Alchemy gets a bad rap these days, seen only as a primitive version of chemistry – its practitioners greedy fools thinking they could turn lead into gold.

The truth is that Alchemy was an early attempt to understand how the world worked, and it blended ideas from religion and science.

Some Alchemists believed that if they understood enough about the elemental forces in nature, they would be able to create the philosopher’s stone, which would be able to turn base matter into gold. Other Alchemists were driven more by the quest for spiritual enlightenment, and saw their proto-chemistry experiments as a reflection of an inner journey.

A guy called Adam McLean has put together a massive site dedicated to the subject. If you’re interested in philosophy or chemistry (or Hermeticism, or the Tarot) go have a look.