The Imagination of Alchemy: A Chinese Response to Catholicism in Late Ming and Early Qing

Abstract

As a common cultural phenomenon in China and the West, alchemy not only embodies the scientific spirit of people before modern times, but also contains certain religious beliefs, and even creates unrealistic secular imaginations. When Catholicism entered China during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Chinese also projected this imagination of alchemy onto the missionaries. Behind this imagination actually lays the strong interest of Chinese people in the financial resources of the missionaries. On the one hand, there is the historical influence of traditional Chinese alchemy, and on the other hand, there is the curiosity caused by the lifestyle of missionaries in China. The imagination of alchemy not only reflects a historical aspect of the encounter between China and the West during the Ming and Qing dynasties, but also reflects a complex social psychology of mixed curiosity, panic, suspicion, and vigilance in pre-modern China.