This was an interesting and informative read, though I did find myself wading through academic sentences and rereading paragraphs a fair bit (mostly because the pseudoscientific jargon and methodology is traditionally and deliberately hard to follow). Maxwell-Stuart is very thorough, covering Asian, Islamic, and Western alchemies and citing everything from alchemic manuals to plays to paintings to build his history.

My biggest critique is that, though Maxwell-Stuart dedicates a chapter each to Ancient China, to India, and to the Islamic world, he doesn’t trace those alchemic traditions through to the present day, the way he does with the West. I find it hard to believe that there aren’t still people in Asia interested in transmutation or natural healing or the spiritual sides of alchemy, or that Maxwell-Stuart couldn’t find documents or testimony related to that, given how keen he is to trace Western alchemy into the early parts of the twentieth century. Instead, he just kind of sets the stage for the next tradition and moves on.

Overall, though, Maxwell-Stuart’s done a good job of tracing the history and presenting the evidence for historical continuity, and of explaining the beliefs and jargon the best anyone can. I learned a lot, it gave me a new lens to view early modern secret societies, early chemistry, and Edwardian spiritualism, and I think reading this helped me plug a plot hole to boot. It’s definitely a good book but not one I’m likely to recommend to many people, because the subjct’s kind of niche.

Warnings: Nope.

8/10 ( )