Alchemy is difficult to understand. Like any technical language, alchemy has its jargon, but throughout history alchemical authors have been particularly self-conscious about hiding their ‘secrets’ (by which term they invariably referred to alchemical knowledge). What were these powerful secrets that needed to be so well guarded? As historians of science have convincingly revealed – with renewed interest since the turn of the millennium – the answer to this question is not as metaphysically or psychologically interesting as one might hope. For the most part, alchemists, from third-century Alexandria to present-day internet fora, have been using obscure and metaphorical language to communicate laboratory procedures. Whilst the heart of the alchemical promise has always been the transmutation of base metals into gold – and later the creation of the elixir of life – the realities of alchemy were necessarily more mundane and varied, altering with technological advancements. The metallurgical, pharmaceutical, and chemical operations hidden behind the murky language of alchemy continue to be deciphered by historians of alchemy. Despite these discoveries and despite repeated attempts to dispel misconceptions, alchemy has not lost its associations with the mystical, the esoteric and the occult. In this book, I argue that alchemy’s mystical reputation lingers because its literature is not only read by the sapientes, those who have the chemical acumen to decipher its operations, but it is also read by the fatuos, interested readers who would not have the faintest idea how to ‘wedde mercury to mercury wyth hyr wyfe’, or indeed how to ‘pone unam unciam de elixero rubeo super 1,000,000 femine pregnantis de puella’ (put one ounce of the red elixir on one million women who are pregnant with girls), let alone how to ‘exalt [the] medicine, / By hanging him in balneo vaporoso; / And giving him solution; then congeal him; / And then dissolve him, then again congeal him.’ It was these readers, alienated from the practice of alchemy but interested in its language nonetheless, who would go on to foster the myths surrounding the art.