09-10-2025, 12:05 PM
by Lutfallah Gari
"Alchemists were obliged from the earliest times to keep their esoteric knowledge secret. They used innumerable “pseudonyms” (Decknamen in German), not only for processes but also for the matters and elixirs. The same matter was often indicated with dozens of different names. Conversely, one and the same name was used to designate different matters. The editors of these texts need to understand, and explain, the words used by the alchemists for describing the substances that are mentioned in their operations. The first endeavors to solve this lexical problem were undertaken by the Arabs themselves: they composed glossaries or added to bigger theoretical works lists in which the meaning of the pseudonyms was explained."
https://www.academia.edu/124083210/Medie...erminology
"Alchemists were obliged from the earliest times to keep their esoteric knowledge secret. They used innumerable “pseudonyms” (Decknamen in German), not only for processes but also for the matters and elixirs. The same matter was often indicated with dozens of different names. Conversely, one and the same name was used to designate different matters. The editors of these texts need to understand, and explain, the words used by the alchemists for describing the substances that are mentioned in their operations. The first endeavors to solve this lexical problem were undertaken by the Arabs themselves: they composed glossaries or added to bigger theoretical works lists in which the meaning of the pseudonyms was explained."
https://www.academia.edu/124083210/Medie...erminology