As if it weren't already obvious, Mackay is a pure skeptic when it comes to alchemists. Though he's not deaf to their stories. In fact, he extracts Denis Zachaire's entire story from his own autobiography, a story that ends with Zachaire's reformation.
After a lengthy search for the Philosopher's stone Zachaire isolated himself to studying the alchemical classics rather than following the trends of his day. Then, as the climax of his story, he transmutes gold on Easter Sunday, thanking god before he decides to sell all he owns and disappears.
Now, transmuting gold on the most sacred day in the Christian calendar does seem very convenient. His solitary study leading up to and solitude during his transmutation also sounds like an embellishment. All of these details suggest that his success was the reward for some sort of increase in holiness.
Though, more than its being full of such embellishments, I think that Zachaire's story signals a shift in the culture of alchemy.
Around Zachaire's time the spiritual dimension of alchemy was picking up, and so Zachaire's story makes sense. Plus, if there is a moral to the man's tale, it's that alchemy can only come to a true end if an alchemist practices without greedy intentions. When Zachaire was working up to his final transmutation he wasn't doing it for gold or any sort of gain - it was just to prove to himself that it could be done.
Mackay, in his blind skepticism, misses this. He obviously has made himself an observer of crowds' madnesses by making himself insensitive to them. His dismissing them all as ridiculous and the worst kind of folly. It may be a fine way to go about writing such a book as his, but being so skeptical is as bad as being entirely credulous.
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