To this score, I have affixed a quotation from The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, an enigmatic alchemical text: Et sicut omnes res fuerunt ab uno, meditatione unius: sic omnes res natae fuerunt ab hac una re, adaptatione [‘And as all things proceeded from one, through the mediation of the one, so all things came from this one thing, through adaptation’].

Often portrayed as charlatans, most alchemists sought after the gold of spiritual truth through an elaborate system of symbolism ac...