Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so the mysterious and unsolved.

Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity,

and it has gripped millions of people throughout the ages. I am one of those people. My name is

Halley, and this is the Morbid Curiosity podcast. Before we start, my apologies for being late with this episode.

I was on holiday and ended up having pretty bad jet lag and an airplane-born lurgy.

I'm back now and ready to get into something a little mystical and mysterious.

Legendary Substances from alchemy.

Alchemy is an ancient branch of natural philosophy,

the early study of nature, that combined mysticism with scientific observation

in order to explain and possibly manipulate the natural world.

Purification of natural substances, as well as the human body, featured heavily.

In pursuit of these goals, laboratory techniques and theories were developed,

some of which are still in use today by modern scientists.

Secrecy was a large part of alchemy as well,

and the use of codes and ciphers to protect the alchemist's work were common.

There were two branches of alchemy,

the practical applications of pre-scientific techniques

called exoteric alchemy and the spiritual aspects of self-transformation, called esoteric alchemy.

Alchemy was practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe over thousands of years.

The term alchemy was first used in the 12th century CE in Europe

for a branch of astrology which attempted to discover the relationship and influence

of the stars on the terrestrial world and humans.

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