
A modern alchemical hoax exposed - benbreen
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/alchemical_hoax.html
======
markvdb
The article author is speculating about the motive. Let's see... 3 copies
"published", one burnt, two saved, of which one in a library, the other in
unknown hands...

The forger might have been selling the "lost copy" of a "rare" book to a
private collector...

~~~
pavel_lishin
Is it plausible that they could have recreated an old book that would pass
muster? I assumed that the "scans" were just elaborate photoshops.

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deepnet
The misaligned computer typeface is immediately obvious by the thin perfect
lines - quite different to the ideosyncracies of lead cast, press printed type
from 1665.

Otherwise a very convincing attempt to establish provenance and an unresolved
mystery.

Medieval alchemy's intertwining of chemical process with self-enlightenment
makes for a uniquely weird mix of apparatus, chimera and concealed meaning.

~~~
benbreen
Yep - the computer typeface snuck in there reminded me a bit of Nick Wilding's
discovery of a forged Galileo book. There was a two-character chunk of a
supposedly letter-press printed word that had _blurred_ in the way things do
when you bump a scanner. It turned out it was a forgery created just a decade
before, but done with such remarkable expertise that it fooled even the
leading Galileo and rare book experts. It's really a fascinating story:

[http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/16/a-very-rare-
boo...](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/16/a-very-rare-book)

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madaxe_again
I just googled a passage from one of his screenshots of the hoax - "animantium
genere non sponte genita membrorum" \- and lo and behold, here's the page that
was amateurishly photoshopped:
[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LrNjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA4&lpg=...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LrNjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=%22animantium+genere+non+sponte+genita+membrorum%22&source=bl&ots=68N4r-zguC&sig=8Ln1SRY-B5AwNLutvqmNTMUA1D4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT6obtr5XKAhUHVxQKHY66AaEQ6AEIJzAC#v=onepage&q=%22animantium%20genere%20non%20sponte%20genita%20membrorum%22&f=false)

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Joeboy
The text is wider than my screen which makes this unreadable without scrolling
from left to right. Fortunately the source code is more readable than the page
itself.

Edit: I don't really like it when people are snarky about fonts and
colourschemes of otherwise interesting pages, but I figure it's reasonable to
complain if it's actually unreadable.

~~~
dhimes
I just added this to firefox because of this page.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/reader/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/reader/)

~~~
goda90
Doesn't Firefox have a built in reader mode?

~~~
heinrich5991
It doesn't display the reader icon in the URL bar when I go to the link.

------
smoyer
Oh no! - Someone's been faking my pseudo-science.

EDIT:

I suppose given the history of science, that you could consider alchemy as
simply a set of hypotheses that had yet to be proven or disproven. While I
think my original comment is funny, the recent news regarding cold fusion
shows that I probably shouldn't be quite so closed minded.

~~~
pilsetnieks
This isn't about pseudo-science as much as about historical oddities. The hoax
in this case isn't alchemy (which is a hoax in a way, or maybe a delusion,)
it's the faking of a book.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Isn't alchemy the transformation of lead in to gold - that's neither a hoax
nor a delusion but instead a performable feat of nuclear physics.

Alchemists (like Boyle) almost certainly weren't working to deceive people nor
under a delusion, they were attempting to do something that was not then
possible and - in part by their efforts - has now become possible for people
[to a degree].

~~~
benbreen
Alchemy is better defined as a broad set of practices and beliefs surrounding
what we would now call the fields of pharmacy and chemistry. Alchemists didn't
just try to transmute lead into gold, they experimented with magnetism, the
action of drugs on mind and body, the transmission and treatment of diseases,
the chemistry of the body (urine was a very popular alchemical substance), the
translation and interpretation of Greek, Roman and Arabic texts, etc. There
was also a strong component of Hermetic and occult magical practice, which
blurred into Biblical and Talmudic exegesis as well. Boyle's "The Sceptical
Chymist" (1661) was really the beginning of the end for that super expansive
approach to alchemy but you're right that he was still working in an early
modern alchemical framework (as was Newton).

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ommunist
A remarkable investigation! Thank you, it was a pleasure to read.

------
zem
the modern font in the "A R Codex Veritatem" header that the article
highlights really does stand out badly. wonder if it was left in as a
deliberate tell.

