An alchemical year is not the same as a normal calendar year. Rather, it refers to the time necessary to complete an alchemical project such as raising gold from a lower element. It is called a year because there are four basic levels or grades to the work (with many sublevels), similar to the four seasons of a calendar year.
Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Alice Markham-Cantor, author of the new Once & Future Witch Hunt.
My 9x-great-grandmother, Martha Carrier, was hanged in the Salem witch trials. She wasn't a witch. She wasn't an herbalist or a...