When the sidhe were scattered and lost, the people forgot the profound lessons at the heart of alchemy, a plague overtook the people. They forgot what true alchemy was. It was replaced with an earth bound philosophy and dead idea, that of Greek Fire. It was the belief that through the strength of his mind alone, man and sidhe could divine the purpose and meaning of life, and fulfill his purpose as he saw it. This was gravely wrong in that it did not account for the existence of the third magical being, the djinn. Ignorance did not rule out or negate their influence, in fact it made it more sinister and subtle. While the djinn would now avoid taking physical form, they still had just as much power over their unwitting receiver. This mistake left the followers of Greek Fire open to control by the dark fire of the djinn, who they were totally oblivious to. This philosophy was rooted in and initiated by a corruption of the transmutation of lead into gold and solidified by the use of alchemy to master power of one man over another by threat of death.