Transcript
Speaker: Do you feel drawn to learn more about witchcraft and the occult, but feel lost on where to start? Then welcome to Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft, a podcast all about what it means to be a witch and where to get started on your journey.
Speaker: Join us as we navigate through various witchy topics and share what we've learned about the craft. So get in witches for part six of our occultist series, where we're traveling back in time to study occultist from the antiquity period.
Speaker: So
Speaker: done boring I know I've done literally nothing. My husband has been gone for an entire month. I don't even know that we talked about that on the podcast. So if you guys didn't know, he's been gone for a whole month and he finally gets home tomorrow. Yay. so my life has been really boring outside of things that I just don't talk about on the podcast.
Speaker: Yeah. Mine has too. haven't really been doing much of anything except for applying for jobs. And hopefully I will get a job soon. So fingers crossed. We just need to collectively put that out for Sam. Yes. Although this episode is not releasing until like, what, the first week of April? I don't even know. We are on it. We are. So we're recording this in February. so Yeah.
Speaker: And we have been really just trying to get on top of things so that we don't miss anything in the future if we have schedule changes. Yeah. So- And hopefully by the time this releases, I will have a job.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, you're going to. No, better. I already have So. It's just, that's it. You have it. Yeah. I already have it. It's it's my job. But we're not talking about jobs.
Speaker: No, we're not. Although, you know, I'm just joking. We're not. I'm like, poor listeners did not have to hear me trauma dump about jobs. like so it's okay it's okay you're welcome guys yeah what are we talking about today oh we have some pretty interesting occultists that we're going talking about we do and it's um covering sam's favorite topic of alchemy oh my god i just i don't know what it is about alchemy but i start reading about it and my eyes glaze over
Speaker: It's not my favorite thing to learn about. I understand that it's so interesting. And like, when you think about, you know, all of the things, it's kind of cool, but oh my God. maybe It's just not your topic and that's okay. It must be, honestly, I'm thinking...
Speaker: Maybe this is like trauma coming up from high school chemistry AP. took pre-AP p and AP chemistry. Why did I ever do that? Because I clearly like punishment, but I am not a fan of chemistry. So anything that's even close to it, I'm like, oh no, oh no, oh no. i Stay over there.
Speaker: Well, for our listeners, if alchemy is a new concept to you or one that you've maybe heard about, but you don't really know what it is, make sure to go back and listen to episode 159 where we tortured Sam and we did discuss alchemy in witchcraft.
Speaker: But just for a very brief overview, here's a little bit about ancient alchemy. In the Hellenistic and Roman world, the majority agreed on an Aristotelian way of reality. Everything on earth was made from the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water. In alchemy, the elements are the building blocks of all things.
Speaker: Each element was defined by a mix of four qualities that came in opposites, hot versus cold and wet versus dry. Change the balance changed the substance, and this idea was considered huge because if you could tweak those qualities just right, one material could theoretically turn into another.
Speaker: There was also a bonus fifth element, ether, or quintessence, which made up the heavens and was considered more pure and divine. In later times, this element would also be referred to as spirit.
Speaker: Egyptian alchemy especially was obsessed with transmutation, which is essentially turning a cheap base material like lead into gold. This process was imagined as a kind of step-by-step transformation.
Speaker: First blackening the metal and like quote-unquote killing it then whitening it then turning it yellow like gold. The final stage was almost mystical, creating a violet-colored substance believed to have the power to transform other materials too.
Speaker: So basically, in a nutshell, ancient alchemy was the belief that by understanding the hidden rules of nature, humans could imitate divine creation and turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Speaker: And I wanted to add a little bit further on the Egyptian alchemy part because whenever I was researching the occultists I was talking about, they dug kind of super deep into Egyptian alchemy. And I'm just like, if I don't write this down, then I'm not goingnna understand it.
Speaker: And so while it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly when alchemy first emerged, many scholars believe its roots stretch back long before Greek philosophical theories, particularly into ancient Egyptian craft and ritual practices. And so and Like ancient Egyptians were highly skilled in metallurgy and chemical like processes. Like Tiffany was saying, using complex techniques and activities like mummification, dyeing fabrics, creating polychrome statuary, producing cosmetics and refining precious metals. These processes required a lot of precision and control utilizing skills that would become central to later alchemical practice. And in Egypt, these crafts weren't just technical skills, but they were also deeply spiritual as well. Egyptian artisans often worked within temple systems and many transformation processes were connected to their religious beliefs of rebirth, the afterlife, and purification. And an example of this is mummification. It wasn't simply a preservation process, it was a sacred process to prepare the soul for transformation and immortality. Egypt was also known as Kemet, and this is translated to mean the black land,
Speaker: referring to the fertile soil that was left behind by the Nile's flooding. Some historians believe that the word alchemy itself may have evolved from the idea of working with the black earth or transformation through hidden knowledge. And when Greek philosophical ideas later blended with Egyptian traditions during the Hellenistic period, these spiritual and technical practices merged, resulting in what we now recognize as early alchemy.
Speaker: So on to our occultists. I'm covering Mary the Jewess. And I just randomly, I don't know why, we have this huge document of occultists over the years. And for some reason, she just stood out to me and I like pointed her out to Sam and she was like, okay, well, you obviously have to cover her. So here we are.
Speaker: So during the medieval period Maria the Jewess was remembered as a trailblazer of alchemy whose experiments, inventions, and ideas laid important groundwork for what would eventually become modern chemistry. And I'm going to be referring to her both as Mary and Maria because that's just how it is. In her, like everything about her, it switches back and forth worth even in the same articles. so her...
Speaker: Given name was Maria. She often went by Mary, but everybody called her one or the other. it didn't matter. There was no, like, consistency. Her early life and childhood in Hellenistic Egypt are shrouded in mystery, and there are are little to no details about her upbringing.
Speaker: What we do know is that Maria lived some time between the 1st and early 3rd century CE in Alexandria, Egypt, and she was remembered by medieval alchemists as one of the true founders of alchemy.
Speaker: She's also the earliest non-mythical Jewish woman to write and publish works under her own name, even though those original texts haven't survived. The Jewish people played a pivotal role in shaping alchemy in ancient Alexandria. particularly within the city's Jewish quarter, where there was a Jewish temple alongside Greek traditions.
Speaker: Jewish alchemists operated independently from state-controlled institutions, granting them greater freedom to innovate. This freedom gave Jewish alchemist guilds the framework for faster innovation and more widespread dissemination of knowledge.
Speaker: And I think it's also worth mentioning here that Maria was not only one of the earliest alchemists in recorded history, but she also founded an alchemical academy in Alexandria.
Speaker: In alchemical writing, she goes by a lot of names, including Mary the Jewess, Maria Prophetisa, Miriam or Mary the Prophetess, depending on what time frame of like the timefra of the reference. Maria Hebrea, Mariah the Sage, and Maria the Hebrew, which honestly already tells you how legendary her reputation became.
Speaker: Medieval writers often mixed her up with Miriam, the Sister of Moses, and even Mary Magdalene. Historian Raphael Pattay points out that this kind of confusion came from the idea that if two figures shared a name, they must be the same person, which... was an all-too-common issue in references for this timeframe, unfortunately.
Speaker: So as her life faded further into legend, people kept pushing her timeline farther and farther back into the distant past. Most modern historians agree that Maria was the first real historical alchemist rather than a purely mythical one. The Greco-Egyptian alchemist Sosimos of Panopolis, writing in the 3rd to 4th century, called her the Divine Maria,
Speaker: and credited her with founding an alchemical academy in Hellenistic Alexandria. And just know you're going to hear Zosimos's name a lot throughout this episode because he wrote about Mary a ton in his own works, and he seemed to admire her and her work quite a bit. He is noted to have quoted her extensively in his work the coloring of precious stones.
Speaker: According to Zosimos, she was especially skilled at transmutation, and he even wrote a short work called The Four Bodies Are the Aliment of the Tinctures that focuses entirely on her ideas.
Speaker: While there were other Jewish alchemists in the Hellenistic world, Maria the Jewess was the one whose name and influence survived in both Arabic and European alchemical traditions. And Maria was explicitly referred to as Jewish as per her name throughout late Roman and medieval times.
Speaker: Her teachings and inventions were highly influential, and she is often regarded as the first true alchemist of the Western world. Looking at her alchemical work and her inventions, Maria the Jewess worked with a surprisingly wide range of lab equipment, including ovens made from clay, metal, and glass.
Speaker: She was said to have sealed everything together with very practical materials like wax, animal fat, starch paste, and clay mixed with fat. According to Zosmos, she preferred glass vessels because you could actually watch the reactions happen without interfering, and they made it safer to work with dangerous substances like mercury, sulfur, and arsenic compounds. She may also be the first person to ever mention hydrochloric acid, which is wild considering that discovery is usually credited to a much later medieval Arab alchemist's.
Speaker: One of her most famous inventions is the Balneia Marea, which is basically the lab version of a double boiler, and it's still called the Bain-Marie in French and the Mareinbad in German, and versions of it are used to this day. She's also credited with inventing the tribecos, which is a distillation device with three spouts, and the keratakis, which is a sealed extractor that let heated vapors like sulfur and mercury act directly on a metal sample.
Speaker: The Keratakis design was so solid that in the late 19th century, German chemist Franz von Soxlet adapted it to what we now call the Soxlet extractor, which modern labs still use to this day as well. And just one more thing on the keratakis, the alchemical name of Mary's black is named after her, obviously, and it's basically a black sulfide coating on the metal that is produced using the process of the keratakis.
Speaker: In another of Zosimos's writings, he described her grinding cinnabar with mortars and pestles made of lead and ten, which is something that would be considered incredibly hazardous by modern standards. And while this isn't necessarily an invention, it was something that was noted in several articles about Maria. so I'm just passing on the information here.
Speaker: By the late 10th century, the Arab scholar Ibn al-Nadim listed her among the 52 most important alchemists in his book catalog and credited her with creating a brownish-purple pigment known as kaput mortium.
Speaker: She was also like very well known for her sayings, and she had tons of writings. So from my research, I found approximately 40 major works and compilations written by Maria, as well as an additional 24 minor titles, but again, this is only an estimation as none of her original texts actually survived. Later, Alchemist loved quoting Maria and attributed several famous sayings to her that explain how she thought about matter and transformation.
Speaker: One of the most commonly used ideas from Maria was that alchemy was like sexual reproduction, with different metals being male and female, and she described the oxidation of metals and saw in that process the possibility of transforming base metals into gold.
Speaker: One of her key ideas was that metals are built the same way that humans are. Just like people are made of the four elements and a mix of bodily fluids and spirit, she argued that basically copper works the same way.
Speaker: Another line often credited to her is, join the male and the female and you will find what is sought, which is basically alchemical shorthand for balancing opposites to get transformation to happen. In the early 7th century, an alchemist named Christianos quoted her delivering these ideas in an ecstatic, almost prophet prophetic style, not calmly teaching but passionately proclaiming. That quote includes what later became known as the axiom of Maria. One becomes two, two becomes three, and through further combinations, everything returns to unity.
Speaker: And I also just want to mention that Carl Jung also used this quote in some of his own works. While not alchemy, still goes to show that Maria's works were widespread and well-known.
Speaker: Basically, though, what she's getting at is the idea that all materials are fundamentally one substance just appearing in different forms, which was a core belief in Alexandrian alchemy.
Speaker: The historian Raphael Ptah, who I briefly mentioned earlier, points out that Maria's ideas closely resemble Jewish Midrashic traditions that compare the structure of the human body to the structure of the universe.
Speaker: Maria even used food as a metaphor, suggesting that metals like copper need proper nourishment, just like humans do, in order to transform into something higher like gold. And in Zosimos's work, The Four Bodies Are the Element of the Tinctures, he summarizes her view by saying that copper, like humans, needs both solid and liquid components working together.
Speaker: This mirrors ideas found in Jewish texts like Avot Dharabni Atan, which describes the human body as a miniature version of the world itself.
Speaker: According to Zosimos, Maria also wrote a book called On Furnaces and Apparatuses, making her the earliest known Jewish woman author who we can identify by name.
Speaker: Some scholars think her influence may extend even farther, possibly shaping the thought of Theodotus the Gnostic in the 2nd century based on his heavy use of imagery about refining, filtering, and purification.
Speaker: If that connection holds, it would place Maria's active work squarely in the 1st and 2nd century CEs. Maria the Jewess' legacy is massive. Her ideas flow through Islamic alchemical text, resurface in the European Middle Ages, and are even preserved visually and symbolically in Michael Mayer's 1617 work, Atlanta By the end of the 17th century, she had already been a core figure in alchemical theory and practice for more than 1500 years, with a level of influence that's basically unmatched in the history of alchemy. And as I briefly mentioned earlier, one of the clearest summaries of her worldview is her famous axiom, one becomes two, two becomes three, and through further combinations, everything returns to unity. At its heart, that axiom reflects her belief that all matter, human and metallic alike, is fundamentally interconnected and capable of transformation.
Speaker: While ancient alchemist didn't have a modern understanding of atoms, Maria's faith in transmutation turns out to be surprisingly on point. Modern science shows that changing the nucleus of an atom changes the element itself, either naturally through radioactive decay or artificially by bombarding atoms with some atomic particles. In that sense, the ancient dream of transmutation has actually been realized by physicists using particle accelerators, nuclear reactors, and cyclotrons, which have produced dozens of synthetic elements, including plutonium-239. Alongside her theories, Maria's practical invention helped make this work possible, especially the Karatakis, the Bain-Marie, as well as the Tribecos, which just reinforces her reputation as both a visionary thinker and a hands-on experimentalist.
Speaker: Brilliant and mysterious, Maria the Jewess stands out as one of the most captivating figures in the history of science, combining practical innovation with mystical philosophy, pioneering key laboratory techniques, and leaving a legacy that shaped both alchemy and modern chemistry, while inspiring generations of women in science.
Speaker: wow oh i love that we love mary the jewess you're like i hate alchemy but i love this but i love this yeah that's very interesting i felt like you would like her like she did yeah so many cool things she really did well and i hope that you guys are not tired of hearing about zosimos of panopolis because ah that is who i'm going to be talking about today um and lol because we didn't do that on purpose We didn't. I actually was supposed to be covering a Chinese alchemist that I couldn't find any information on. And so I just randomly chose another name off the list.
Speaker: And just so happened to be... Surprise, surprise. Surprise, surprise. Tied to Mary the Jewess. So for Zosimos, he was one of... also another true founder of alchemy. He was Greco-Egyptian alchemist and mystic who lived roughly in the late 3rd to 4th century CE, so obviously after Mary the Jewess. He was considered one of the earliest alchemists whose writings actually survive, which makes him extremely important historically. Although scholars debate details of his life, he is generally believed to have come from Panopolis, which is modern Aqmim in Egypt.
Speaker: Panopoulos was a center of late Egyptian religious and philosophical traditions, and he may have also either lived or worked in Alexandria, but we don't know for sure. Very little is known about his personal life, but what we do know was that he was a priest and some sources suggest that he may have also been a teacher.
Speaker: He is one of about 40 authors who are also included in a seventh to 8th century Byzantine compendium of alchemical writings that helped to preserve his work and legacy.
Speaker: Alchemy in the antiquity period combined chemistry, metallurgy, philosophy, and mysticism, and alchemists during this time period worked to turn base metals into gold with transmutation. They sought to find universal healing remedies to seek immortality and ultimate wisdom, and to understand the fundamental nature of the universe.
Speaker: So outside of Zosimos being one of the earliest alchemical authors whose works have survived, he was also one of the first to connect a laboratory practice, spiritual purification, and mystical philosophy.
Speaker: He reportedly wrote a massive collection of alchemical texts, which are sometimes described as the 28 books or an encyclopedia of alchemy. His works also preserved the teachings of earlier figures like Mary the Jewess or Mary the Alchemist and included diagrams of equipment, metallurgical recipes, and they contained religious and philosophical discussion, especially Gnostic and Hermetic ideas. Today, only fragments of his writings survive, and much of those sections contain symbolic or coded language that are often presented through letters, dreams, or visions that he had. His writings influenced later alchemists across Greek, Arabic, and medieval European traditions, though.
Speaker: Zosimos provided one of the first formal definitions of alchemy, where he states that alchemy is the study of the composition of waters, movement, growth, embodying and disembodying, drawing the spirits from bodies, and bonding the spirits within bodies. This definition aligns with this idea that the core of alchemy is both a physical and a spiritual process of transformation, which I will highlight again in a few minutes. So looking at transmutation, he focuses on converting metals such as copper, lead, tin, and iron into silver or gold. And in practice, he often produced metal alloys that look like gold rather than literally transforming the metal into gold. So going back to what Tiffany opened with on alchemy in the antiquity periods, he He also studied how vapors affected metals to be able to change the color properties of those metals. And Zosimus emphasized proper tools and experimentation. He documented processes that were originally developed by Mary the Jewess, like distillation, sublimation, and extraction, as well as chemical processes and the apparatus.
Speaker: His writings were sometimes considered among the earliest descriptions of chemical reactions and laboratory practices. He's also one of the first figures to describe alchemy as both a physical and spiritual process. He believed alchemy was deeply spiritual and he taught that alchemy could transform the human soul and lead to divine knowledge. He also believed that successful alchemy required both the technical skill and spiritual enlightenment.
Speaker: He believed laboratory metal transformation mirrored the transformation of the soul, purification, rebirth, and spiritual ascent. And he believed in a divine spark within humans and that spiritual forces or demons could influence experiments. Zosimos believed that metals or other substances contained a divine spirit that could be freed and transformed, an idea that he paralleled with the liberation and purification of the human soul.
Speaker: He also drew on different themes from mythology to present alchemy as a sacred knowledge. An example of this is stating that fallen angels taught the secrets of metallurgy to humans. And he also depicted alchemical operations as a cycle of death and rebirth, where metals die in the furnace and then are resurrected as higher forms, which we've already talked about i also just think it's funny that they're like fallen angels were devious right they taught us alchemy yeah yeah and now we have power at our fingertips oh my gosh so i'm just going to talk about a couple of his words
Speaker: Not all of them, obviously. But as I mentioned, he reportedly wrote a 28-book encyclopedia of alchemy. But his primary work, Chirok Mehta, which translates to things made by hand, and I could be saying wrong, survives only in fragments. Many of these works only survive in fragments because they were copied and recopied through Greek, Syrian, and Arabic traditions.
Speaker: They were also often deliberately encoded or altered and some were lost during shifts in religious or political power like we've seen in like all ancient texts throughout time.
Speaker: In one of these fragments, Zosimos states that a true alchemist must understand not only the how of an operation, but also the why. And the Chirkmeda was both a technical and philosophical manual, and it combined laboratory instructions with symbolic interpretation and so spiritual commentary. Another one of his known texts are The Visions of Zosimos, which recounts a dialogue with one of his students, Theosabea.
Speaker: A bit about Theosabea, she was believed to be a student or possibly a colleague, and her name roughly translates to God-fearing or reverent toward the divine, and some scholars believe she was a practicing alchemist herself. Zosimos uses a series of images and dream visions to explain alchemical concepts as a way to help Theosabeya grasp the symbolic meaning of the processes.
Speaker: In his work, he frequently described imagery like bodies being dissolved inside alchemical vessels, sacrifice as a representation of purification, and artificial or metallic humans representing transformation. Zosimos's use of symbolic and visionary writing helped to shape how alchemical knowledge would be transmitted for centuries, blending scientific experimentation with mystical philosophy and esoteric teaching traditions.
Speaker: So when we look at his influence on later alchemy and science. Zosimos had a profound influence on the development of alchemy in both the Islamic world and in medieval Europe.
Speaker: After his death, his Greek writings were preserved and compiled, like I mentioned, by Byzantine scholars. And over time, many of those texts were translated into Arabic. Through this process, Zosimos became one of the key figures who helped to carry ancient Greco-Egyptian alchemical knowledge into later traditions.
Speaker: By the 10th century, the Persian scholar Ibn al-Nadim referenced alchemical works attributed to figures called Thosimos or Remos, which scholars widely believed were in reference to Thosimos's name.
Speaker: Arabic alchemists such as Ibn Umayl helped to preserve and interpret fragments of his works, and these writings were later transmitted into medieval Latin alchemical traditions, which influenced alchemical processes for centuries. Zosimos helped establish a foundational standard for alchemy by insisting that successful alchemical work required both technical precision and spiritual preparation. nation He argued that alchemy was not a mechanical experiment only, but that it was a disciplined path toward knowledge and transformation. This perspective influenced a lot of mystical and philosophical alchemical traditions, including Hermetic and Rosicrucian movements, which viewed alchemy as a method of personal and spiritual refinement. At the same time, Zosimosa's detailed descriptions of laboratory procedures influenced practical alchemists working in metallurgy, medicine, dye production, and early chemical experimentation.
Speaker: His discussions on distillation, specialized vessels such as alembics and controlled heating methods helped to establish techniques that were used in laboratory work for centuries, and multi-state distillation methods described in his texts later contributed to the production of distilled alcohol, medicinal extracts, and perfumes.
Speaker: Lastly, Zosimos helped ensure that alchemy would survive not just as a craft, but as a philosophy of transformation. And that is Zosimos. Wow. I love how much crossover we had. I know. yeah I was like, holy shit. And then because after I – like you were like, oh, yeah. Are you looking at Zosimos or whatever? And the fact that you knew immediately. I went back to your notes because I was like, I just want to make sure that like I'm not restating everything that you're stating in your notes. And like it was –
Speaker: It wasn't. But as I was like, oh, thank God. Because I'd already finished my notes by that point. Because was like, it's already done. Like, I don't know what to You're like, I will not be going back and redoing these. So you guys are welcome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a wrap on this episode of Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft. We hope you had as much fun as we did. If you loved this episode, we'd be eternally grateful if you left us a five-star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It helps more witches, seekers, and magical misfits find your show.
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Speaker: Until then, stay magical, stay curious, and as always, blessed be witches.
