"It is erroneous to confuse alchemy with chemistry. Modern chemistry is a science
dealing only with the outward manifestations of matter. It never produces anything
new. One can mix, compose and decompose two or three chemical substances
any number of times, and make them reappear in different forms, but in the end
there is no increase in substance; there is only the combination of the substances
used at the outset. Alchemy neither composes nor mixes: it increases and activates
that which already exists in a latent state. Therefore alchemy can be more accurately
compared with botany or agriculture than with chemistry. In fact, the growth of a plant,
a tree or an animal is an alchemical process taking place in the alchemical laboratory
of nature and conducted by the Great Alchemist, the active power of God in nature."