Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; These include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base metals into the noble metals gold or silver- as well as an elixir of life conferring youth and immortality. In general alchemists believe in a natural and symbolic unity of humanity with the cosmos. Lately western alchemy has become recognized as the proto-typical protoscience presaging the seminal western sciences such as chemistry and allopathy. Alchemists nurtured a framework of theory, terminology, experimental process and basic lab techniques still recognizable today. But alchemy differs from modern science in the inclusion of Hermetic principles and practices related to mythology, religion, and spirituality.