What Is Chrysopoeia? The Art of Making Gold in Alchemy

Chrysopoeia is the Greek word for “gold-making,” and the word is the most ambitious single term in the alchemical vocabulary. From the Hellenistic period through the early modern period, alchemists in Egypt, China, India, the Islamic world, and Latin Europe pursued the dream of transmuting base metals into gold, and the dream of chrysopoeia was the central preoccupation of the Western alchemical tradition. The dream is the most famous thing about alchemy, and the dream is also the thing most likely to be misunderstood (Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 2013; Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 2004; Holmyard, Alchemy, 1957). The honest reading is that the dream of chrysopoeia is what the tradition was for, and the honest reading is also that the dream was wrong.

The meaning

The word chrysopoeia comes from the Greek khrusos (gold) and poiein (to make), and it literally means “gold-making.” The term is used in the alchemical tradition to refer to the art of transmuting base metals into gold by means of the philosopher’s stone or the elixir of life. The term is often used as a near-synonym for the whole alchemical project, since the transmutation of base metals into gold was the central preoccupation of the alchemists.

Chrysopoeia is distinguished from the broader alchemical project of transmutation in that it refers specifically to the production of gold, while transmutation can refer to the production of any noble metal or substance. The alchemists often distinguished between the production of silver (leukopoeia, “white-making”) and the production of gold (chrysopoeia), and the production of gold was the higher of the two arts. The leukopoeia is rarely mentioned, and the rarity is part of why chrysopoeia has become the default term.

The history

The history of chrysopoeia is the history of the alchemical tradition itself, and the history is longer than is often recognized. The earliest surviving alchemical texts — the Leiden and Stockholm papyri of the third century CE — are recipe collections for the production of imitation gold, and the pseudo-Democritean corpus of the same period is the first to articulate the theoretical framework that supports the chrysopoeic project. The Greek alchemical tradition, the Arabic alchemical tradition, the Latin medieval alchemical tradition, and the early modern alchemical tradition all include chrysopoeia as a central preoccupation (Principe, 2013, pp. 30-50; Holmyard, 1957, pp. 30-60).

Olympiodorus of Alexandria (5th-6th c. CE), a commentator on the Greek alchemical tradition, wrote a significant commentary on chrysopoeia preserved in the Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (Berthelot, 1888). Olympiodorus is one of the most important late antique sources for the Greek chrysopoeic project, and his commentary is the standard introduction to the late antique chrysopoeic theory. The Leiden papyri, edited by Halleux and others, give the technical details of the early recipes, and the technical details are mostly about dyeing and surface coloration rather than transmutation in the strict sense. The distinction is one modern readers sometimes miss, and the missing is one of the things that makes the early history of chrysopoeia difficult.

The history of chrysopoeia is also the history of the alchemical dream. The dream of making gold has been one of the most persistent dreams of the human imagination, and the dream has been a major source of the alchemical tradition’s cultural significance. The dream is ancient. The dream is not extinct.

The theory

The alchemical theory that supported chrysopoeia was a sophisticated synthesis of the Aristotelian theory of the four elements and the Jabirian theory of mercury and sulfur. The full tria prima of mercury, sulfur, and salt is a later 16th-century Paracelsian development, and the reader who attributes the tria prima to the Greek and Latin medieval alchemists is reading anachronistically. The chrysopoeic theory held that all metals are composed of the same underlying principles in different proportions, and the differences among metals are differences of degree rather than of kind. The theory supported the chrysopoeic project in three ways:

The unity of matter. The alchemists believed that all matter is composed of the same underlying substance, the prima materia. The unity of matter meant that the differences among metals are not absolute, and the alchemist who understands the underlying substance can transform one metal into another.
The maturation of metals. The alchemists believed that metals grow in the earth like plants, and gold is the fully matured form of the metallic seed. The maturation meant that the alchemist can accelerate and complete the natural process, producing gold from a less-mature metal. The maturation theory is one of the more striking features of the chrysopoeic framework, and the framework is what makes the alchemist’s claim to “hasten nature” coherent.
The existence of the philosopher’s stone. The alchemists believed that the philosopher’s stone is a perfected agent that can effect the transmutation. The stone is the product of the magnum opus, the multi-stage process by which the base metal is brought to its perfect form.

The three components of the alchemical theory of chrysopoeia are interlinked, and the alchemists worked within the theory for more than two thousand years. The theory was wrong in its details, and the theory was a serious attempt to understand the composition and transformation of matter, and both halves of that sentence are part of the honest picture.

The procedures

The alchemists developed a wide range of procedures for the chrysopoeic work, and the procedures are highly varied. The alchemists used coded language to disguise the identity of the materials, and the disguise is one of the things that makes the alchemical literature difficult to read. The most common of the procedures:

The use of metallic starting materials. The alchemists typically used a base metal (lead, copper, tin) as the starting material, and the work of the magnum opus was to bring the base metal to its perfect form.
The use of mineral starting materials. Some alchemists used mineral starting materials (antimony, sulfur, vitriol) as the starting material, and the work was to prepare the philosopher’s stone from the mineral.
The use of plant starting materials. Some alchemists used plant starting materials (often the “green lion” of vitriol or a plant juice) as the starting material, and the work was to extract the active principles of the plant and to use them as the basis of the transmutational work.
The use of universal solvents. Some alchemists used universal solvents (the alkahest or the azoth) as the basis of the chrysopoeic work, and the use of the universal solvent is the most ambitious version of the project.

The procedures are described in detail in the surviving alchemical texts, and the procedures are often extremely elaborate. The alchemists typically worked for months or years on the chrysopoeic work, and the alchemist who succeeded in producing the philosopher’s stone was celebrated as a master of the art.

The famous claims

The alchemical literature is full of claims of successful chrysopoeia, and the claims are worth being clear about. The most famous of the claims:

The legendary transmutations of antiquity. Mary the Jewess, the pseudo-Democritus, and other early alchemists were credited with successful transmutations. The claims are legendary rather than historical, and the details are uncertain.
The legendary transmutations of the Islamic tradition. The legendary Geber (the pseudo-Jabir) and the historical al-Majriti (d. c. 1004), to whom legendary transmutations are attributed, were credited with successful transmutations.
The transmutations of Nicolas Flamel. The Parisian scrivener was credited with a successful transmutation in 1382.
The transmutations of the Count of Saint-Germain. The eighteenth-century courtier was credited with successful transmutations and with personal immortality.
The transmutation of van Helmont. The Flemish chemist Johann Baptist van Helmont reported a successful transmutation in 1618. The claim is the most credible of the early modern transmutation claims, but it rests on the testimony of a single witness.
The transmutations of the early modern Paracelsians. The followers of Paracelsus reported several successful transmutations, including the transmutation performed by the mysterious “Baruch” before Emperor Ferdinand III. The claims are documented but not independently verified (Principe, 2013, pp. 196-205).

The famous claims of chrysopoeia are a major feature of the alchemical tradition, and the claims have been a major source of the modern popular image of the alchemist. The honest reading of the claims, in my view, is that none of them has been independently verified, and the lack of independent verification is one of the things that makes the claims claims rather than reports. The honest reading is also that the alchemists were not all frauds, and the lack of independent verification is consistent with the alchemists reporting their experiences within a framework that the modern scientist would not accept.

The decline

The chrysopoeic project declined in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as the modern chemical and mechanical philosophy replaced the alchemical framework. The modern chemists argued that the alchemists’ theoretical framework was wrong, and that the transmutation of base metals into gold was impossible. By the early nineteenth century, chrysopoeia was generally regarded as a failed or fraudulent project, and the term alchemy had become a term of abuse, used to discredit any chemical theory that smelled of the older tradition (Principe, The Scientific Revolution, 2011; Newman & Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire, 2002).

The decline of chrysopoeia was not, however, a complete rejection of the alchemical tradition. The alchemical tradition continued to be practiced in the various esoteric orders, and the tradition was preserved in the Theosophical, Anthroposophical, and Rosicrucian movements of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The modern spagyric revival has also preserved some of the alchemical tradition, although the modern spagyric practitioners do not generally attempt chrysopoeia. The not-attempting is part of the modern spagyric inheritance, and the inheritance is a real change from the older tradition.

Chrysopoeia in the modern imagination

Chrysopoeia remains a powerful image in the modern imagination, and the dream of making gold continues to capture the modern reader. The image appears in the literature of science fiction and fantasy, in the popular science writing on nuclear transmutation, and in the popular culture of the modern world. The image is also a major source of the modern ethical debate about the creation of artificial substances. The modern biotechnologies — genetic engineering, synthetic biology, nanotechnology — have made the creation of artificial substances a real possibility, and the modern ethical debate has been informed by the long tradition of the alchemical chrysopoeia.

The dream of making gold is, finally, a dream of the human capacity to transform the natural world, and the dream continues to resonate with the modern reader. The chrysopoeic project was wrong in its specific predictions, and the project was right about something important — that matter has structure, that the structure can be understood, and that the understanding is the foundation of any serious theory of transformation. The chrysopoeic alchemists were wrong about the stone. The chrysopoeic alchemists were right about the laboratory, and the laboratory is the most enduring thing they left behind.