Question

For decades, the historiography of early modern alchemy was dominated by rationalist historians of science. Eager to construct a linear narrative of scientific progress, these scholars evaluated alchemical texts strictly through the lens of modern chemistry. Consequently, they selectively highlighted practical laboratory achievements—such as advancements in distillation and metallurgy—while dismissing the elaborate spiritual and astrological frameworks accompanying these physical processes as mere superstitious noise that impeded empirical discovery. More recently, however, contextualist historians have convincingly argued that this bifurcated approach fundamentally distorts the historical reality of the alchemical worldview. For the early modern alchemist, the physical purification of metals was inextricably linked to the spiritual purification of the practitioner. To excise the mysticism from the laboratory work is to impose an anachronistic division on a practice that was intrinsically unified.

Based on the passage, the rationalist historians of science would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements regarding a newly discovered early modern alchemical manuscript that details both a novel method for smelting copper and a series of incantations meant to appease planetary spirits?