[Jeff Chandler]

Hermeticism had only a peripheral contribution to the development of the scientific method. Considering the frequently accidental nature of scientific progress, it wouldn’t be surprising if it had a greater role, but it didn’t.

[Old North State]

A lot of people think that, but if you ever get chance to look at the writings of the precursors of the scientific method you will see what I mean. The term ‘science’ itself was not widely used until the 17th century. Before then, the ‘scientists’ were practitioners of Natural Philosophy including 12th century Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon.
All of them were Alchemists and their alchemical studies were picked up in the 16th and 17th centuries by Francis Bacon, Newton, Boyle, etc., who were themselves ardent Alchemists. Newton wrote over one million words in journals describing his Alchemy experiments and studies. Francis Bacon first described the modern scientific method in a text titled; Novum Organum, playing on his departure from Aristotle as the arbiter of knowledge and fact, and went on to found the College of Invisibles(Alchemists) which morphed into the Royal Society which lay at the heart of the Age of Enlightenment. This line of inquiry had to hidden from Crown and Church, of course, and is still one of the great little known stories of history.