Can You Make a Philosophers Stone Using Animal Lives

Richard Bean, The University of Queensland ; Megan Piorko, Georgia State University , and Sarah Lang, University of Graz

What cloak-and-dagger alchemical cognition could be so of import information technology required sophisticated encryption?

The setting was Amsterdam, 2022. A conference organised by the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry had just concluded at the Embassy of the Gratis Mind, in a lecture hall opened past historical-fiction writer Dan Brown.

At the conference, Science History Found Postdoctoral Researcher Megan Piorko presented a curious manuscript belonging to English alchemists John Dee (1527–1608) and his son Arthur Dee (1579–1651). In the pre-modern world, abracadabra was a means to understand nature through ancient surreptitious cognition and chemical experiment.

Within Dee's alchemical manuscript was a cipher table, followed by encrypted ciphertext nether the heading "Hermeticae Philosophiae medulla" — or Marrow of the Hermetic Philosophy. The tabular array would end up beingness a valuable tool in decrypting the null, just could only exist interpreted correctly in one case the hidden "key" was establish.

It was during mail-briefing drinks in a dimly lit bar that Megan decided to investigate the mysterious alchemical naught — with the help of her colleague, University of Graz Postdoctoral Researcher Sarah Lang.

A recipe for the elixir of life

Megan and Sarah shared their initial analysis on a history of chemistry blog and presented the historical discovery to cryptology experts from around the world at the 2022 HistoCrypt conference.

Based on the residual of the notebook's contents, they believed the ciphertext independent a recipe for the fabled Philosophers' Stone — an elixir that supposedly prolongs the owner's life and grants the ability to produce golden from base metals.

The mysterious cipher received much interest, and Sarah and Megan were soon inundated with emails from would-exist code-breakers. That'south when Richard Bean entered the flick. Less than a week afterwards the HistoCrypt proceedings went live, Richard contacted Lang and Piorko with exciting news: he'd cracked the code.

Megan and Sarah's initial hypothesis was confirmed; the encrypted ciphertext was indeed an alchemical recipe for the Philosophers' Stone. Together, the trio began to translate and analyse the 177-word passage.

The alchemist behind the cipher

But who wrote this alchemical cipher in the outset identify, and why encrypt information technology?

Alchemical noesis was shrouded in secrecy, as practitioners believed it could simply be understood past true adepts.

Encrypting the most valuable merchandise underground, the Philosophers' Rock, would have provided an added layer of protection confronting alchemical fraud and the unenlightened. Alchemists spent their lives searching for this vital substance, with many believing they had the fundamental to successfully unlocking the secret recipe.

Arthur Dee was an English alchemist and spent most of his career equally royal physician to Tsar Michael I of Russia. He continued to add together to the alchemical manuscript afterward his begetter's death — and the cipher appears to exist in Arthur's handwriting.

We don't know the exact date John Dee, Arthur'due south begetter, started writing in this manuscript, or when Arthur added the cipher table and encrypted text he titled "The Marrow of Hermetic Philosophy".

Even so, we do know Arthur wrote some other manuscript in 1634 titled Arca Arcanorum — or Undercover of Secrets — where he celebrates his alchemical success with the Philosophers' Stone, claiming he discovered the true recipe.

He decorated Arca Arcanorum with an keepsake copied from a medieval alchemical scroll, illustrating the allegorical procedure of alchemical transmutation necessary for the Philosophers' Stone.

Cracking the code

What clues led to decrypting the mysterious Marrow of the Hermetic Philosophy passage?

Adjacent to the encrypted text is a table resembling one used in a traditional style of cipher chosen a Bellaso/Della Porta cipher — invented in 1553 by Italian cryptologist Giovan Battista Bellaso, and written about in 1563 past Giambattista della Porta. This was the first clue.

The Latin title indicated the text itself was also in Latin. This was corroborated by the lack of letters 5 and J in the cipher table, every bit V and J are interchangeable with U and I, respectively, in printed Latin text.

This was skilful news, as Richard had access to Latin statistical models from previous decryption projects. Armed with this information, he gear up off in search of patterns that would pb him to the zero "cardinal" — a word or phrase that could be used in conjunction with the zippo table to decipher the text.

Richard soon realised the key was included at the end of the text, which is unusual. It was surprisingly long too, fabricated up of 45 messages — arduous fifty-fifty for today's figurer-password standards. The trio would later on realise the key was also written elsewhere in the manuscript, hidden in patently sight.

Latin and enciphered text written in notebook. — Richard found the central and used it, along with the nil tabular array, to decrypt the cipher. Credit: Richard Bean

In keeping with the typical encryption practices of the period, Arthur Dee had written the key on the back of the naught table. It read: sic modify iason aurea felici portabis uellera colcho, meaning "like a new Jason you will carry the Golden Fleece abroad from the lucky Colchian".

An ancient myth

This key is adapted from the terminal verses of an alchemical poem by Giovanni Aurelio Augurello titled Chrysopoeia (circa 1505), with "chrysopoeia" also being the aboriginal Greek word for the art of gold-making.

The verse form is nigh the ancient Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts, which was reinterpreted during the early modern flow as an allegory for abracadabra. In the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, the Argonauts sheet to the state of Colchis (in mod-twenty-four hour period Georgia) to recollect the "Gold Fleece". In an alchemical context, the fleece is a symbol for the Philosophers' Stone.

The actual text of the Marrow of the Hermetic Philosophy mentions taking an alchemical "egg" — not farther described — from an athanor, which is a type of furnace used for gentle heating over a long period of time.

Afterward, instructions are given for how long to expect until the different alchemical phases ensue (the blackening, whitening and the red phase). Information technology says the cease product — either a argent tincture or the gold-making elixir — will depend on when the process is stopped.

If the directions are followed correctly, the code-cracking reader is promised:

… and so you volition have a truly gold-making elixir by whose benevolence all the misery of poverty is put to flight and those who suffer from any illness will exist restored to health.

Contrary to what was believed for a long time, alchemical recipes practise contain chemical processes which can be reproduced in modern laboratories. It's only towards the terminate (during the production of the Philosophers' Stone) that the recipe becomes too vague to reproduce — at least not without further interpretation.

However, they practice sometimes produce a blood-red glass (which is what the rock was said to look similar).

Journey to the centre of the archive

What can nosotros learn from historical ciphers? Cryptology experts have just scratched the surface of early on-modern encryption practices. Much undercover alchemical noesis remains uncovered from a time when making aureate and extending the natural limit of life was believed possible through alchemy.

The decryption of this 400-yr-quondam cipher suggests we have much ground to dig through all the same. Who knows what other alchemical ciphers are waiting to be discovered in the depths of the archive?

Richard Bean, Research Fellow, The Academy of Queensland ; Megan Piorko, Allington Postdoctoral Fellow, Scientific discipline History Constitute, Georgia State University , and Sarah Lang, PostDoc in Digital Humanities at Centre of Data Modelling (University of Graz), University of Graz

This commodity is republished from The Conversation under a Artistic Commons license. Read the original article.