"I know what you want better than you do," he seems often to be saying to the metals he is calcining, separating, joining and subliming.
But the ignorant alchemist was not always thanked for his treatment.
Sometimes the patient rebelled.

For instance, Michael Sendivogius, in his tract, _The New Chemical Light drawn from the Fountain of Nature and of Manual Experience_ (17th century), recounts _a dialogue between Mercury, the Alchemist, and Nature_.
"On a certain bright morning a number of Alchemists met together in a meadow, and consulted as to the best way of preparing the Philosopher's Stone....

Most of them agreed that Mercury was the first substance.

Others said, no, it was sulphur, or something else....

Just as the dispute began to run high, there arose a violent wind, which dispersed the Alchemists into all the different countries of the world; and as they had arrived at no conclusion, each one went on seeking the Philosopher's Stone in his own old way, this one expecting to find it in one substance, and that in another, so that the search has continued without intermission even unto this day.