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ArishMell · 70-79, M
No.
Their main, or best-known, aims were "transmuting" base metals into valuable ones - notably lead into gold - and finding some supposed Elixir of Life.
Not only impossible, but the latter was more likely to send them into the Afterlife earlier than later!
The whole lot was all wrapped up in mystic waffle, and even at the height of their activities there were many who doubted or disbelieved them.
Even some alchemists became disillusioned, and one is said to have come away from a symposium remarking that all his fellows would do was wring their hands and put their failures down to feeble excuses like "if I had kept it hot just another hour" or "if the crucible had not cracked".
Their main, or best-known, aims were "transmuting" base metals into valuable ones - notably lead into gold - and finding some supposed Elixir of Life.
Not only impossible, but the latter was more likely to send them into the Afterlife earlier than later!
The whole lot was all wrapped up in mystic waffle, and even at the height of their activities there were many who doubted or disbelieved them.
Even some alchemists became disillusioned, and one is said to have come away from a symposium remarking that all his fellows would do was wring their hands and put their failures down to feeble excuses like "if I had kept it hot just another hour" or "if the crucible had not cracked".
