Little is known of his life beyond the texts which are attributed to him (A biographical notice De vita, aetate ac scripsis Johannis Dastin is found in a 17th-century manuscript: Ms Oxford, Bold.
[2] Dastin is known for correspondence with Pope John XXII and Cardinal Napoleone Orsini in defense of alchemical practice, dated to 1320.
Work attributed to Dastin was included in the 1625 Harmoniae imperscrutabilis Chymico-Philosophicae of Hermannus Condeesyanus,[3] the 1629 Fasciculus Chemicus of Arthur Dee, and the 1652 Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum of Elias Ashmole.
In mid-1317 he traveled to Avignon to work in the service of Cardinal Napoleon Orsini (†1342) and obtained the benefits of a canonry of the collegiate church of Southwell.
[4] Dastin argues that artificial transmutation into gold with the help of sulphur of mercury (argent vive) is equivalent to natural transformation.