The alchemy

Abstract

In the Renaissance, the occupations of alchemy, astrology, kabbalah and other magic ceased to be secrets, they came to the surface. Moreover, they became an intellectual fashion-crowned persons and higher clergy were carried away by them, staff alchemists and astrologers appeared at the courts; Emperor Rudolph II, who was in Prague, was especially supportive of them. We can say that the playwright and poet Ben Jonson (1572-1637) stood out because he looked at the world with a sober eye and rejected all manifestations of hermeticism and mysticism. Being brought up in the classical ancient tradition, he did not take seriously the Rosicrucians, as if they were able to enter into relations with spirits-this was the same mystics for him (some limitation of his mental outlook was also manifested here). He was an enemy of the Puritans, who considered the theater to be devilry; in his opinion, they dragged the country back, seeking to destroy old merry England. Jonson was critical of astrology-although he himself knew how to make horoscopes, but did not believe in them-and alchemy. It is clear that from a historical point of view, there was nothing absurd in the views of alchemists: after all, only in the 20th century science revealed the true mechanisms and conditions of transmutation of elements, showing the fallacy of their attempts to turn simple metals into gold. But the main thing that did not escape Jonson's penetrating gaze and against which he could not pass by: charlatanism flourished in the field of "secret knowledge".