a form of chemistry and speculative philosophy practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold and with finding a universal solvent and an elixir of life.

any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.

noun

black arts , black magic , hermetics , magic , pseudo science , sorcery , thaumaturgy , witchcraft , wizardrynotes:occamy was an alloy imitating silver , the counterpart to alchemy , alloy imitating gold , change , hermes , transmutation , wizardry