Chemistry, magic, sorcery, witchcraft, enchantment. Pretty easy to tell which “similar” word doesn’t real fit in on that list, eh? Chemistry being a real and at times productive thing, and at times destructive thing. Like, this guy with the duality of fertilizer advancement and poison gas. Haber
I’m hazarding a guess that the most famous mental images about alchemy are the look of some wizened and elderly medieval robe wearing court appointed wizard. And gold. The idea of farting around with stuff (chemicals) to make other stuff (same chemicals but rearranged) naturally turned to farting around with stuff to different stuff that had no serious actual rearranging without at least King Arthur granting Merlin access to a particle accelerator. But the gold was the key above and beyond all the other stuff that could have been farted with.
Modern day conspiracy grifters would have fit right in with the ancient(er) alchemists. First of all, that good thing. Gold is far prettier than its metallic kin on the periodic table. Most are ugly, flattish gray and not serious competition for gold colored gold. Gold was arbitrarily assigned value beyond its usefulness because it’s pretty. Just like Yorkies are demonic little bastards are deemed valuable because some find them cute, while in the meantime they are secretly plotting to murder you in your sleep. Or the way people these days assign value to Kim Kardashian. Even beyond melting the gold into pretty little coins, it was valuable for pretty statues and other art and was the, uh, good standard of wealth. So if kings wanted good, you betcha the grifters wanted that gold, too.
And what else do kings want other than gold? Power. Attention. A lot of conspiracy grifting starts with larping for attention and then the light bulb goes on that you can actually make money off that. Now a king in theory, could give his gold to soldiers, but then he would have less gold. And like modern politicians were having the attention and the gold simultaneously, giving away your gold to others defeats the purpose of having gold. So enter the wise court appointed alchemist. He’s already figured out the king cares more about his gold than his people. He would certainly like some of that gold for himself, without the burden of having to make policy decisions on trading that gold for something else more useful to the people, like wheat. And he’s armed with the perfect tool set to take advantage of it.
You see, our king has what’s called cognitive biases, and heading that list is the obsession with gold. The technology isn’t good enough to figure out that actual magic doesn’t exist, but there’s certainly things that look magical.
“Court alchemist! Show me wonders!”
“Here is a liquid that melts metals! I call it nitric acid!”
“Great, how do I get gold out of it?”
“You can melt enemy soldiers faces with it, but I recommend making movies based on it. When Raiders of the Lost Ark is released it will be huuuuge!”
“I cannot wait that long. Make gold out of it.”
And the alchemist uses the next piece of his arsenal. Disinformation. He’s got the look down pat, with the robe with stars and quarter moons and the Snidley Whiplash moustache. He’s got all the word salad of the time to work with. Astrology, enchantments, Herbalife’s forerunners, etc…. All the words an impatient and gullible king (and his peasants!) needs to hear. And when things don’t actually work out making the gold, those words save his butt. “Sire, the stars were not aligned correctly. But if you wait until Raiders of the Lost Ark is released everything will be just right.” And in the meantime, splash your enemies faces with acid.
The alchemist equivalent of sports gematria would work like this. Claim that you can turn lead into gold. Throw around months of “experiments” that require funding - with gold. Stockpile the gold and buy yourself a half million dollar home and fancy trinkets. Pay everyday living expenses by offering to turn the peasants wheat into gold. Use the pieces of copper they give you for gas and mule money. (You can even outright tell them that you’re doing that. After all they were gullible enough to elect, sorry, not wise up to the king being a douchebag and run him out of town on a rail, er, mule train.) And go on to the corner every Wednesday night to rant about how the angry comet named Jesuita will end their miserable lives. Unless you give up more gold. Don’t forget to budget time for declaring that the other gold making alchemists are shills for the neighboring kingdom of Malarkia and the alchemists producing hydroxychloroquine aren’t using alchemy correctly.
I got carried away with that story and nearly forgot to mention who alchemy related ideas have even appeared more recently. Anything that sounds weird but appealing with a financial hook always gets marketed. For instance, red mercury.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mercury
Give me your gold and I will give you this magic substance that doesn’t really exist and you can not just melt the faces of your enemies, you can vaporize them entirely with your nuclear weapons! Alchemy gets credit as a precursor to actual chemistry. And now you can throw around fancy, schmancy sciency lingo instead of outdated alchemy lingo. Cooooooool! Grifters love a target audience that either never had a high school chemistry or hated it and other science so much that they have no clue that alchemy isn’t a real thing. For red mercury, I particularly like the touch about associating the red with Russia. The same way we’ve got people today falling for stupid shit like wearing purple makes you a baby eating Phoenician monster. That crowd needs a robe with stars and quarter moons on it and a cool moustache to complete the transformation to something that is called good, but it really isn’t.
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