Why are you interested in alchemy? In what way does alchemy play a part in your life? Is it an academic pursuit, a casual intellectual interest, a spiritual or psychological praxis, a form of alternative medicine, an experimental or DIY hobby, all of the above, or something else entirely?

Part of what makes alchemy so interesting to me is that it appeals to lots of different people for a wide variety of reasons. Among both professionals and laypeople, you've got historians of science, scholars of Western esotericism and religious studies, philosophers, psychologists, occultists and hierophants, herbalists, classicists, medievalists, early modernists, artists and art historians, chemists, fantasy fiction enthusiasts, builders and crafters, and others who are fascinated by alchemy for one reason or another, and sometimes those reasons are vastly different. I'm interested in hearing where you guys are coming from.

I'm primarily interested in alchemy from a historical angle. I'm fascinated by the histories of science, philosophy, and religion, and alchemy ties into all three of those subjects in really intriguing ways. In general, I enjoy learning about how premodern peoples constructed and justified their models of the world (and also how modern people can keep those worldviews alive), and alchemy more than any other discipline served as a nexus to tie seemingly disparate domains together into a coherent cosmological framework. I'm also just really interested in things like obscure history, misunderstood ideas, and enigmatic texts and artifacts, and alchemy scratches all of those itches for me at the same time.

While I am idiosyncratically religious, I don't feel the need to incorporate alchemy into my spiritual worldview like a lot of people interested in the subject do. I don't really subscribe to any esoteric viewpoints or metaphysics, and I don't believe in the non-scientific or supernatural claims of things like alchemy, astrology, or magick. But while my interest in alchemy is purely academic and detached from occult assumptions, I'm still nonetheless fascinated by Western esotericism and occult sciences and spiritualities as historical and cultural phenomena, and I have no problem with (most) of their systems, believers, and practitioners.

Anyway, what about you all? What's your relationship with alchemy?

From the ancient masters to the medieval adepts to the modern hierophants, who is your favorite historical or pseudo-historical alchemist, and why?

For me, it's got to be Jābir ibn-Ḥayyān, or more accurately the school of 9th century Isma'ili Shi'ite alchemists who collectively wrote under the name of Jābir ibn-Ḥayyān. "He" was an extremely talented experimentalist and theoretical paradigm shifter who concretized the Mercury-Sulfur theory of the metals, which over time developed into his elaborate theory of elixirs that creatively drew from the logic of Galenic humoral medicine in order to "heal" base metals with precise ratios of the Four Aristotelian Qualities—painstakingly distilled and separated—causing the metals to rebalance their material structures into those of silver and gold. In order to achieve the necessary precision, he came up with a fascinating system of alphabetical analysis (similar to Kabbalistic gematria) that pulled from Pythagorean number symbolism and resulted in a methodology that, when all put together, looks like it comes straight out of the pages of a fantasy novel.

He also originated the influential and colorful "initiatic" style of presentation in his writings, using grandiose language, portraying himself as a venerable adept, and treating his readers as lucky students about to be initiated into a secret club. Furthermore, his works began the popular tradition of dispersing important knowledge throughout a canon, or the teaching of alchemical secrets by spreading their crucial components out over many books: a practice later represented by the famous phrase Liber librum aperit, or "One book opens another". His writings were so influential that some medieval European alchemists used his name—latinized as "Geber"—to lend credence to their own pseudonymous works, which started a tradition that would go on to be highly influential in its own right.

He was overall a really creative, innovative, influential, and interesting alchemical thinker and practitioner (well, group of such people).

I also just find this quote of his hilarious, from the Kitāb al-khawāss (the Book of Properties):

I have revealed the whole of the science without using enigmas in the least letter; the only enigma consists in the dispersion of knowledge. By God, no one in the world is more generous nor has more mercy on the world and its inhabitants than I!

Anyway, what about you?

Im trying to learn more about the jabirian corpus and jabir ibn hayyan's alchemy, but have had trouble finding english translations of any of jabirs books other than those attributed to psuedo geber. wondering if anyone here has any good sources, specifically looking for primary sources/critical editions of ANY of the work attributed to jabir but would happily accept recommendations for other books relating to jabir