Page 18 - A critical exposition of Jung's theory of alchemy

element of water, through a kind of spiritual device he called the
Archeus which carried out the instruction contained in the Image. To
transmute a person to health you gave them substances impregnated
with the correct idea, so that the Archeus could begin to function
properly again. He also recognised the existence of Airs, but these
separated substances rather than helped constitute them. Essentially,
Van Helmont refined and clarified the innovations of Paracelsus, while
continuing the attack on Galenic medicine, and furthering the arguments
that to understand Life the Universe and Everything, you needed
chymistry and meditation (Pagel 1982b: 21-3, Partington 1961: 218).

In the Ortus... Van Helmont described his experiences with the
Philosophers Stone. Though he himself never claimed to have made it,
he did claim he was given some and conducted experiments with it.
There is relatively little doubt that this text was written by Van Helmont,
so it seems a good example of such claims. He wrote:

for truly, I have divers times seen it, and handled it with my
hands: But it was of colour such as is in Saffron in its Powder,
yet weighty, and shining like unto powdered Glass: There was
once given unto me one fourth part of one Grain: But I call a
Grain the six hundredth part of one Ounce: This quarter of one
Grain therefore, being rouled up in Paper, I projected upon eight
Ounces of Quick-silver made hot in a Crucible; and straight
away all the Quick-silver, with a certain degree of Noise, stood
still from flowing, and being congealed, setled like unto a
yellow Lump: but after pouring it out, the Bellows blowing,
there were found eight Ounces and a little less than eleven
Grains of the purest Gold: Therefore one only Grain of that
Powder, had transchanged 19186 Parts of Quick-silver, equal to
it self, into the best Gold
(see Read 1947: 67).

English alchemists, in particular, seem to embraced atomism, in
which substances were made out of different arrangements or sizes of
the same kinds of atoms. Thus all that had to be done was to rearrange
the atoms, and the substance would change. Alchemists in the first half
of the 17th Century in England were also often engaged in religious and
political ventures directed at the reform of society and medicine, through
the use of alchemy and direct contact with the holy spirit. Exchange of
texts and recipes, and even collaboration, was common. Although this
kind of reform movement culminated in both the Royal Society and a

14