[In Your Sagas] How do you handle the book & lab text trade?

[Cuchulainshound]

@Xavi

Someone that has no idea of what you did on the newts experiment of 1212 will have no idea on what you are doing here. It is more than shorthand.

And yet a mage 200 years later can translate an individual lab text, without any extant reference to that other experiment.

But I feel that the ability to generate a lab total of sufficient magnitude is needed because it is more than just a recipe, far more than shorthand.

We had a discussion about "alchemy vs chemistry" once upon a time that echoes similarly in my memory...

Mixing Stuff Together and Why That Isn't Alchemy

OK folks. I like the old Muto/penetration thread in that it was educating me on a lot of things, so please continue the discussion here. Points to consider: Fluffy: Could you expand a bit on the introduction of blackpowder into Islamic lands and how that may have percolated into the Iberian peninsula, please (or at least cite a source with a good summary)? Erik/CH: If you could expand on the difference between alchemy and our modern view of chemistry, that would be most helpful. In particu…

From that post, there are some helpful diagrams from actual alchemical texts - altho' these are from the 1600's, once everything had been codified and was made clear and orderly:

These diagrams should help clarify things:
THE SEPHIROTHIC TREE
Explanatory Figures
Helpful Tab III, outlining the Mysterium Magnum
Helpful Tab IV
A simple Animal spell
Figure 6, a nice summation

If you're still having trouble, I'll include one more diagram:
KEY TO THE GREAT PHILOSOPHICAL SECRET
aka "the Figure conteyning all the secrets of the Treatise both great & small"

The point is that it's not just a list of instructions like it's not just "mixing stuff together", it's not just a recipe that you just translate word for word - it's far more "arcane" than that (literally!), and far more obtuse than learning a simple substitution cypher.

Or at least it certainly can be. ysmv.