baconian alchemical medicine was concerned with the evolution of flesh to spirit. By maintaining an emotional balance between the four humours it was possible to attain that state of harmony achieved by Christ. This was the quintessence, the philosopher's stone, and the key to eternal life, knowledge and power. |
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One branch of alchemical medicine taught that balance could also be maintained through the integration of psychological opposites. In the allegorical emblematic alchemical scrolls produced during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries known as The Ripley Scrolls (as seen in Newton's laboratory and papers in the film), explicit dramas showing the integration of all aspects of the self, light and dark, male and female, animal and spirit, were played out to demonstrate that the path to true selfhood involved courageous introspection (themes important in the narrative and imagery of the film). Such moral relativism and sexual ambiguity does not sit easily with orthodox Christian traditions. Alchemy involved a journey of self-discovery (the process undergone by the central characters in this film). |
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 The tree of forbidden knowledge, the central symbol of the Book of Genesis, became for the alchemists the tree of life, a celebration of exploration; and it is a crucified serpent that is depicted on the cross in alchemical manuscripts. Such a journey was therefore full of dangers and medieval alchemists such as Thomas Norton warn about the adept to beware especially of self-delusion and madness. Alchemy was therefore viewed with suspicion by the church and frequently legislated against. For this reason alchemy was perceived to have strong links with Gnosticism, the search for a true experience of the God within. It is possible that this pursuit of Gnostic secret knowledge was followed in some of the military orders, such as the Hospitallier knights of St John, who were based at Rhodes, and later in Malta. |
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 he most famous alchemist of the fifteenth century, George Ripley (according to authoritative sources documents read by Leland in Malta) visited Rhodes and used the profits of his experiments to provide the knights with money for the defence of the island against the Turks. Alchemical symbols occur on graves in the Cathedral of St John on the island as discovered by Mira and Jake on their quest in the movie. Ripley and his fellow alchemists were certainly devoted to the ideal of the Crusade and the reconquest of the Holy Land, and alchemy throughout this period was connected with idealistic aspirations of Christian Empire. |
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