Cleopatra emerged as stand-in for her occult, alchemical land, the intoxicating address of sex and excess.

WSJ: Still Under Cleopatra's Spell

El Bulli would never turn out another alchemical 35-course meal, and those who had not enjoyed a coveted spot at an El Bulli table now never would.

BBC: Spain��s Catalonia after El Bulli

Moreover, the most famous alchemical pursuit, chrysopoeia (the transmutation of base metals into gold), was viewed with a mixture of greed and terror by the political authorities of the time.

ECONOMIST: The twisted history of alchemy: Alchemists, ancient and modern | The

They did not always think alchemical theory was wrong.

ECONOMIST: The twisted history of alchemy: Alchemists, ancient and modern | The

Alchemical theories were not stupid.

ECONOMIST: The twisted history of alchemy: Alchemists, ancient and modern | The

She cited Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner, " with its frozen polar wastes and specters of "Nightmare Life-in-Death, " which as an 8-year-old child she had heard the poet recite in her father's parlor, and she made several dark allusions to the alchemical experiments of Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa, two Medieval figures with whom Percy had become obsessed during his studies at Oxford.

WSJ: Book Review: The Lady and Her Monsters