Transcription
One of the most daunting aspects of starting to study alchemy is just where to begin. Not only does alchemy span nearly 2,000 years of philosophical, technical, theoretical, and spiritual development, but it is marked by literary text and artistic representation, which are among the most difficult, obscure, and confounding in history. And to make matters worse, most of these texts are still known by their relatively obscure Latin titles, and even getting a sense of what was written by whom and when remains challenging even to experts in the field. And even if you do pick out a text, they're often marked by incredibly esoteric artwork and symbolism. Even the names of our chemical elements and the processes they undergo are often encoded in what is now called "decnamen." Studying alchemy, especially as a beginner, can be extraordinarily disorienting, difficult, and discouraging. And I often get the question, "Given the difficulty of alchemy, where should I begin studying these texts and images?"
In this episode, we're going to introduce and explore what I take to be the single best text for introducing anyone to the theory, practice, and history of alchemy: the *Summa Perfectionis*, or the Sum of Perfection, by Gerber. I mean, Pseudo-Gerber. I mean, Paul of Tarento. Obscure authorship, check. I mean, I said it was going to be the best text, not the easiest text. I mean, after all, you're the one here learning about alchemy, right? What did you expect? I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and welcome to Esoterica, where we explore the arcane side of history, philosophy, and religion.
[Music]
Rather than pick a text at the very origins of alchemy in Greco-Egypt, or at the very high point of the esoteric imagery that alchemy produced in, say, the 16th or 17th centuries, or study some of the texts that are the high point of Islamic alchemy, I'd rather start somewhere actually in the middle. Somewhere about the middle of the 13th or early 14th centuries. So by starting somewhere in the middle, this allows us the vantage point of peering back into the past to see how previous theories led to the text of the *Summa Perfectionis*, and will also allow us to effectively set the stage for the very dramatic developments in alchemical theory and practice through the High Middle Ages and all the way up to the early modern period. So, in my opinion, the *Summa Perfectionis* is an ideal place to begin because it puts us right in the middle and allows us to look backwards and forwards in time, both in terms of the practical and theoretical developments of the alchemical traditions, both of the Islamic world but also in the development of alchemy in the European theater.
As you may know, Robert of Chester effectively introduced alchemy into Western Europe with his translation work, completed on February the 11th, 1144. For what it's worth, I really want to advocate for February the 11th being World Alchemy Day. From the 12th through the mid-13th century, European alchemy was basically dominated by theories and practice inherited from the Islamicate world. But by the mid-13th century, those ideas that had been imported from the Islamicate world had begun to mature and develop on their own in the European context. Here in the mid-13th century, we're in the time period of someone like Thomas Aquinas, of Fibonacci, and of Moshe de León, in the circle that produced the *Sefer Zohar* and thereby the Kabbalah. And it was at this point, in the latter half of the 13th and early 14th centuries, that the basic translation projects that inaugurated the Renaissance of the century prior were mostly complete. And by this point, Europe was poised to basically begin developing its own theoretical and practical ideas in the alchemical theater. So, after inheriting a wealth of philosophical and alchemical ideas beginning in early 12th century Europe, about a hundred years later, it was finally beginning to produce ideas and theoretical moves all its own. And it was around this time, the late 13th and early 14th century, that the *Summa Perfectionis* first appeared in manuscript, and not a moment too early. Alchemy, only about a century old in the Western European context, was already undergoing its first major theoretical and practical crisis.
As you can probably imagine, when Islamic ideas traveling from Arabic were translated into Latin, it wasn't uncommon for entire texts to get scrambled and for even questions about authorship to become very, very muddled. This exact same process has actually gone on when Greek wisdom had been translated first into Arabic in the late classical period. The most famous example of this was when a bunch of texts from Plotinus, the founder of what we now call Neoplatonism, was translated from Greek into Arabic. For whatever reason, some of these texts were extracted out and actually attributed, for whatever reason, to Aristotle. This unusual text was eventually named the "Theology of Aristotle" and actually had a huge impact on the development of Neoplatonism in the Islamic world. So, we here have a text written by Plotinus, traveling under the name of Aristotle. But despite the fact that the names are all scrambled, that didn't matter. The text remained extraordinarily influential.
A very similar process of scrambling would also play itself out and have a huge impact in the development of alchemy in the early European context. In the early 13th century, a certain Alfred actually translated a text from the Islamic philosopher Ibn Sina. In that text, Ibn Sina had actually argued two very important and controversial ideas as they are applied to the alchemical theories that developed in the Islamic world. The first theory that he forwarded was that it was impossible to produce anything by artifice as well as it was produced by nature. That is to say, art was always inferior to natural production. And the other was that species of metals were utterly untransmutable. That is to say, one species of metal cannot be made into another, any more than a donkey could be made into a dog, or a dog into a rock. This is, of course, doubly devastating for alchemical theory because it's precisely the ideas found in alchemy that what can be done by nature can also be done by art or artifice in a kind of laboratory. And further, many people took it that the entire purpose of alchemy, at least to some degree, was the transmutation or the perfection of various metals. This, of course, leads to the idea that part of what alchemy does is convert base metals, such as lead and tin, into more noble metals like gold and silver.
Now, the fact that Ibn Sina wrote that wouldn't be that big of a deal, except for the fact that Ibn Sina's text, in Alfred's translation, was appended to the very end of a text by Aristotle. And over time, what happened was that the Ibn Sina text in Latin sort of melted away into the Aristotelian text, and Europeans thought that this was one long continuous text, all of it written by Aristotle and not Ibn Sina. So, the problem here becomes obvious. If it were just Ibn Sina saying that transmutation weren't possible, people could probably shrug that off. But when Aristotle, the great founder of all of natural philosophy, says, "Look, you can't make things better than nature, and the transmutation of metals is impossible," that is a positively devastating blow for the development of alchemy in any form, either in theory or in practice.
Of course, alchemists at the time just didn't accept this. There was dissent very early on. One of the major early dissenting voices was the anonymous *Book of Hermes*. Who better to argue with the illustrious Aristotle than the very founder of alchemy itself, Hermes Trismegistus, the famed Egyptian sage? Hermes Trismegistus, after all, lived hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before Aristotle. And if anyone had the true knowledge about the nature of nature, it would be Hermes, not Aristotle. And this whole business would precipitate a major debate starting in the 13th century about the exact role alchemy could play. Could it, in fact, do better than nature?
As you may know, Thomas Aquinas took the side of so-called Pseudo-Aristotle, claiming that no, transmutation was not possible, and art was always going to be inferior to nature. With people like Roger Bacon taking the opposite position. For Bacon, it was the case that art could actually do better than nature. The alchemist could produce even better gold than that produced in a mine or in the natural environment. This art versus nature question has never really been solved completely, either in the philosophical world or, in some sense, in the popular imagination. It isn't uncommon for me to go to a grocery store or supermarket and see something marketed as "all-natural," indicating that it's somehow better than something made by art. Of course, the quote "Hannibal Lecter, the same God makes cholera and swans," so whatever it is about nature can be equally good and equally bad. And ditto, we can create all kinds of things by art that also seem equally good and equally bad. So, can art outdo nature? Well, it depends on who you ask.
But the *Summa Perfectionis* thinks at least it's possible for art to imitate and perhaps even improve upon nature to some degree. It is in the midst of this debate in the late 13th century that the *Summa Perfectionis* appears and carefully argues its position on how transmutation and improvement by art is possible. And further, it either predicts or describes, depending on how you want to read the text, just how one species of metal can be transmuted into another using a great medicine that we now refer to as the Philosopher's Stone. So, in the *Summa Perfectionis*, we have both the theoretical and practical idea that art can improve upon nature and that nature can actually be perfected using a kind of artifice, that is the Philosopher's Stone. And in some sense, this will set the tenor for what is possible with alchemy over and against Ibn Sina, Pseudo-Aristotle.
The *Summa Perfectionis* is claimed to have been written by the famed Islamic alchemist Geber. Of course, when anything is claimed to have been written by Geber, one immediately breaks down in complete confusion. Okay, long story short, and I really do mean long story short, there are literally thousands of texts that are claimed to have been written in the 8th century somewhere near Baghdad by a famed alchemist and philosopher named Jabir ibn Hayyan. The problem is that no one can quite agree that he wrote some of the nearly 3,000 texts attributed to him, and people don't really even know if he existed at all. The going consensus now is that he didn't, which is strange considering he apparently wrote 3,000 books. The going theory right now, at least, is that all of these texts were probably produced by a kind of school of alchemists operating somewhere near Baghdad in the 8th or 9th centuries, probably in Shia, probably in Ismaili circles. And it's that group of philosophers and alchemists that produce the vast corpus of texts that we now attribute to that one philosopher. Of course, this is an enormously complicated problem, and just how a bunch of texts being written in Baghdad made their way into Western Europe is nothing I'm going to be able to solve in one video, probably not 10 videos. Indeed, the technical, linguistic, and academic scholarship alone on this topic is probably only in its infancy. And so, if you're interested in alchemy and you read Arabic and Latin and other languages, this is going to be a fruitful area of research for probably decades to come.
And at any rate, this exact kind of pseudo-anonymous writing actually played itself out in the early Islamic world as well. In the shadow of the great translation projects from Greek into Arabic and Syriac, many early Arabic writers actually pretended to be Greek writers and named their texts after famous Greek philosophers. Well, that exact same process is actually playing itself out in the European theater, where in the shadow of Islamic alchemy, many early European alchemists actually attributed their texts to famous Islamic alchemists. And that appears to be exactly what's happening with the *Summa Perfectionis*. It is actually an indigenous European text, although attributed for purposes of authority to an Islamic alchemist.
So, if the author of the *Summa Perfectionis* isn't Jabir ibn Hayyan, because he may have not even existed, who wrote it exactly? Well, after years of some of the most painstaking and careful scholarship in alchemical studies, we now have a pretty good idea of who may have written this most influential alchemical text, and that was Paul of Tarento. Otherwise known as Muad. Muhaddib didn't write it. Oh, I mean Paul of Tarento, not Paul Atreides. Sorry, I have Dune on the mind. Yes, Paul of Tarento, who, although you may have not known this name, he's not as famous as Muhaddib, but he is the author of an incredibly important alchemical text, *Theorica et Practica*, that was written sometime around 1310. And that text actually looks a lot like the *Summa Perfectionis*, so much so that we're fairly confident that the person who wrote the *Theorica et Practica* is almost certainly the same author as the person who wrote the *Summa Perfectionis*. Specifically, what seems to unite both the *Summa Perfectionis* and the text *Theorica et Practica* is a very deep understanding not only of Islamic alchemical theory, but also, and perhaps more importantly, how that theoretical understanding of Islamicate science operates in a laboratory setting. It's very clear that the author of both of these texts has extensive alchemical laboratory experience. And it's how that extensive laboratory and theoretical experience work together elegantly and sublimely in both texts that make it quite clear that the author of the two is in fact one person.
So, with that little 800-year-old mystery solved, we can now turn to the text of the *Summa Perfectionis* itself, and I can explain a bit why I think this is the best text for someone wanting to start off in studying alchemy. The *Summa Perfectionis*, or the Sum of Perfection, can be basically divided into three different sections. It's in that first section that we really understand why the text is entitled *Summa*. There we get the for and against arguments about one, why it is the case that art can at least do as well as nature and perhaps even improve upon nature, and two, just how it is the case that the transmutation of metals from one species of metal to another is in fact possible. So, to be absolutely sure, the *Summa Perfectionis* is an unabashedly pro-alchemical text that introduces at the very outset a very grand vision for what is possible by the alchemist. The text then takes the reader on a tour of the various metals and minerals taken to be substantially basic by the alchemists. This, of course, is followed by an exact and detailed account of how to extract and purify those very metals and minerals. Further, the text then describes the various apparatus and processes for use in the Great Work, both for the process of assaying, purifying, and eventually transmuting nature itself. Of course, in the final section of the *Summa Perfectionis*, the alchemist is given the various techniques by which to test or assay the various metals, either those produced by art or by nature.
The text itself is very logically put together and composed. First, we're given a theoretical defense of alchemy as an art by which nature can be transformed, followed by a tour of the various substances that will be the subject of that transformation, along with a tour of the various apparati and processes that those substances will undergo. Next, we're given a theoretical account of just what substance is and thereby how substance can be transmuted, thereby changing one metal into another. And finally, if we're going to be transmuting metals, we need to be able to test them to make sure they in fact have been transmuted. And so, it makes sense that in the final sections of the *Summa Perfectionis*, we would actually have a theory and a practice for how to show that silver is in fact real silver and gold is in fact real gold, whether produced by art or by nature.
From a theoretical point of view, the *Summa Perfectionis* basically inherits the Islamic sulfur-mercury theory of the metals, which itself actually relies on an older Aristotelian theory of the exhalations. In this theory, so-called exhalations deep within the earth of mercury and sulfur. And here, mercury and sulfur should be thought of both in some sense as the elements as we know them, but also as principles of transformation and substance. So, in this theory, both mercury and sulfur are subject to forces, both deep within the earth, but also typically thought of as being under the influence of astrological forces as well. And depending on exactly how mercury and sulfur in their various forms congeal into one another in the various ratios and astrological relationships that bind onto them, various kinds of metals get produced. Thus, in this theory, all the metals, whether it be the noble metals like gold and silver, or the base metals like tin and lead, are in some sense some ratio, are in some congealment of sulfur and mercury in some kind of combination.
The two major theoretical changes that the *Summa Perfectionis* seems to include are: one, it seems to think that sulfur and mercury come in various kinds of corpuscular sizes. Thus, mercury and sulfur can be sort of packed in very tightly or not packed in tightly at all. And further, the various metallic elements themselves have a kind of porous quality, some being very, very porous and some being not very porous at all. Thus, when you attack one element with fire, depending on how porous the corpuscles kind of dissolve under the heat very rapidly, for instance, in the case of tin or lead, whereas for instance with gold and silver, the idea there is that they're packed in very tightly and they're packed into such a ratio that even attacking them with fire or other kinds of acids doesn't readily dissolve them. So, notice here that the *Summa Perfectionis* adds a kind of theoretical move to the older Islamic mercury-sulfur theory that we now not only have a ratio of mercury and sulfur, but we also have something like an explanation for what we would now call specific density, but also exactly why it is the case that acids attack some metals but not others in the way that they do.
It's also worth noting here that the *Summa Perfectionis* has an interesting kind of corpuscular theory that is neither the strict elemental theory that we see in someone like, for instance, Aristotle or perhaps even Empedocles, and neither is it a straightforward atomic theory that we might find, for instance, in someone like Democritus. Here we have a theory of corpuscles, or sort of minimal units of nature, that actually vary in size to some degree. And depending on how exactly they vary in size, the idea here is if you were to pack them in very tightly and in a certain kind of ratio, you would get one metal. But if you were to pack them in in a different way, and perhaps in a different ratio of sulfur and mercury, you would get a completely different metal. So, this corpuscular theory found in the *Summa Perfectionis*, though it does actually have its origins in Aristotle, while specifically a scholastic understanding of a very small section of Aristotle, surprise, surprise, it does in fact improve upon, or at least alter substantially, the older Islamic theory that we find in the Arab world. And I really do mean improve upon. I do think that the *Summa Perfectionis* not only offers a more subtle and a more ingenious theory about just how the metals come into being and how they change, but also there's something very interesting going on both at the theoretical side and the practical side of what's happening in the text.
So, what I find to be really interesting about the text is that it both adopts the older mercury-sulfur theory and then adapts it based on their own findings in the laboratory, and then transforms their own findings in the laboratory to better understand the theory. So, we have a feedback loop here between theory and practice, in which both are communicating to each other in a very dynamic and, I think, very ingenious way.
So, given the theoretical and practical comportment of the *Summa Perfectionis*, exactly what does it take to be its goal? Well, the agenda is, in some sense, twofold. The first is to decompose and cleanse the substance of the imperfect corpuscles that make up a substance, or the internal ratio of mercury and sulfur which make up a metal. And then two, introduce perfected corpuscles which heal, to use the language of the text, the base metal or the base substance into a more perfected substance, such as silver or gold. So, here we basically have a process of purification whereby the imperfect corpuscles to be found in lead and tin are stripped away from that substance, only to be reintroduced by perfect corpuscles, typically found of a kind of purified mercury. And those purified corpuscles seep into the very porous structure of the metal, filling it back up and perfecting it, transforming it from a base metal like tin or lead into a noble metal like gold or silver.
This process of purification is accomplished by what the text calls "medicines." And depending on what type of process one is doing, these various medicines are introduced during that process and can do everything from the more weaker medicines, which simply tint the metal, to the stronger medicines, which are basically the Philosopher's Stone. And it is those stronger medicines, the third grade of medicines, which actually purify a base metal and transmute it into gold or silver. In fact, one of the things the *Summa Perfectionis* does is describe the various kinds of torture tests one can do to metals to find out to what degree they've been transmuted by art. And by subjecting them to various kinds of chemical processes, such as attacks by acids, or by repeated heatings, or by repeated sublimations, one can tell, according to the text, exactly what kind of medicine has been subjected to the base metal, whether the metal is simply tinted or is in fact actually been fully transmuted. Though it's only the final medicine, what we would call the Philosopher's Stone, which is in this case made of a highly purified kind of mercury, which has the ability to penetrate into the various pores of a base metal. With this purified form of philosophical mercury, which then transmutes those base metals into gold.
Indeed, the text likes to speak in the language of healing. The base metals that it's this medicine that you introduce into the base metals transforms them. And not only transforms them, it heals them. To use the language of the *Summa Perfectionis*, nature goes from a degraded form into a purified form. And that purified form, of course, will be the noble metals like silver and gold. In fact, there are two of these kinds of third forms of medicine: one that transforms a substance into silver, and one that transforms a substance into gold. Now, if you understand the metallic theory underwriting the *Summa Perfectionis*, you'll realize why there have to be two separate kinds of substances. The ratios which make up silver and gold are simply different kinds of ratios. And therefore, the type of purified mercury that would be used to perfect something into silver or perfect something into gold are simply going to be two different kinds of substances. For folks who studied alchemy before, this won't be anything new. To many of you, in many cases of transmutation stories, there's in fact two different kinds of powders: one a white powder and one a red powder. And depending on exactly how the story or the theory goes, one powder converts into silver, and the other powder converts into gold.
What's really fascinating to me about how the Philosopher's Stone is discussed in the *Summa Perfectionis* is that we're actually given both a theory for how substances are and how they change, and specifically how the Philosopher's Stone is introduced into that process of change and therefore alters that process of change in the direction of healing or perfecting these base metals. What I find in a great deal of alchemical literature is that when the Philosopher's Stone finally comes up, there's a lot of hand-waving about how exactly it's supposed to work, and basically what we have is tantamount to something like sorcery. But that's not the case in the *Summa Perfectionis*. In this text, we're given a very clear theory about the metals, we're given a very clear theory about metallic change, and further, we're given a very exacting theory on just how the Philosopher's Stone is composed and exactly how it's supposed to work. And in that way, I find the *Summa Perfectionis* to be very exciting, both on the theoretical level but also on the practical level, because we again, we have both of those theoretical and practical sides of the alchemical tradition really talking to each other in the text of the *Summa* itself.
Of course, my very brief description of the theory of the metals, of the corpuscular theory of the substances, and of the development and theoretical application of the Philosopher's Stone here are incredibly brief, and there's simply no substitution for going and reading the text yourself. It is an incredibly subtle, intricate, and really delightful text, and how it switches between theoretical development and laboratory practice and makes those two things talk to one another. So, you have to go read and study the text carefully for yourself to get a real taste about just how intricate and how dynamic this theory and practice are, or were, in the laboratory and alchemical thinking of Paul of Tarento.
So, why do I so enthusiastically recommend the *Summa Perfectionis* to people just starting off to study alchemy? Well, the first reason I mentioned earlier: it's really great because it sits both at the cusp of the Islamic alchemical tradition, which of course also inherits the Greco-Egyptian alchemical tradition, but it also allows you to look ahead, as I mentioned earlier, to the later theoretical and practical developments in European alchemy. So, in some sense, by starting in the middle, this allows you to look back into time and better understand the previous theories which led to European alchemy. But also, because you're in the middle, it also allows you to look forward in time and see how alchemy was going to develop all the way through the Middle Ages into the early modern period, and of course, into what we would now call proto-chemistry and eventually into chemistry proper. So, by starting in the middle, you have this very important and very unique vantage point.
Secondly, the *Summa Perfectionis* is an incredibly transparent text. It's really clear, which again, when I say something like "clear alchemical text," most of you probably think that's just not possible. And while the alchemical theory found in the *Summa Perfectionis* is somewhat idiosyncratic, what I find to be very interesting about that theory is what I mentioned earlier: it's always in dialogue with actual laboratory practice. It's very clear that this text is not some pure theory developed in the head of the alchemist for whatever reason, and nor is it simply mere metallurgical speculation or metallurgical reporting about how gold is purified or how gold can be tested for its purity. It's both working together and being described in very transparent and clear terminology. For instance, one of my favorite parts of the *Summa Perfectionis* is actually how the text attempts to explain why various metals sublimate in the way that they do. And he develops this incredibly complex theory of how the various corpuscles have three distinct states, and depending on how these states interact with one another, some of them are more volatile and some of them are less volatile. These different states interact with one another, and those interactions inside the sublimatory vessel are actually why the sublimatory vessel leaves certain kinds of residue behind in the way that it does for the various kinds of metals. Indeed, even the theory of metallic transmutation, if you take it into together with all of the various theoretical moves that the *Summa Perfectionis* makes, this theory of transmutation makes perfect sense. And not only does it make perfect sense, it seems to be very much borne out by the laboratory experience had by the author of the text itself.
Of course, none of this is perfect. The chemical theory drawn out by the *Summa Perfectionis* simply actually doesn't describe nature correctly. But what's fascinating is that the text presents problems that it sees as problems and attempts to solve them, both theoretically and eventually practically, as it develops on the path to attempting to transmute nature. And it's that combination of theoretical clarity being backed by actual laboratory experimentation that makes the *Summa Perfectionis* such a dynamic and wonderful text to study. Because it's not just a bunch of wild speculation, and nor is it simply someone trying to just purify gold, for instance. It's really attempting to understand nature in order to transform it, and transform it in such a way that that transformation can be tested by the very processes described in the later section of the text itself. So, in this way, you can kind of get inside of how the *Summa Perfectionis* is thinking, and you can even predict that when it says, "We're going to do this kind of experimentation or this kind of chemical process," you can think, "Well, given what the author believes about how, for instance, tin works, or how sublimation or distillation works, you can predict, 'Oh yeah, this is what should happen in the actual sublimatory or distillatory vessel.'" And sure enough, if you do your homework right, that's what shows up.
Now, what also shows up is that sometimes things don't go exactly as planned, and the author has to kind of work to make it make sense why this happened or didn't happen. And I find that process to be utterly fascinating when I'm studying alchemical literature or chemical literature, early modern chemical literature in general.
Further, and this is somewhat related to the point I just made, the *Summa Perfectionis* is largely free of the kind of, how should I say it, obscure for obscurity's sake, and difficulty for difficulty's sake, and pretentious for pretentious sake language that you see in so much of alchemical literature, especially as you get into the 15th and 16th century. With the exception of a couple paragraphs at the beginning and a couple paragraphs at the end, the text doesn't revel in constantly describing how ignorant and stupid everyone else is, and how they alone have solved the secrets of everything in the universe, and they alone are the elevated magus, and they alone have figured out the secrets of the secrets of the secret-ness, secret-hood of the secrets of the most secret secret, that is the secret of the secret secrets, that is the most secret, and then randomly Hermes Trismegistus, for some reason, the secret secret of all secrets, the most secret secret, and on and on and on. Alchemical texts like that make me kind of crazy. And it's not uncommon to see those kind of alchemical texts, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The *Summa Perfectionis* reads much more like a textbook for alchemy, because that's its kind of what it is. And it gets to the point. It describes things in a very transparent way, and it sets you to task for trying to understand the world in order to transform it. Understanding the world from alchemical terms. What's nice about the text is it's just not bloated with all kinds of, I don't know what I would call it, esoteric fluff. It gets to the point. It's very clear in describing what its agenda is. It says, "This is how I think the world works. Here is how to transform nature into gold or whatever." And it gets about that task. And it says, "If you don't agree with me, well then write your own damn book." And I appreciate that kind of brash clarity when it comes to alchemical literature, because let me tell you, and you probably know this, it is very few and far between.
And given that clarity, it's not surprising that the *Summa Perfectionis* was incredibly popular. And it's that point I want to turn to next. And my next point is actually very simple: the *Summa Perfectionis* was practically the most important alchemical textbook in the early Middle Ages and ran into numerous editions and translations. It was basically the textbook that almost every alchemist started off with, starting in the Middle Ages all the way through the early modern period. It was read by basically every alchemist that could get their hands on it, from John Dee to Paracelsus and everywhere in between. This text was incredibly influential. Even if the specific theoretical and practical ideas found in the text weren't taken up by the alchemists that read it. For instance, one clear line of influence would be the so-called Mercury Alone theory that you do in fact find, at least in some form, in the *Summa Perfectionis*. That Mercury Alone theory would greatly impact John Dee and his alchemical thinking, and specifically in the development of the so-called Hieroglyphic Monad. If you're interested in the *Monas Hieroglyphica* or the Hieroglyphic Monad, perhaps the core symbol in the development of Hermetic philosophy, I've done a whole three-part series and you can check that out above if you're interested in that text. But here we have the *Summa Perfectionis* being incredibly influential. And many alchemists, perhaps thousands of alchemists, perhaps tens of thousands of alchemists, first learned the trade of alchemy by reading this text. And it makes some sense that by starting off in basically the exact same place that many thousands of alchemists did themselves, you'll yourself gain a better understanding of exactly how alchemists plied their trade.
So, my point here is that the *Summa Perfectionis* was incredibly influential, and not just influential, but it was also the starting point for many people who actually became alchemists. And if it's good enough, in some sense, for people who actually became alchemists, then it makes some sense and it should be good enough for many of us who want to at least understand how alchemy and alchemists operated to actually start in the exact same place they did. So, if it was a good enough place for real-world historical alchemists to get started thinking about understanding and doing alchemy, it stands to reason that it will be a pretty good place for anyone starting off now, attempting to understand alchemy and alchemists in their historical context, to begin with the *Summa Perfectionis*. Again, they started off there. It seems like a pretty good place for us to start off as well.
And I guess the last reason why I think starting off with the *Summa Perfectionis* is an ideal starting point for a modern understanding of alchemy is also a bit of a double-edged sword. And that double-edged sword is this monstrosity of a book. This is the modern critical edition of the *Summa Perfectionis*, edited and translated by William Newman. This is a beast of a tome, but I will say that it is an amazing, amazing piece of scholarship. It contains an introduction which could be a tome unto itself, that's completely worth reading entirely on its own, along with, of course, a critical edition of the Latin texts of the *Summa Perfectionis*, including a magisterial translation of the text into very readable English with footnotes, which are fantastic because they are the footnotes of a chemist. So, it explains as you're going exactly what's happening in the *Summa Perfectionis* from a modern chemical standpoint. So, you get an eye into exactly what's going on in the various chemical processes that the *Summa Perfectionis* is dealing with. So, we see both the alchemical understanding of the text being spelled out very clearly, but also how we can translate that alchemical wisdom into modern chemical notation and actually better understand exactly what the alchemists were doing and not doing, and really see that they were actually making enormous breakthroughs in a way that we often don't appreciate now.
So, what's the other side of the double-edged sword? Well, if you've been hanging out here long enough, you know what I'm about to say. Yeah, it's, uh, it's published by Brill. So, you should go ahead and let me see what I have to sell here. Uh, I can sell my antique absinthe spoon collection. Maybe this will get me a tenth of the way there. I don't know. The good news is that if you buy the book from Brill, maybe you can convert some lead into gold, and then perhaps pay the price of the book back. Also, if you do change lead into gold, please remember that you watched this video and think of me and my student loans and my Patreon. I'm not kidding here. Please, please. Yeah, sorry, I had checked out there for a while.
If you can't afford the Brill text, then it is possible to consult some of these earlier reprints of the Latin text. Here, this is a Latin text that was originally printed in the 16th century. You can get these sometimes on Amazon pretty inexpensively. And the Latin, again, of the text is very straightforward. There's some fine woodcuts. And these old editions actually have one of these here. So, this is not a bad edition just to have to consult with if you want to read it in Latin. And as you may know, the works of Geber have been translated several times into English, and you can pick up this copy here from 1678 that was republished in 1928 by Homeyard and Russell. That is not totally unreliable. I won't say that it's reliable in terms of a translation, but if you want to get a general sense of the alchemical ideas to be found in the text, it's still somewhat worthy of consultation. Although I will say that not having access to the critical edition does make it difficult to tease out exactly what's going on in the text in a lot of ways. So, it is possible to consult previous editions of the *Summa Perfectionis*, both in English from early modern English translations and also in the Latin itself. But I will say that if you can, ill the Newman text. It is an absolutely stunning piece of scholarship. I illed it actually and managed to get it just in about a week from the University Library of Kentucky. Thank you, Kentucky. Um, and you can read this for quite some time, and obviously you're going to need to renew it for a little while if you're going to get through the text at any length. But just a substantial and amazing piece of scholarship here by William Newman. And so, if you're interested in reading the text in its full glory, really ill this text. Otherwise, you can check out other editions here from the early modern period. And if you read Latin, you can even get a Latin edition of the text for, I think, $12 or $13. And I'm sure you can find it online in PDFs from the early modern period.
And also, just FYI, I've included some links in the description of both these texts and the Newman piece, but also a couple other books that I think are really great starting points if you're interested in the study of alchemy generally speaking. So, I've included both some historical texts, some primary and secondary sources, or some more spiritual/hermetic takes or psychological takes on alchemy if you're interested in those as well. So, check out the links in the description if you're curious about that literature, whether it's the stuff I've talked about here, or some of the earlier texts, or if you want access to some more introductory level texts as well. Check out those links in the description.
At any rate, this has been my argument for why I think the *Summa Perfectionis* is the single best place to start studying alchemy. So, if you have any questions, please put them in the comments, and I hope you find the text interesting if you have the chance to dive deep into it. If you're interested in the art and science of alchemy, the history of magic, or the development of a Hermetic and occult philosophy, make sure to subscribe here to Esoterica. These are all core content issues that we explore on the channel. So, make sure to subscribe if you want to support our channel's goal of making topics in Western esotericism accessible to the public. Maybe you'll consider supporting us on Patreon or with a one-time donation. Your support really does make Esoterica possible. Until next time, I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and you've been watching Esoterica, where we explore the arcane side of history, philosophy, and religion.