>>12675970It's arguable Britain would have been severely stunted as a mercantile empire if not for Newton taking coinage seriously.
The foundations of the British Empire were notoriously corrupt, yet its functionaries were impressively disciplined.
>>12675988Yes.
There are three schools of alchemy: the Puffers, the Philosophers, and those who synthesize the two positions.
The Puffers are people who believe the highly encoded and allegorical texts contain secret lab instructions, and try to work them out through experiment. There are some garage hobbyists who do this.
The Philosophers believe those texts are spiritual in nature and outline a process for the perfection and empowerment of the human soul. Jung was one of these. There are several esoteric societies you can join which also subscribe to this view and claim to initiate you into alchemy. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of occultists practice something they call alchemy.
The synthesizers believe the texts contain multiple meanings, all valid, by which you perfect yourself and transform goo into magic potions at the same time. There are a few people who dabble in this as well.
