The Renaissance (French for "rebirth"; Italian: Rinascimento, from ri- "again" and nascere "be born")was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. As a cultural movement, it encompassed a resurgence of learning based on classical sources, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread educational reform.

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern period. Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence affected literature, philosophy, art, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism and human emotion in art.

Now that we all know a bit of its history, let's look at the people who actually made it possible: The Scholars and Philosophers, or as we later call them, Humanists.

They believed that in order to progress themselves, or excel, is to go back to the past, and look hard at themselves. These humanists were grounded in wisdom that hold intelligent arguments and wrote commentaries and also were multi-disciplinary in their approach towards progress. They had access to all sorts of books and ideas, when they then combined, or Synthesis. This is quite important as they believe that they have intelligence from the stars scattered all over the cosmos, and were not shy from using and combining them.

These men and women were excited to read and learn, for they were open-minded, learning up to 4-6 languages such as Greek and Hebrew, in order to read the ideas and theories written in books.

Physical alchemists were mainly greedy people who wanted to find that mystical catalyst that could turn basic elements like lead into gold. These alchemists aren’t very interesting.

Some of them were also spiritual alchemists, people who believed that quintessence, the soul is formed inside the body, and that it affects our imagination and our mind. They read the Picatrix, a grimoire originally written in Arabica, which was a composite work that synthesizes older works on magic and astrology. They also read the De vita libri tres, or the three books of life. De vita is a curious amalgam of philosophy, medicine, "natural magic" and astrology, and is possibly the first book ever written about the health of the intellectual and its peculiar concerns.

These scholars were very interested in the Spiritual and Demonic Magicks discussed in these books, for it also gave them… ideas and theories on freeing their physical selves and to ascend to the ethereal planes, to be one with the celestial. They experimented with herbs, prayer (which was more like chanting, scents and oils, which they called Psychosoma, believing that it brings balance to themselves, to both their physical and spiritual bodies. In modern times we call this aromatherapy.

The Spiritual body takes in vapours/scents, like incense and perfume, and harmonies, like prayer and music. Humanists believed that without habitual fortification of these elements, the spiritual body will become disconcerted and therefore affect the body, causing it to fall sick.

Likewise in the books, alchemists read about moral guidelines on how they should live their lives while exploring science, some kind of ethics they should follow in order to get closer to the celestial.

Since Man existed he has always tried to play God/ be God-like

Beforehand, alchemists only cared about making gold from lead, with greedy materialistic endeavours driving them. Now they seek to become the Perfect Man (godlike) in a Perfect world (celestial) through following guidelines and moral ethics.

Consider these modern ethical issues we face in society now

• Ethical issues raised by producing 'smarter' humans and modifying them

• A foreboding of our current ethical debate on genetics and its manipulation

• Human genome testing with stem cells

They aren’t so different from what the alchemists were going through back then, practicing ‘Magicks’ the Church and the other respective authorities on religions deemed to be the work of the devil. Basically, our thinking has evolved as it ascends (or descends?) into ‘higher matters’, as these ideas are then assimilated into culture and society through the passage of time. Which is why socially, our thinking still hasn’t changed.

All in the name of Science

As I have mentioned and analysed in detail in my Idea of an Idea post, such ‘dangerous’ and ‘wild’ ideas(what we call taboo) are resisted, then broken down into tolerable practices and ideas before being assimilated into culture and society through the passage of time.

I quote from my Idea of an Idea post: “Man is always obsessed with perfection, as his curiosity is what compels him to explore and figure out how things work, and when they succeed, they try to tweak it to the form that is most ideal to him. That is when things start to get dangerous. Man, being a social animal, naturally developed culture and society, and different environments produce different cultures and people.”

Man seeks perfection...

No, our thinking hasn’t evolved biologically, but socially, as a society, it has. Even though there will always be critics on ‘dangerous thinking’ and ‘ethical scientific experiments’, they will eventually get assimilated into culture and society or broken down into tolerable ideas. Whether the first or second event happens is entirely up to society, how it thinks.

Linking it to games design, gamers want to be all powerful; to obtain knowledge and power, so they can be god-like, the Perfect Being. They wipe out the opposition in order to get stronger, and impose their own beliefs and ideas on them. Like the physical alchemists before them, the gamer is driven by materialistic endeavours (agon, to be superior to the rest).

But now, modern day gamers are like the Spiritual Alchemists and the Humanists of old. Now they seek to become the Perfect Man (godlike) in a Perfect world (celestial) through following guidelines and moral ethics, but instead in games themselves.

Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, KOTOR, Dragon Age and countless more games… They provide the player with moral choices, bombarding them with it, to choose to be whatever they want to be, all within games where they experience the results, but not the fallout in real life.

Not just in games, films too portray the various shades of morality

Therefore, the evolution of thinking in Alchemy has not changed in its transition to Science, but it is Human Society itself that affects the results.