The most influential names in the history of alchemy include:
*Hermes Trismegistus &ndash; by tradition, the founder of Western alchemy; many alchemical works were attributed to him.
*Wei Boyang &ndash; authored the earliest known book on theoretical alchemy in China.
*Pseudo-Democritus &ndash; anonymous author of the oldest extant works of Greco-Egyptian alchemy.
*Zosimos of Panopolis &ndash; influential Greco-Egyptian alchemist.
*Khālid ibn Yazīd &ndash; credited with introducing alchemy to the Islamic world.
*Pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana &ndash; earliest known source of the sulfur-mercury theory of metals and the Emerald Tablet.
*Jābir ibn Hayyān &ndash; notable for the theory of the balance (ʿilm al-mīzān),  the theory of artificial generation (ʿilm al-takwīn), and a general emphasis on experimental science.
**Pseudo-Geber &ndash; later Latin alchemist who wrote the influential Summa perfectionis.
*Roger Bacon &ndash; staunch proponent of the use of alchemy.
*Paracelsus &ndash; developer of iatrochemistry.
*Robert Boyle &ndash; alchemist critical of Paracelsus, credited as the father of modern chemistry.
*Mary Anne Atwood &ndash; key figure in the occult revival of alchemy.
*Carl Jung &ndash; merged alchemy and psychoanalytic thought.