The Alchemist Archive.org
Niklas Terki
Two years after Tom Riddle's diary comes into his possession, Dumbledore is almost certain that it is a horcrux. All he needs is independent confirmation - which is, unfortunately, very difficult to find when dealing with such advanced magic. Luckily, Edward Elric is a genius, an alchemist, and especially, a specialist in human transmutation.
I am Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts, the principle school of magic in British wizarding society. I confess I am uncertain as to how much you already know about the Wizarding World, and I feel I must err on the side of caution. For fear that I will lose your interest, however, I will lead with my reason for writing to you.
Your name, along with several others, was provided to me some time ago by one Van Hohenheim; he identified himself as your father. He seemed terribly proud of your accomplishments and natural talent as an alchemist, and I am certain that his praise is warranted in full. My area of interest, however, is in the matter of human transmutation. I understand that you are something of an expert on the subject.
My silence on this matter is, naturally, unconditional, and under the circumstances, I pray that you will forgive me the violation of your privacy. You see, I find myself in dire need of this expertise.
For the time being, you will need to take me at my word that British Wizarding Society is a sizeable community with its own political climate and temperament. Not two decades ago, the cult of Lord Voldemort rose to considerable personal and political power, with tragic results that our community still feels to this day. It was originally believed that he fell thirteen years ago, but that becomes ever more a matter of debate by the day.
Further, considering your lofty accusation, we would also like to ask about the laws regarding human transmutation in your community. While I assure you that either or both of us would be quite willing to help take down a dangerous man who has been dabbling in dangerous things, neither of us wants to step blindly into danger. Your candor is likely to be vital to our wellbeing.
You are quite right that your brother and yourself are not wizards. However, alchemy occupies quite an interesting niche in our legal system; by Wizarding law, it has been ruled to be a form of magic that does not have to be performed by a wizard. So while you and your brother are not wizards, you are not legally considered to be Muggles either. Under most circumstances, Muggles do not have the opportunity to learn alchemy regardless, so it makes very little difference. In this, Amestris is, naturally, the exception.
As you two certainly know, alchemy is quite a mentally intensive discipline, so it is particularly unpopular in the Wizarding World. As such, there are little to no laws regarding its use. The nearest analogous magical course is Arithmancy, the foundation upon which spellweaving is built. I will endeavor to explain the inner workings of magic as best I can.
I cannot express the depths of my gratitude for your generosity and thoughtfulness. I am certain that your aid will be nothing more or less than an incredible help in this fight, regardless of the results of your investigation.
You are quite correct in deducing that this is a matter of utmost secrecy; I would prefer that not a single person more than necessary know of this matter. It was my intention that you could teach a very small class of alchemy students, under the guise of protecting a lost art. It would be preferable if only one of you were to come in person, but accommodations can be made if that is unacceptable. This would give you a time frame of approximately nine months of time to work. The cover story could, if necessary, be broken early as well.
Maria the Jewess used a variety of apparatuses, including ovens made of clay, metal, and glass. To seal the joints between the various parts, she used wax, fat, paste made of starch, and clay mixed with fat. According to Zosimos, she found glass items useful because they allowed the reactions to be viewed without disturbing them, and they allowed relatively safe work with mercury and sulfurous (or arsenical) compounds, both known to be toxic. She may have been the first person to mention hydrochloric acid, a mineral acid whose discovery is usually attributed to later, medieval Arab alchemists.
According to Zosimos, Maria the Jewess ground cinnabar [mercury (II) oxide] with mortars and pestles of lead and tin. By the late tenth century, the Arab book Kitāb al-Fihrist (Book Catalogue), by Ibn Al-Nadim, placed her among the 52 most important alchemists known and credited her synthesizing a brownish-purple pigment known as caput mortuum.
Little is known about Trismosin's life beyond the legendary tales of his journeys found in works attributed to him. These tales, according to historian of religion J. Peter Sdergrd, had little value other than providing an "aura of historicity" to the texts attributed to him.[1] The name Salomon Trismosin is also likely a pseudonym. Occultist Franz Hartmann claimed the actual name of Trismosin was "Pfieffer" (though he provides no evidence for this claim)[2] and historian Stephen Skinner identifies him with Ulrich Poysel, who was a teacher of Paracelsus.[3][4] Most of the source for his life comes from a short autobiography written in Aureum Vellus.
He is said to have begun his interest in alchemy when observing an alchemist and miner named Flocker perform an alchemical operation that allegedly transmuted lead into gold. The miner died shortly after, never revealing his secret to the young Trismosin. This led to a lifelong search for such alchemical secrets.[5][6]
Trismosin writes that in 1473 he set out on a journey to find a true alchemist. He found only frauds and fools claiming to have transmuted base metals into silver and gold, which put him off his search for some time. Having abandoned his search, he came to a college in Venice where he met a German alchemist named Tauler. Tauler taught Trismosin his alchemical secrets and Trismosin learned how to transmute mercury into gold.[1][5][7]
Patronized by a local nobleman, Trismosin continued these transmutational experiments until the nobleman died in a hurricane. Later Trismosin learned the secret of duplication.[5] He apparently later went to a place "where kabbalistic and magical books in the Egyptian language were entrusted to me". He followed in a medieval Christian tradition of alchemists reporting their travels to the East, where they learned ancient and esoteric secrets of alchemy.[8]
Paracelsus records that he met Trismosin in Constantinople in 1520 and was instructed in the art of alchemy. Little else is known of their meeting, but Trismosin is best known today for his mentoring of Paracelsus.[8]
Aureum Vellus is a Latin collection of treatises on alchemy attributed to Trismosin. The earliest version of the book was printed in 1598 in Rorschach, Switzerland; it was translated into French by an "L. I" in 1612 as La Toyson d'Or and translated from French into English by William Backhouse as The Golden Fleece (Ashm. MS 1395). The collection contains the earliest printed edition of Splendor Solis[1][9] (see below) along with a short autobiography of Trismosin (which is the source for much of Trismosin's life)[5] among other treatises. The book popularized many concepts from the Rosarium Philosophorum in Europe.[9]
Alchemy was a protoscientific stew of chemistry, astrology, mysticism,metallurgy, physics, and religion. It had its origins in Egypt, India, andChina, and has largely been associated with metallurgy and pharmacology. Itspractitioners have been depicted as both cosmic clowns and demonic dabblers.But that is a modern perspective on the alchemists of medieval andRenaissance Europe. At that time alchemy was a widespread practice:archaeologists have found hundreds of artifacts from alchemical laboratoriesall over Europe, including England, Norway, Switzerland, France, Portugal,Germany, Austria, and Denmark (as well as Jamestown, Virginia).
On a practical level, these alchemists were often involved in brass making,gold smithing, and assessing the noble metal content of ore, jewelry, orcoins. But they were also fascinated with the idea of transmutation andbelieved in a sort of infinite mutability of matter. They sought thephilosopher's stone--the magical substance for transforming base metals intogold and indefinitely prolonging life. Roger Bacon, the thirteenth-centuryscholar and one of the earliest advocates of the the scientific method,described the discipline as incorporating both the ethereal and the mundane."Theoretical alchemy theorizes about all inanimate things and about thewhole generation of things from the elements," he wrote. "There is also anoperative and practical alchemy, which teaches how to make precious metalsand pigments, and many other things better and more plentifully than theyare made by nature."
It was the operative and practical aspect of alchemy that MarcosMartinn-Torres, a Ph.D student in archaeological sciences at UniversityCollege London's Institute of Archaeology, sought in his research. Over thepast three years he has analyzed sixteenth-century alchemical laboratoryinstruments with twenty-first-century scientific equipment at the WolfsonArchaeological Science Laboratories in the institute basement. His analysishas identified the raw materials used in the production of the ceramiclaboratory instruments and what made them suitable for chemicalexperimentation--important information for students of late medieval andRenaissance Europe looking to trace the production and trade of laboratoryinstruments. He's also analyzed a cryptic alchemy text and determined thatit describes a reproducible metallurgical process, which indicates theauthor really knew his metallurgy. Martinn-Torres' analysis suggests thatthe average Renaissance alchemist was a religiously minded researcherworking at a time when the scientific revolution was just beginning, greatdiscoveries in astronomy and physics by scientists like Johannes Kepler andGalileo Galilei leading the way.