Epilogue

Abstract The epilogue summarises the book’s narrative and outlines avenues for future research. Spiritual alchemy is chiefly important as a hybrid that defies a straightforward distinction between science and religion. In a way, its story is one of religious dissenters productively appropriating natural philosophy to articulate their faith. After laboratory alchemy was effectively eclipsed and the link to Jacob Boehme weakened, spiritual alchemy lost its internal cohesion and gave way to many divergent interpretations of alchemy that distanced it from the manipulation of material substances through chemical processes. Future studies will be able to shed more light on various alternative interpretations of alchemy that can now be perceived more clearly in contrast to the long tradition of spiritual alchemy described in this book.