Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a part of the Agora Podcast Network.

I'm your host, Heather Tesco, and I'm a storyteller who makes history accessible,

because I believe it's a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe,

and being so much more deeply in touch with our own humanity.

This is episode 154, my friends, and because it's getting to be Halloween time, and I like to do things that are timely,

this episode is all about the practice of alchemy.

Alchemy is the art and science of transforming base metals into gold or silver.

It's also about creating healing potions that can heal any disease. And both Henry 8th and Elizabeth I, supported and patronized alchemists. Perhaps the most famous alchemist of the

period is John D. He is the famous scientist who had both the largest private library in Europe and a conjuring table.

It's hard for us with our post-enlightenment minds to square these two sides of people.

How can you be a scientist who also has a conjuring table? How can you be a canon or a priest who also

reads tarot cards? How can you have this scientist who is also what we would call an occultist?

But it's so, so important to remember this is before the scientific revolution.

This is right when people are on the verge of discovering science, of making all of these

discoveries that we now take for granted. Gravity, right?

This is right when Copernicus is finally putting it out there that the sun does not actually go around the

earth. And I did do an episode on Tudor Astronomy, if you want to hear more about that.

I'll put it in the show notes. But, you know, in our modern minds, it's impossible to be both a

scientist and someone who would spend a whole lot of time finding

the philosopher's stone. It's really easy for us to look down at people who did search for the

philosopher's stone or the elixir of life and to think that we're so much smarter than they were.

And, you know, this is like my own insert opinion piece here.

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