https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s Nicholas Acre en-us 2018-04-02 17:14:58 UTC 2025-12-17 23:27:34 UTC hello@padlet.com nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247899035 2018-04-02 18:29:51 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247899035 nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247961958 Joseph Wright of Derby's The Alchemist Discovers Phosphorus. Alchemy was, in essence, a protoscience that existed prior to the popularization of empiricism. While the discipline was unnecessarily burdened with superstitions and in some cases a peculiar overlap with religious belief, the quest for knowledge did on occasion produce discoveries and hard results.]]> 2018-04-03 00:54:41 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247961958 nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247962359 Alchemical symbols in vogue for alchemists in the western tradition. While impressive symbols that function as the forerunners to the periodic table of elements, any modern use of them can be handily dismissed as proof by verbosity.]]> 2018-04-03 00:57:25 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247962359 nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247964703 A website for an alleged modern-day alchemist, explaining alchemy as fundamental to spiritual enlightenment. While fairly dense reading, a cursory glance raises a variety of red flags - ancient wisdom, mystic energy, red herrings, and more. Alchemy as a whole spent much of its history unnecessarily bound up in the supernatural, with scientific truth unearthed little by little.]]> 2018-04-03 01:21:18 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247964703 nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247966598 An article describing how Professor Lawrence Principe researches the often-encoded recipes recorded by alchemists, and replicates them to tangible (if not necessarily useful) effect. While alchemists were often successful in generating results, their recordings were often guilty of confusing correlation and causation, or confirmation bias.]]> 2018-04-03 01:38:09 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247966598 nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247969794 A wikihow article on 'How to Become an Alchemist,' defining alchemy along the self-help meditative lines of Paulo Coelho (to the disappointment of many wiki-goers, judging by the page's low rating). A great deal of meditative technique in India and much of East Asia can be traced back to the alchemical traditions of those places, but their perseverance into modern times is fraught with the 'mystic energy' red flag.]]> 2018-04-03 02:00:36 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247969794 nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247970335 Real Alchemy by Robert Allen Bartlett. For anyone hoping to find pseudo-scientific ravings or the genuine secret to eternal life, Bartlett's book is mostly comprised of actual geology and chemistry, and tying it in to the views and efforts of alchemists past. Alchemy is, in essence, best understood as the science of our forebears - the rise of the scientific method in the 19th century did not prevent the rise of many theories and 'truths' of the natural world that turned out to be wildly incorrect.]]> 2018-04-03 02:05:35 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247970335 nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247971521 A magician cleverly manages to fuse copper and zinc before a crowd to create the impression of transmuting a chain to gold. Alchemy of this kind remains a fantasy, and while the crowd is clearly impressed and unsure of how the trick was done, no appeals to authority by the magician have made them think they've witnessed real transmutation.]]> 2018-04-03 02:15:23 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247971521 nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247972963 A description of alchemy in a philosophical sense. While the use of elements as labels for concepts such as mind, body, spirit and other abstractions would certainly make this a more esoteric take on alchemy, it still feels like pseudoscience. While many great deeds begin with ideas, the idea that they literally affect the world around them sounds like agenticity along with the red flag of mystic energy.]]> 2018-04-03 02:25:23 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247972963 nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247974787 An alchemical symbol. In the west, alchemy placed great emphasis on correlations between stars, planets, metals, and philosophy. As mentioned before, a great deal of this deliberate overlapping of many disciplines can be attributed to a confusion of correlation and causation.]]> 2018-04-03 02:37:38 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247974787 nicholasacre https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247978002 2018-04-03 03:03:38 UTC https://padlet.com/nicholasacre/hzbgiq0qgl3s/wish/247978002