What are Archemy and Spagery?

While researching the French books I came across some unfamiliar words in the jargon for Alchemy: Arkhémia and Spagyrie. The former refers to new world being created by a group of five master alchemists, while the latter refers to alchemical artifacts. I did some research and these words derived from real alchemy practices: the words in the English lexicon are seemingly "archemy" and "spagyrics" (sometimes "spagery" or "spagyry"). Various "modern alchemy" blogs define this in very different ways, even some academic papers too, but I found the historical uses.

According to A Dictionary of Western Alchemy by Jordan Stratford, on p10:

archemy, archimastry

A neologism that implies superior practice of the art of alchemy. It seems to be used by some alchemists to differentiate their activities from those of their rivals (Giovanni Agostino Pantheo refers to the rival practice as "illicit and duplicitous alchemy" as opposed to his own work published in 1530 as Voarchadumia, "the cabala of metals"). From Norton's Ordinal (1477), comes the quote, "Mastery full marvelous and Archimastry is the tincture of holy alchemy." By the nineteenth century, however, archimie had become a French term for chemical analysis in metallurgy.

 ...and p79:

spagyria

The preparation of herbal medicines, most commonly employing fermentation and distillation. The term was coined by Paracelsus. From Greek spao, “to tear,” and ageiro, “to collect.”

Okay, that is hugely enlightening! The French writers seem to have drifted a fair distance from the original meanings, but that's fine! Their use of spagery is completely out of left field, but the use of archemy seems fairly logical. The master alchemists, or arch-masters, create their own world: hence Archemia, the arch-masters' world.

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