Talk:History of alchemy

Talk:History of alchemy

Name

This needs a better name. Cultural influences in alchemy, perhaps?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  00:52, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it could use a better name too, but I don't the article is more than cultural influences. Maybe just History of Alchemy? Which is, I just found, redirected to Alchemy instead of this article. --T. Baphomet 18:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I thought about that one but does it really talk about that? It seems like it's discussing 'history by region'...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

If we keep it in line with the other histories of early sciences it would be, as Baphomet suggested, History of Alchemy (or History of Alchemy and Early Chemistry). There still needs to be some historiographical material moved / copied from the main article to give this some structure. --SteveMcCluskey 22:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Suspicious contirbution

Removed from the article:

One of the most famous Egyptian Alchemists was Marik Alu-Kurard or shortened to Marik Alucard (in English). He was known mostly for making stones and first proposed an idea for the philosophers stone. Not else is known just fragments of script found in King Tut's tomb showing that King Tut had a liking to the skills possessed by Marik Alucard.

"Marik Alu-Kurard" doesn't look like a genuine ancient Egyptian name. Possibly Arabic -- but Arabic wasn't spoken in King Tut's time. And if Marik Alu-Kurard's had been found in Tut's tomb, it would have been mentioned in one of the standard histories on Egypt. I smell a hoax. -- llywrch 01:50, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

==

The whole Ancient Egyptian section needs to be strickedn--it takes the hermetica as pre-Greek compositions! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.0.49.132 (talk) 00:15, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. See Terence McKenna's "Hermeticism and Alchemy" lecture : this misconception about hermetica has endured until the birth of modern philology. --187.4.91.42 (talk) 17:40, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Completely agree, I just read the article and was shocked at its inclusion.72.89.142.185 (talk) 18:02, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

References

This article is in a very bad condition. It was using a strange mix of obsolete old-style Harvard references and normal cite.php references. I have converted everything into cite.php footnote references. I have removed the following references which are not explicitly used:

• Cavendish, Richard, The Black Arts, Perigee Books
• Gettgins, Fred (1986). Encyclopedia of the Occult. London: Rider.
• Hart-Davis, Adam (2003). Why does a ball bounce? 101 Questions that you never thought of asking. New York: Firefly Books.
• Marius (1976). On the Elements. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-02856-2. Trans. Richard Dales.
• Zumdahl, Steven S. (1989). Chemistry (2nd ed.). Lexington, Maryland: D. C. Heath and Company. ISBN 0-669-16708-8.
• Greenberg, Adele Droblas (2000). Chemical History Tour, Picturing Chemistry from Alchemy to Modern Molecular Science. Wiley-Interscience. ISBN 0-471-35408-2.

If any of them is actually used, it should be returned to the article in a footnote. Hans Adler 23:26, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

It's good to see this article getting some attention: my thanks for that. I've converted a few articles that have had this problem and Wikipedia:REFTOOL is useful too, which converts all the {{citation}} and {{cite}} templates to a common style if the page has a mixture of styles, as this one does.

One question: you refer to the Harvard citation style as "obsolete", which surprised me, as it is still described along with the other citation styles at Wikipedia:Citation templates. Do you have a pointer for something on this?

All the best. –Syncategoremata (talk) 23:59, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

There are two different Harvard citation styles. The more recent one uses Template:harv and variants. It's convenient for some types of articles and I often introduce it myself where it fits. The obsolete one uses Template:ref harv or Template:ref harvard and is described in WP:Footnotes3. There are currently less than 40 pages left in article space which use this style, and I am trying to get this number down to 0. Hans Adler 00:11, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Aha! I didn't even realise there was a previous version of the Harvard citation style around. And yuck, I can see why it is obsolete.

Many thanks and all best wishes with your project. –Syncategoremata (talk) 00:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Herbal medicine

I just removed a sentence linking herbal medicine with spagyric. While some individual herbalists may link alchemy into their practice, herbal medicine is a specific discipline (not just herbalism) that has little, if anything, to do with alchemy. See, for example, here for an explanation of herbal medicine. Fuzzypeg★ 04:32, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Quotes

I removed some old quotes from Durant and Briffault which are misleading because they are outdated scholarship—they say that the "Arabs" or "Saracens" invented the alembic, distillation, or sublimation at this time, but these things are now believed to have been invented earlier. Spacepotato (talk) 02:33, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Hermetic books

The page says, "According to legend, he wrote what were called the forty-two Books of Knowledge, covering all fields of knowledge—including alchemy." This is Clement's list of the 42 Hermetic books:

(1) Hymns [in honour] of the Gods, and the other

(2) Reflections on the Kingly Life.

(3) the Ordering of the apparently Fixed Stars

(4 and 5) with the conjunctions and variations of Light of the Sun and Moon

(6) with the Risings [of the Stars].

(7) Cosmography

(8) Geography

(9) the Constitution of the Sun and Moon

(10) of the Five Planets

(11) the Survey of Egypt

(12) the Chart of the Nile

(13) the List of the Appurtenances of the Temples

(14) of the Lands consecrated to them

(15) the Measures

(16) Things used in the Sacred Rites.

(17) Sacrifice

(18) First-fruits

(19) Hymns

(20) Prayers

(21) Processions

(22) Feasts

(23-26) the like.

(27-36) treating of the Laws, and the Gods, and the whole Discipline of the Priests.

(37) the Constitution of the Body

(38) Diseases

(39) Instruments

(40) Drugs

(41) Eyes

(42) with the Maladies of Women.

Alchemy is not explicitly listed here. Kramden (talk) 17:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

New Section & Concerning Citation

I added a new section on Alchemy from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. Every statement has citation. I will attempt to find citation for the rest of the article, in which I would appreciate some help. Statements which have no support from reliable sources will be removed or changed. Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 06:23, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I like your additions here. Please consider the following:

• The title is “Alchemy from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries” however the bulk of it concerns ~1850-1950. A proper discussion of for example the seventeenth century would be broader including activities in Rudolf’s Prague etc. Perhaps a title change? Maybe it belongs under Modern Alchemy since there is info from the 19th century there?
• I understand this was written to make a point regarding what you understand to be spiritual alchemy but it reads like a bit of a WP:Soapbox. A balanced approach would be to explain history, and influences of, for example, the Jungian interpretation, more than just a justification for rejecting it. It shouldn’t read like an opinion piece.
• Please be sensitive to the differences of the words “esoteric”, “spiritual”, “psychological”, “exclusively spiritual”, “occult”, “occult revival”, etc. These all mean different things.
• There are a tonne of references in here mostly drawing on the same couple authors. I understand you’ve done this to back up your opinions, but it’s rather unsightly. Perhaps in time the neutrality of this could be adjusted to a point where it’s no longer necessary to use quite as many of these. (In which case Newman could be listed in Further Reading, taking up a few lines instead of a couple dozen lines in references.)

Would you like to make some adjustments before I take a stab at it? As discussed previously, please insert citation needed marks whenever possible, instead of deleting. I’ll help find sources. Car Henkel (talk) 22:32, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

It does all need to be merged together and re-sectioned, so the history is all in order. I intend to find citations for the rest before this, or it'll all get mixed up.

I didn't do this just to make a point and be spiteful. I found a lot of history during my research on this period, and so I wrote a summary and presented it here. Certainly a bulking out of it, with more details would be useful, as you said. Yes, Newman is the main source, and yes, I hold similar views, but that does not make any of this incorrect or unreliable. Though for the two points against spiritual alchemy, that is: it being from occult revival and adulterated documents, I provided multiple sources, not just Newman (Newman was used exclusively only on less serious points.) Please find equally reliable sources (WP:IRS) if you want to add any new info. This is the academic opinion, whether you like it or not. Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 01:26, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Merging from Alchemy->History of Alchemy complete. Next I'll probably rearrange all the info in chronological order and redo the headings, so everything is in the proper place. Then I'll work on the citations. Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 02:41, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Done ordering. Had a weird problem with getting accused of vandalism in the couple of seconds in between pressing the submit button when moving from one section to another.

I'm having problems with the citation sourcing. Problem is that it's difficult to find sources when I have no idea where the information originally came from. I've tried searching on Google Books, but I'm getting a hundreds of good books on the history just looking for a citation for one statement, and not finding the source of the statement. It would be easier to actually rewrite the entire article than it would find citation for all these statements. What to do about this? And who wrote all that stuff without citation anyway? Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 09:47, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Each and every statement does not need a citation. If you think the info is false, mark it. Please follow WP:Preserve. Car Henkel (talk) 17:14, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

When I say "statement" I mean any statement likely to be disputed. Any claim of something needs a citation if it is presented as a historical fact. I'd hold you to the same! :) Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 02:04, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I've mostly worked through the entire Western alchemy section. I rearranged, added citation where I could find it (not an easy job when the original sources are not cited!) A few bold statements I could not find citation for, I marked. I also checked a lot of the sources which were already on there to make sure the statements made existed therein. In some cases it did not. Citation needed marks have been added where citation needs to be found and I could not find it. These statements should be removed if the citation cannot be found by anyone else after a reasonable amount of time. Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 11:02, 6 June 2011 (UTC) Since a lot of the current sources are not peer-reviewed, I will attempt to find better sources for the statements that are already cited at some point in the future. A lot of them cite this one source "The Dark Side of History", which only has snippet view on Google Books, so I can't verify what it says. But it's not peer-reviewed anyway. Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 11:45, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Merge Proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was merge into Alchemy. -- Car Henkel (talk) 16:20, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

---

Merge into Alchemy. Seems to be the general agreement. Any objections? Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 23:30, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

upon coming to this article, I was surprised at how long it was compared to the "parent" topic article of alchemy itself. I suspect at some point there was a POV forking that went on. Active Banana (^bananaphone 02:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I dunno. It's huge(as is the history)... there's regional subpages. And there's certainly more that could be added to the parent. I agree with Active Banana but would this be the best approach to fixing the prob? What about one of those series box thingies to tie stuff together instead?Car Henkel (talk) 03:43, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Is that an agreement or an objection? I was thinking along the lines that people who view Alchemy are likely looking for history, and History of Alchemy is not so easily found, especially by people who are not frequent Wikipedia users. It's very easy to skip your eyes over the link to here. It would therefore make sense to merge them. Will Timony, Ph.D (talk • contribs) 07:09, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Cautious agreement. I was just thinking it'd end up fairly long but the Spanish version of the Alchemy article seems to pull it off with good article status. Their model might be a good one to strive for.Car Henkel (talk) 00:45, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

It seems like people looking at Alchemy are looking for the historical information, so I agree with this merge Ice Truck Killer (talk) 23:45, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

There's agreement on this and I've gone ahead and closed this discussion. Merge is a go. Car Henkel (talk) 16:20, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.