Forbidden History - Secrets of the Alchemists

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

In this episode of the Forbidden History podcast, we explore the magic and mystery of alchemy. Jamie Theakston speaks with author Joy Hancox about the alchemical roots of London, the design of famous buildings such as The Globe theatre and the mysterious figure of English poet John Byrom. Jamie also meets a modern day potion maker… Cast List: Jamie Theakston: Investigative reporter Richard Felix: A historian and lecturer specialising in local and paranormal history Tobias Curton: Author & Historian Andrew Gough: Writer, presenter and editor of The Heretic Magazine  Joy Hancox: Author, ‘The Byrom Collection’  Marcos Martinon-Torres: University College London Andrea Sella: University College London Keith Moore: Head Librarian, the Royal Society  Guy Ogilvy: Alchemist Eric Meyers: Narrator *Apologies for the audio sounding a little different in the last 10 minutes of this episode, we’re working to get this sorted - all comments welcome. Thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Nostradamus, Flamel, D. Who were these alchemists who had such a profound effect on kings, queens, and emperors alike? Were they simply clever magicians? Or could they really tell the future and turn lead into gold?

And if they could, just how did they do it? They were Superman. God's, supernatural, call it what you will. These guys were going to become extremely wealthy from this, and so they kept it close to the chest. They were the shamans of their day that bridged our realm with others. Eternal life.

That's what they were looking for. This is what God has that we don't. Immortality. Man lives. He dies, but the universe goes on and on and on. The alchemist is able to establish a relationship with nature, which is so intimate, which is so special, that miracles can happen.

In every century of the last thousand years, figures have emerged from history, who stand out by their sheer bizarreness. Men who simply defy easy description, who are seemingly able to perform wondrous feats of magic, that defy science. They are the alchemists, and in this episode, journalist Jamie Thexton sets out to unravel their mysteries and secrets.

Were they really men of supernatural powers, or simply early proponents of what we now call science? An alchemist generally is associated with the search for the philosopher's stone. But the search for the philosopher's stone, which is really the ideal of alchemy, is in fact, It's not everything that an alchemist would be doing.

An alchemist root is a chemist. It's somebody who is discovering through practice, through experiments, through observation, the hidden properties of ordinary substances, from salt to metals to various kinds of ore, and it may be involved in the manufacture of acids, alkalis, alums. And effectively, he's looking for new substances, new combinations, new, new, uh, new, uh, paths to understanding the way the creation is made. Well, they were the pioneers of basically chemistry and medicine, but they used not only natural Earth powers,

but also supernatural forces, so there was a big spiritual element in the whole thing. But can you really demonstrate alchemy today? Professor Andreas Sella and Dr. Marcos Martin & Torres from University College in London believe you can. can and agreed to show Jamie the greatest alchemical process of all. What I want to know is, Marcos, is it possible to turn base metals into gold? The answer is yes, it is possible.

The question is whether this would have been possible to a medieval alchemist. The boring fact is that it's not possible. Today we know, we can set the record straight that no alchemist would ever manage or have managed to transform lead, into gold using chemical methods. We know that's impossible to transform one atom into another. We need physical methods. And this was done 30 years ago. They demonstrated it was possible,

but the investment doesn't pay for their returns, so people don't do it usually, and the gold you make is radioactive and so on. But this is not to say that when people made a transmutation like sulfur into these rubbery substance, they did try to cheat or that they were deceiving or lying. Because they could see a transmutation. They were transforming a substance into another,

and quite possibly believing that they had achieved the transmutation. So they were not necessarily trying to lie. Okay. So we're just hitting here some caustic soda, sodium hydroxide. And what we're going to mix in, acid warms up, is a little bit of zinc powder. So this is just metallic zinc that's being ground very fine. And this is like, this is baking soda, is it? Yeah, that's right.

So this is metal, but it's just, being ground very, very finely, just so that the reaction can take place faster. So what are we hoping is going to happen now to the zinc in the caustic solar? Well, we're going to produce a complex sodium zincate. So we are going to, as it were, bring the zinc into a solution. Correct me if I'm wrong. You are the key. Absolutely.

And then we are going to undertake an electrolytic reaction when we put the copper in. We'll come to that in a second. Would early alchemists have been carrying out exactly this kind of experiment? Well, this is one that would only be undertaken relatively recently because metallic zinc only really appears in Europe systematically from the 17th, 18th century. But this illustrates one of a repertoire of other experiments taking place earlier as well that would visually transform one metal into another and lead people into believing that they had indeed succeeded with transmutation. And when we talk about the philosopher's stone, that's what it is. that we're talking about, right, turning lead into gold, is that right?

Yeah, generally, yes. The philosopher's stone is that ultimate ambition of many alchemists. It's that wonderful substance that would have the power of transmutation that would be allowing humans to transform one metal into another, one substance into another, typically a better substance. So the king of those transmutations would, of course, be the transformation of lead into gold, base metals into gold, but others believe that the healing power of the stone would also allow to cure illness, to extend life and so on.

So that's what the philosophers done was about. There is always in alchemical history the idea that this thing must be possible. It ought to be possible to transmute base metals into gold. But accounts of it actually being done are rare. And it is also a very strange factor. I noticed a friend of mine we were talking about alchemy recently and he was saying in all the works on alchemy

he'd read in the great libraries of Europe, he never found one with any chemical stains the pages. I think this is very telling. I don't think most of the books we have on alchemy that we use, that we're often using to try and find out what alchemy is and what the philosopher's stone was, were any more than commentaries on what practical people were actually doing. We get much closer to it with things like Isaac Newton's notes on alchemy, where he's actually talking about process. So many of the books on alchemy are about principle, more than praxis.

So I'm going to take a relatively clean copper coin with apologies to the queen, though she might be flattered that we are turning this into a nobler metal. And we are going to just dip it into this liquid. And very quickly, you can see the color is beginning to change. The copper is acting as a cathode, so individual ions of zinc are being reduced and deposited. on the surface of the coin.

The color of the copper is actually fading now and is becoming kind of whiter. Very, very strange process that simply on heating and the right solution, we can turn, you know, that bright, familiar copper color into something else. So we're not zinc plating the copper, are we? Is that what we're doing? Well, in a sense, that's what we're doing.

But remember, nowadays, we know we know about these different elements. And of course, we know what the answer is. But to someone who has never seen this before, to someone who is doing this for the first time, one of the key things about this kind of early science is the fact that they only have three things to go on. They can look at it, they can taste it or smell it,

or alternatively, they can either bash it or transform it in some physical way. And so really, there are very, very few methods. to identify what it is that you've got. In many ways, I think that is one of the big differences between modern chemistry and Alcat, is that now we have so much more powerful tools. Now look at this.

Oh, wow, that's amazing. So what have we had that, so we have a copper 2P coin? Yeah. What are you doing now? Just cooling it down. We can handle it. Okay.

A copper 2P coin that now looks like a 10p coin. That's right. So we're adding to its value. Wow, yeah. Is this technically legal? Actually, it isn't. It's a very good question. I know the answer.

But maybe, and now we cannot claim ignorance, because I've said it, right? Yes, exactly, yeah. It's quite interesting to think that there were guys in those days that genuinely did believe that they were creating gold. I'm sure they'd have been very wealthy, if they really did. There's a fascinating story about a guy in medieval times that actually created brass by mixing copper filings with hemomorphite, which is zinc. or when the two came together and he heated it up and did whatever he had to do with it, he created this amazing gold metal and genuinely believed that he'd created gold. It was only when he took it to a goldsmith that he was told he hadn't, but he actually

created brass. Okay, so we're going to do this right before your eyes. Look closely. It will happen quite quickly, hopefully. Okay. You see the silver queen. We're gonna heat it. Oh yeah, so the...

You can see... We've made gold. That's amazing. Oh my goodness. Marcus, you've just created... you've turned copper into gold. Is that... Do you have it? That's a gold 2p.

We've done it. It's the nearest thing you're able to... You'll ever be able to get in that short amount of time. Well, I'm very impressed. That is amazing. That is gold. That's a gold coin, right? When you think about it, the idea of transmutation from lead into gold, though it sounds fantastic and to people who are hungry for money,

it seems eminently desirable, is not a difficult concept to grasp. We today in chemistry continually refine products to produce better products. And if you produce the best oil, you'll certainly make the most gold. And in that sense, you already have an analogy. already have an analogy there that if you can improve on a substance it will make you money. Basically there's a world of difference between someone actually creating gold from a basic metal to someone else being able to electroplate something with zinc and creating brass, which today of course straight away we know it's not gold.

But 800 years ago to the night soil men and the road sweepers and the road sweepers and the and whoever else was around in medieval London in those days, these guys were magicians. They had actually, to the eye, created gold. And people believed it. And I think, to be honest with you, that's where the legends have gone down. But as far as I'm concerned, as far as I know,

no one's done it yet. They're probably still trying, but nobody's done it. Although most people think that alchemy is from the past, there are still a few people who practice today, and Jamie has arranged to meet one of them. His name is Guy Ogilvy, and he's a modern-day practicing alchemist. He calls himself a potion maker,

keeping the old traditions, formulas, and secrets alive in rural Somerset in England. It's been said that Dee and Flamele were able to turn lead into gold. Do you believe they could do that? I mean, can you do that? I can't do it. I have never achieved the stone. I haven't even attempted to achieve the stone. I mean, that is the universal tincture, as they would call it.

The highest medicine. And as a medicine, it was the elixir of youth. I'm a potion maker who applies alchemical processes and principles in order to make more and more rarefied medicines. I love the idea of achieving the stone, realistically, long shot. But certainly, this whole business of the philosopher's stone is the great fascination and the lure behind alchemy. It's also the biggest snag in Western alchemy

because the whole focus is on gold making. Whereas in ancient China, the whole focus was on the elixir of use. It was all about achieving the universal tincture. which would afford you a kind of transcendence over material laws and give you immortality. And in India, again, it was all about making the highest possible medicines. But for them, the Philosopher Stone was a reality as well. Jamie was keen to see Guy actually practice some alchemy.

So, bucket in hand, Guy offered to collect some plants from the garden and create a potion for him. It being a Tuesday, as in Mardi, Mars Day, ruled by the planet Mars. Yeah. Let's see if we can find some martial herbs. Here we go. Look, perfect. Nettles. Stinging nettles. Right, okay. Ruled by Mars, of course, warlike Mars. And today's perfect because it's a waxing moon during the zodiacal period of ARI. and Ares is ruled by Mars, so absolutely ideal to make the best possible. And how many nettles do we need?

As many as you like. But what we'll do is I'm going to make a nettle wine first of all. So get a bucket full of nettles. Right. Get some good water on top of that. Okay. We need to get a fermentation going, so I'm going to need to add some sugar and some yeast. Most plants have their own yeast on.

it's sufficient for a fermentation. Hold on, we're going to make some booze. We're going to make some booze. Doesn't sound very alchemical. Nettle wine. Is that what the alchemists would have done? Sure. I mean, we need to get the soul and the spirit out of these nettles.

And the best way to get the soul out is to use the spirit. But the spirit is alcohol, which is only latent. It's latent in the plant. For those who think alchemically, that one can imagine a scenario where the alchemist is able to establish a relationship with nature, which is so intimate, which is so special, that he or she has achieved a privileged position vis-à-vis the very nature of things, and in that privileged position, miracles can happen. Guy works his magic and turns his nettles into an alchemical potion.

The magic takes shape in a real-life alchemist's laboratory. Coming up, when Forbidden History returns. Investigative journalist Jamie Thexton is on a mission to unravel the secrets and mysteries of the alchemists. Were they the guardians of ancient supernatural powers or just early pioneers in modern science? So far, he's attempted to turn base metal into gold in a science laboratory in London. And now he's in rural England, meeting a real-life alchemist who has agreed to let Jamie watch him make a powerful herbal potion. Guy, why has such a mystique grown up around alchemy over the centuries?

I think that's because of the Western fascination with goldmaking. There was a period in Western history when the Philosopher's Stone seemed to be around. There were fabulous tales of people confecting gold out of base metals. And of course everyone was fascinated. It's like, wow, how'd you do that? How do you do that? It became the concern of kings. I mean, it's called the Royal Art. And kings were very concerned with alchemy.

Of course they were, because gold was power. And if there was somebody in the neighborhood who could turn base metal, cheap metal into gold, You wanted to have that guy in your castle doing the dew straight away. And if he was in somebody else's neck of the woods, you wanted to go and seize that guy. Okay, so let's just get our nettles out here. And they do not need to be really fine, just like that.

Once they're in the water fermenting over a period of about a week, the whole process will break the nettles right down and get all the good stuff out of them, except the salt. And the salt is a whole process, in fact the longest process of all. So again, the secret salts of the Nettles. Is this the kind of thing that they would have been doing in medieval times? Absolutely.

Put some rainwater on here. And this particular recipe dates back to the early 16th century. And so what's the kind of plan? this then ferment? Yeah, I'm going to add some yeast. Right. Let's get some yeast here and some sugar because that's how you get your alcohol out of the plant.

From the alchemist's point of view, we're not, as it were, making alcohol. We're drawing the alcohol out of the plants. It's latent in the plant. Anyone could do this at home. Okay. Yeah. Well, I mean, people who are home brewers who make, you know, country wines, as they're called, which can be made from all kinds of stuff,

you know, usually just anything but grapes. And as far as the quantities are concerned, you're not working from a, you know, from a cookbook here, right? No, no, slosh it in. I mean, the yeast, all we're using the yeast for is to get a really good fermentation going. Sure. Once it's going, you're going to be making, the yeast will make itself, it'll grow. There are practicing alchemists today.

They probably live in obscurity, but obscurity is where alchemists technically were supposed to live. If you read fasciculus chemicus, which Elias Ashmole translated in 1650, he said the alchemist must live apart. He must live within his own route, as he puts it. He's meant to be a loner out there, invisibly investigating the universe. He mustn't get too close to the ways of the world because to be a true alchemist is to be an adepted priest.

It is a holy calling to be an alchemist. You are going to be imparted divine knowledge. You need a mind that is pure that is able to receive higher influences, what we call noetic or netic influences into the mind, which transcend reason, which open the mind to a visionary state of reality. Well, once this has fermented out, so it starts fizzing and, you know, you get a real foment going, once that's finished, once that's done, and everything just sinks to the bottom and it all goes quiet, I will take that and then I will stick a, I'll stick a big funnel in here with a sieve and just pour it all in and then I will apply heat to the bottom of that.

We will basically distill this over. So this will be like making moonshine. At the end of the process, what is it that we end up with? What do we have? Well, we end up with a distilled, well, at the end of the whole process, you've got a spajaric essence of nettle. Right. Which is basically the best sort of nettle potion you can get. And what would we do with the nettle potion? That's a great tonic. You just take a few drops in water.

Ideally it's a spring tonic and give you a bright eye and a shiny coat. And what do people make of you a guy when you tell them that you're an alchemist? What's their reaction? I don't tell anyone I'm an alchemist. My friends tell everybody that they've got a mate who's an alchemist. It's like, ah, so-and-so's mate, the alchemist. the alchemist. So I get called the alchemist all the time. And it's funny because it just leads to a discussion about alchemy.

And as you probably realize, I can talk about alchemy until the cows come home. It's my favorite topic of conversation. Without doubt, Guy Ogilvie is a fascinating character. But rather more of an enthusiastic herbalist than a classic alchemist in the mold of Newton and Flamell. Someone so captivated by their passion for the subject, that they're willing to turn their garden shed into a makeshift laboratory. Back in the 1990s, the author and historian Joy Hancock came into possession of hundreds of handwritten manuscripts, each one decorated with mysterious hermetic symbols and geometrical designs,

some of which dated back to the 15th century. All she knew was that they were part of the private collection of John Byram, an 18th century poet and intellectuals, who was a member of the Royal Society and the inventor of an early form of shorthand. But what were they? I went to London University, I went to Cambridge University, I went to Oxford University, I spoke to experts of mathematics, I wrote to the history of mathematics in this country, I asked them whether they could help me understand what these represented. And I have to say, not one of them did.

Not one. Because they couldn't or because they didn't want to? No, I don't think it was a question of them not wanting to. I think quite genuinely they did not understand what the geometry represented and they didn't understand them and I think that's an honest answer for me. The square out of the circle it fits the whole of the foot of the globe's upper part. 369 is a rule for it. As she researched further, Joy began to reveal that the manuscripts were in fact architectural

designs and ground plans of famous London landmarks, including Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, and most importantly, the original Globe Theatre from the time of Queen Elizabeth. At first, she wasn't sure how it all connected, but she was certain that the manuscripts contained distinct Masonic symbols, so she showed them to a leading Freemason. I set all the drawings out on the table, and I thought, right, this must be something to do with Freemasonry. It must be something to do with that. I will set the drawings out in such a way. I know that that's a Masonic one, and I put it in strategic places.

And what he did is he said, hmm, now these are all very interesting. What can I do for you? And then I'll tell you what you can do for me. She said that her Freemason contact actually helped her decipher a number of the symbols, codes, and signs, including the connection to the Elizabethan theaters in London. As she delved further, she found evidence of a secret circle, many of whom were in the Royal Society, like John Byram, who seemed to be the keepers of a powerful ancient knowledge,

a mix of mathematics, metaphysics, and alchemy, that had been secretly encoded into the terms of the top of the top of the top of the same thing, into the designs of the buildings themselves. I came across this particular drawing and I sat looking at it and staring at it. And I mean staring at it, because you can see there are just no numbers on it whatsoever. And I counted the squares,

one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. That ring, at the edge of that ring, doesn't actually touch those dots. It's just shortly inside. In other words, there is an absolute precision here, which is absolutely remarkable, yeah? Joy believed. that the Kabbalistic mathematics in the geometry is very precise,

and revolves around the measure of 72. Everything in the Globe Theatre, she says, connects to this figure, the ground plan, the layout, the stage, everything. And she says it was quite deliberate. This is magic in the eyes of those of the day because they didn't understand it. We all have an invisible space.

The groundlings were standing in the... in the open air of the theatre, which was this space here, when you get people who are jelling together and standing together and they're watching something, it can become very hypnotic. And astrologically, within that frame of 72, there is something really rather acoustically

wonderful that can happen to people. Now, if all the world's a stage, then surely, by extension, all the cosmos is a kind play and you can the stage then becomes a microcosm of the powers of the universe. This is very evident in a play like The Tempest, one of Shakespeare's late plays, where he develops the idea of an island of magical powers all under the control of one man, the Magus, Prospero, who just might be based on John D or an idea of somebody like him, somebody who can command all the elements to do his will.

And the fact that he can summon all this up, conjure it up on stage, is a real act of conjuration because, as Kohleridge referred to the suspension of disbelief, which is required by people who are engaged with theatre, surely anyone watching theatre in those days was entering an alchemical furnace and becoming in their own minds part of the drama. I'm absolutely fascinated by what you're telling me here. Was there a secret that these alchemists might have had here? Is this it? Well, I am being as honest as I can.

What I have learned is through the system that is here inherent within the drawings. I think that there is something within the laws of a number symbolism that we can relate to nature in a way that may affect what the alchemists thought that they could achieve. I am absolutely 100% certain that through an understanding of what this represents, we can be taken into a kind of world that the Newton's of this world and John D might have done through their use of what other people would use the term, alchemy. So was there really a secret circle of alchemists which had protected some ancient

manuscripts and passed them down through the centuries? And had they encoded some sacred hermetic knowledge into the design of their theaters? Joy Hancock's is convinced that this is the case. And if there was a secret circle of initiates in the 17th century, then the man who rose to become the father of modern science, Sir Isaac Newton, was most probably a member. In the last decade, after nearly 300 years locked away, his private papers have been released by the Royal Society in London, and they show that he was a dedicated and lifelong alchemist. Keith Moore, the head librarian, agreed to show Jamie some of the great man's possessions and papers that they have in their vaults.

We have a little piece of the famous Newtonian apple tree, the one at Walthorne, and the one where it is supposed he was sitting under when the idea of gravity came into his mind. This one we sent up in space with the British astronaut, Pierre Sellers, on the spaceship. Wow, this is the bit of the actual tree. And is that a myth? It's a story that Newton himself told to William Stucley, amongst others. Stucley was one of his biographers. So he did tell the story.

tell the story, although it may well be true, literally true, but of course it has biblical connotations and Newton would have liked that, I think, right? Was he a religious man? Was he interested in religion? Was that something about it? He was. He not only wrote signs, but he wrote theology as well, and also alchemy, of course. Isaac Newton was, for a period of his life, a dedicated devotee of the alchemical quest. This knowledge has come to us since, mainly since the 1930s, when a large cache of his alchemical papers came to light, and studies were made of those papers. And whereas in the 19th century, this aspect of Newton had been suppressed as an embarrassment.

How could the father of modern science sully his hands with this superstitious nonsense about the philosopher's sense? Well, Isaac Newton did sully his hands with the search for the philosopher's stone, and he spent a good number of years starting around 1667 at his rooms in Cambridge, not an entire secrecy, trying to produce a scientific methodology of alchemy. The Royal Society opens the vaults and brings out one of Sir Isaac Newton's secret alchemical manuscripts, which is a very much of the world. had been locked away for 300 years. More astounding revelations, when forbidden history returns. Journalist Jamie Thickston is on a mission to investigate whether the great alchemists had supernatural powers or were just early pioneers of modern science. He's met with scientists who have demonstrated how it's possible to turn base metal into a gold color with a basic experiment. He's made a strong herbal potion with a modern-day alchemist using ingredients from his garden, and he's met an author

who thinks she has the proof that a secret cabal of thinkers, philosophers, and writers, including William Shakespeare, have sought to introduce alchemical secrets and magic into society through both architecture and the written word. And finally, Jamie has ended up at the Royal Society in London, face to face, with one of Sir Isaac Newton's secret alchemical master. manuscripts. So talk me through what is this? What are we looking at here? Well, Newton, when he launched himself at a subject, whether it was optics or mechanics, or in this case alchemy, he would typically begin to take notes on it and he would read as much as he could around a topic. And that's what he's doing here. These are Newton's notes of

previous alchemical authors. They're written in Latin. Newton would have used that at the Principia manuscript, the great work of science. Science is a working latin. So this is one of the greatest scientists of all time, the grandfather of modern science, and he had a keen interest in alchemy. He did, yes. The men of that period who were interested in science

would have called themselves natural philosophers. And they were interested in everything, not just what we would think of as being science now. Newton was a very secretive man. But yes, he was definitely an alchemist. but I think he, for want of a better word, transmuted into something else, a scientist and a chemist. Why do we still have, though, this great fascination with alchemy? Why do you think that is? I think it's a secrecy surrounding it. I mean, alchemy had, alchemists had one or two successes.

I mean, the discovery of phosphorus was by an alchemist in about this period, but that's pretty much it. Secret knowledge is fascinating in whatever form it comes in. Science, though, is how we understand the universe. What do you make of the Philosopher's Stone? It's a nice story and it's in Harry Potter, of course, but that's as good as it gets. So what's the truth about alchemy? Was it really a dark art, practiced by a small cabal of initiates down through the ages? Was the philosopher's stone, a magical holy grail that could confer immortality on those who were able to achieve it?

And did men like D, Flamele, and Newton have a hand in designing buildings, even whole cities, along sacred, geometric, and Kabbalistic lines? I think that the function that alchemist provided is now far obsolete. They were the shamans of their day that bridged our realm with others. They were the first scientist and scientist and chemist who explored with things that today are interesting but relatively mundane. Many of them, such as Edward Kelly, for instance, are now rendered simply practitioners of hocus pocus.

Today in the world of Facebook where everyone's a light worker and has access to the wisdom of the ages on the internet, the role of the alchemist has clearly been made obsolete. I'm convinced that alchemy was the forefather of modern chemistry. These guys were treated with a certain amount of disrespect. They were referred to as quack doctors. One phrase that I use frequently, today's magic will be tomorrow's science. And these guys in those days were treated as magicians. Some of the stuff they got was wrong.

Some of the stuff they got was right. It was certainly the basis of modern-day chemistry, medicine, and I think modern science. Many things are being done in our laboratories which anybody listening to this program will know absolutely nothing about and for a long time to come. Knowledge is dangerous, knowledge is power, and power trippers like Newton know that particularly well. After his death, Sir Isaac Newton's private alchemical papers were found by the Royal Society. Among them was a handwritten letter to his friend and fellow alchemist, Robert Boyle,

in which he warned him to maintain a high silence about the mystical knowledge they had learned. It cannot be communicated, said Newton, without causing immense damage to the world. Make of that what you will.