Alchemy Had an Unscientific Method
If success follows a complex set of actions and you do not know which parts of the whole performance were the vital ones, it is best to repeat all of them exactly and slavishly every time because you never know what might happen if you don’t.
Alchemy stumbled upon some great truths but produced theoretical structures in which the line of reasoning between cause and effect was cluttered up with all sorts of irrelevant mystical and magical red herrings.
— Lyall Watson, Supernature, pp. 178-79
