Alchemy and the End Times: Revelations from the Laboratory and Library of John Allin, Puritan Alchemist (1623–1683)

Abstract

John Allin (1623–1683), a Harvard-educated Puritan minister, physician and alchemist, provides an important case study for investigating connections between alchemical practice and millenarian concerns in the seventeenth-century British Atlantic world. This study explores how Allin's Puritan eschatological beliefs drove his alchemical pursuit of the philosophers’ stone, viewed by contemporaries as the panacea that would restore perfect health and longevity to mankind. For Allin, the stone's successful creation signalled assurance of Christ's promised return, while its use would prepare the godly elect for their place in Christ's thousand-year reign on earth that was to follow Judgment Day. As a nonconformist minister in Restoration England, his views led to his ejection from his East Sussex parish, requiring him to seek other sources of income. Allin's work as an alchemical operator in London illuminates his own endeavours to process “prima materia,” apparently a locally sourced species of algae known as nostoc, while his correspondence includes what may be the first extant reference to a planned alchemical laboratory facility at Oxford University. His library of medico-alchemical and exegetical literature also reveals attempts to connect the biblical figure Elias, a harbinger of Christ's Second Coming, to the quest for metallic transmutation. From these standpoints, the life and times of this Puritan alchemist open up new avenues of investigation into trans-Atlantic communities of practitioners, whose networks provide fresh insights into the mechanics of exchanges of ideas, knowledge and materials.