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Alchemical Culture and Poetry in Early Modern England
Alchemical culture and poetry in early modern England PHILIP BALL Nature, 4–6 Crinan Street, London N1 9XW, UK There is a longstanding tradition of using alchemical imagery in poetry. It first flourished at the end of the sixteenth century, when the status of alchemy itself was revitalised in European society. Here I explain the reasons for this resurgence of the Hermetic arts, and explore how it was manifested in English culture and in particular in the literary and poetic works of the time. In 1652 the English scholar Elias Ashmole published a collection of alchemical texts called Theatrum Chymicum Britannicum, comprising ‘Several Poeticall Pieces of Our Most Famous English Philosophers’. Among the ‘chemical philosophers’ represented in the volume were the fifteenth-century alchemists Sir George Ripley and Thomas Norton – savants who, Ashmole complained, were renowned on the European continent but unduly neglected in their native country. Ashmole trained in law, but through his (second) marriage to a rich widow twenty years his senior he acquired the private means to indulge at his leisure a scholarly passion for alchemy and astrology. A Royalist by inclination, he had been forced to leave his London home during the English Civil War and had taken refuge in Oxford, the stronghold of Charles I’s forces. In 1677 he donated his impressive collection of antiquities to the University of Oxford, and the building constructed to house them became the Ashmolean, the first public museum in England. Ashmole returned to London after the civil war and began to compile the Theatrum, which was intended initially as a two-volume work. -
A Lexicon of Alchemy
A Lexicon of Alchemy by Martin Rulandus the Elder Translated by Arthur E. Waite John M. Watkins London 1893 / 1964 (250 Copies) A Lexicon of Alchemy or Alchemical Dictionary Containing a full and plain explanation of all obscure words, Hermetic subjects, and arcane phrases of Paracelsus. by Martin Rulandus Philosopher, Doctor, and Private Physician to the August Person of the Emperor. [With the Privilege of His majesty the Emperor for the space of ten years] By the care and expense of Zachariah Palthenus, Bookseller, in the Free Republic of Frankfurt. 1612 PREFACE To the Most Reverend and Most Serene Prince and Lord, The Lord Henry JULIUS, Bishop of Halberstadt, Duke of Brunswick, and Burgrave of Luna; His Lordship’s mos devout and humble servant wishes Health and Peace. In the deep considerations of the Hermetic and Paracelsian writings, that has well-nigh come to pass which of old overtook the Sons of Shem at the building of the Tower of Babel. For these, carried away by vainglory, with audacious foolhardiness to rear up a vast pile into heaven, so to secure unto themselves an immortal name, but, disordered by a confusion and multiplicity of barbarous tongues, were ingloriously forced. In like manner, the searchers of Hermetic works, deterred by the obscurity of the terms which are met with in so many places, and by the difficulty of interpreting the hieroglyphs, hold the most noble art in contempt; while others, desiring to penetrate by main force into the mysteries of the terms and subjects, endeavour to tear away the concealed truth from the folds of its coverings, but bestow all their trouble in vain, and have only the reward of the children of Shem for their incredible pain and labour. -
Ethan Allen Hitchcock Alchemy Collection in the St
A Guide to the Ethan Allen Hitchcock Alchemy Collection in the St. Louis Mercantile Library The St. Louis Mercantile Library Association Major-General Ethan Allen Hitchcock (1798 - 1870) A GUIDE TO THE ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK COLLECTION OF THE ST. LOUIS MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION A collective effort produced by the NEH Project Staff of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Copyright (c) 1989 St. Louis Mercantile Library Association St. Louis, Missouri TABLE OF CONTENTS Project Staff................................ i Foreword and Acknowledgments................. 1 A Guide to the Ethan Allen Hitchcock Collection. .. 6 Aoppendix. 109 NEH PROJECT STAFF Project Director: John Neal Hoover* Archivist: Ann Morris, 1987-1989 Archivist: Betsy B. Stoll, 1989 Consultant: Louisa Bowen Typist: ' Betsy B. Stoll This project was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities * Charles F. Bryan, Jr. Ph.D., Executive Director of the Mercantile Library 1986-1988; Jerrold L. Brooks, Ph.D. Executive Director of the Mercantile Library, 1989; John Neal Hoover, MA, MLS, Acting Librarian, 1988, 1989, during the period funded by NEH as Project Director -i- FOREWORD & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: For over one thousand years, the field of alchemy gathered to it strands of religion, the occult, chemistry, pure sciences, astrology and magic into a broad general philosophical world view which was, quite apart from the stereotypical view of the charlatan gold maker, concerned with the forming of a basis of knowledge on all aspects of life's mysteries. As late as the early nineteenth century, when many of the modern fields of the true sciences of mind and matter were young and undeveloped, alchemy was a beacon for many people looking for a philosophical basis to the better understanding of life--to the basic religious and philosophical truths. -
Renaissance Man, Series One, Part 2
Renaissance Man, Series One, Part 2 RENAISSANCE MAN: THE RECONSTRUCTED LIBRARIES OF EUROPEAN SCHOLARS, 1450-1700 Series One: The Books and Manuscripts of John Dee, 1527-1608 Part 2: John Dee's Manuscripts from Corpus Christi College, Oxford Contents listing EDITORIAL PREFACE PUBLISHER'S NOTE CONTENTS OF REELS DETAILED LISTING Renaissance Man, Series One, Part 2 Editorial Preface by Dr Julian Roberts Research on John Dee (1527-1609) is gradually showing him to be one of the most interesting and complex figures of the late English renaissance. Although he was long regarded – for example in the Dictionary of National Biography – as alternately a charlatan and a dupe, he was revealed by E G R Taylor in 1930 as the teacher of the most important Elizabethan navigators. Research since then has underlined his role in the teaching of mathematics and astronomy, in astrology, alchemy, British antiquities, hermeticism, cabala and occultism, and, posthumously, in the Rosicrucian “movement” that swept Europe in the second and third decades of the seventeenth century. Dee thus stood, in the middle of the sixteenth century, at the watershed between magic and science, looking back at one and forward to the other. Central to all these interests was a great library, the largest that had ever been built up by one man in England. Dee’s omnivorous reading (demonstrated by his characteristic annotation) and the availability of his library to others fed many of the intellectual streams of Elizabethan England, and he was well known to Continental scholars, even before his ultimately disastrous visit to eastern Europe in 1583-89. -
Alchemy Archive Reference
Alchemy Archive Reference 080 (MARC-21) 001 856 245 100 264a 264b 264c 337 008 520 561 037/541 500 700 506 506/357 005 082/084 521/526 (RDA) 2.3.2 19.2 2.8.2 2.8.4 2.8.6 3.19.2 6.11 7.10 5.6.1 22.3/5.6.2 4.3 7.3 5.4 5.4 4.5 Ownership and Date of Alternative Target UDC Nr Filename Title Author Place Publisher Date File Lang. Summary of the content Custodial Source Rev. Description Note Contributor Access Notes on Access Entry UDC-IG Audience History 000 SCIENCE AND KNOWLEDGE. ORGANIZATION. INFORMATION. DOCUMENTATION. LIBRARIANSHIP. INSTITUTIONS. PUBLICATIONS 000.000 Prolegomena. Fundamentals of knowledge and culture. Propaedeutics 001.000 Science and knowledge in general. Organization of intellectual work 001.100 Concepts of science Alchemyand knowledge 001.101 Knowledge 001.102 Information 001102000_UniversalDecimalClassification1961 Universal Decimal Classification 1961 pdf en A complete outline of the Universal Decimal Classification 1961, third edition 1 This third edition of the UDC is the last version (as far as I know) that still includes alchemy in Moreh 2018-06-04 R 1961 its index. It is a useful reference documents when it comes to the folder structure of the 001102000_UniversalDecimalClassification2017 Universal Decimal Classification 2017 pdf en The English version of the UDC Online is a complete standard edition of the scheme on the Web http://www.udcc.org 1 ThisArchive. is not an official document but something that was compiled from the UDC online. Moreh 2018-06-04 R 2017 with over 70,000 classes extended with more than 11,000 records of historical UDC data (cancelled numbers). -
John Dee, Willem Silvius, and the Diagrammatic Alchemy of the Monas Hieroglyphica
The Royal Typographer and the Alchemist: John Dee, Willem Silvius, and the Diagrammatic Alchemy of the Monas Hieroglyphica Stephen Clucas Birkbeck, University of London, UK Abstract: John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica (1564) was a work which involved a close collaboration between its author and his ‘singular friend’ the Antwerp printer Willem Silvius, in whose house Dee was living whilst he composed the work and saw it through the press. This article considers the reasons why Dee chose to collaborate with Silvius, and the importance of the intellectual culture – and the print trade – of the Low Countries to the development of Dee’s outlook. Dee’s Monas was probably the first alchemical work which focused exclusively on the diagrammatic representation of the alchemical process, combining diagrams, cosmological schemes and various forms of tabular grid. It is argued that in the Monas the boundaries between typography and alchemy are blurred as the diagrams ‘anatomizing’ his hieroglyphic sign (the ‘Monad’) are seen as revealing truths about alchemical substances and processes. Key words: diagram, print culture, typography, John Dee, Willem Silvius, alchemy. Why did John Dee go to Antwerp in 1564 in order to publish his recondite alchemical work, the Monas Hieroglyphica? What was it that made the Antwerp printer Willem Silvius a suitable candidate for his role as the ‘typographical parent’ of Dee’s work?1 In this paper I look at the role that Silvius played in the evolution of Dee’s most enigmatic work, and at the ways in which Silvius’s expertise in the reproduction of printed diagrams enabled Dee to make the Monas one of the first alchemical works to make systematic use of the diagram was a way of presenting information about the alchemical process. -
Paracelsus, Helmont, Iatrochemistry, Pharmacology
Basic Sciences of Medicine 2014, 3(3): 60-62 DOI: 10.5923/j.medicine.20140303.03 Paracelsus, the Founder of Chemical Therapeutic Who Initiated the Application of Chemistry to Life Hosein Tajadod Hafiz, an International Journal of Iranian studies, Tehran, Iran Abstract Paracelsus, a German-Swiss physician, alchemist, philosopher, and astrologer who denounced the Galenic system of medicine. The application of chemistry to life was initiated by him. In fact, he stressed the spiritual side of disease but also advocated the use of mineral as drugs, rather than just using plants and animal products. He burned the works of Avicenna, and quarreled with most of his colleagues at Basel and was dismissed in disgrace and resumed his wandering from place to place, teaching chemical therapy (iatrochemistry). Johannes Baptiste van Helmont, Flemish physician was the leading iatrochemist of seventeenth century, but he opposed the dogma of Galen, astrology of Paracelsus and many other established doctrines. Keywords Paracelsus, Helmont, Iatrochemistry, Pharmacology In the Renaissance some Europeans reacted against the 1. Paracelsus, the Creator of anatomy and other medical teachings expounded in medieval Iatrochemistry Islamic text, particularly the “Canon of Medicine” (al-Quanon fil-Tib), written by Avicenna (980-1037), a Iatrochemistry , the study of chemical phenomena in order famous and influential Iranian physician and to obtain results of medical value was founded by Paracelsus. philosopher-scientist. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Iatrochemists the followers of Paracelsus treated the Italian and the greatest artist and scientist of the Renaissance human body as a chemical system. In iatrochemistry, disease who studied the skeletal movement and muscle structures in was associated with upsets of body chemistry and treatment relation to function, rejected the anatomy, though by was directed toward restoration of the chemical balance. -
Jacob Böhme and the Theology of Paracelsus (1493/94–1541)
Chapter 7 The New Adam: Jacob Böhme and the Theology of Paracelsus (1493/94–1541) Urs Leo Gantenbein Elsewhere in this volume,1 reference has been made to Winfried Zeller’s con- cept of the “crisis of piety” (Frömmigkeitskrise), said to have developed around 1600.2 This concept implies that the narrow religious atmosphere of a hard- ening theological orthodoxy, whether Catholic, Calvinist, or Lutheran, was mainly concerned with the defense of its own teachings against all opponents. This gave rise to a vacuum in the sphere of lived religion. Believers became alienated from their authentic spiritual feelings by the dominance of rigid dogmatic norms. What they therefore longed for was a teaching which might provide consolation and guidance through devotion to God, indeed a teach- ing that might perhaps offer a mystically experienced union with the deity. This may help explain how in the first two decades of the seventeenth century so many independent thinkers sought new modes of religious expression in their publications. Other contributors to this volume have discussed Johann Arndt (1555–1621), whose four books Vom wahren Christentum (1605–1610) be- came a religious bestseller, as well as Martin Moller (1547–1606), who was for a time Böhme’s pastor in Görlitz. Both men conform to Zeller’s crisis concept which stresses experience over doctrinal polemic. Notably, however, even the Lutheran theologian Philipp Nicolai (1556–1608), a harsh polemicist against Calvinism, published writings that gave voice to a mystical piety.3 1 I wish to express my thanks to Andrew Weeks for the continuing fruitful discussions, his many helpful comments, and the English translation in parts of my text. -
Early Greek Alchemy, Patronage and Innovation in Late Antiquity CALIFORNIA CLASSICAL STUDIES
Early Greek Alchemy, Patronage and Innovation in Late Antiquity CALIFORNIA CLASSICAL STUDIES NUMBER 7 Editorial Board Chair: Donald Mastronarde Editorial Board: Alessandro Barchiesi, Todd Hickey, Emily Mackil, Richard Martin, Robert Morstein-Marx, J. Theodore Peña, Kim Shelton California Classical Studies publishes peer-reviewed long-form scholarship with online open access and print-on-demand availability. The primary aim of the series is to disseminate basic research (editing and analysis of primary materials both textual and physical), data-heavy re- search, and highly specialized research of the kind that is either hard to place with the leading publishers in Classics or extremely expensive for libraries and individuals when produced by a leading academic publisher. In addition to promoting archaeological publications, papyrolog- ical and epigraphic studies, technical textual studies, and the like, the series will also produce selected titles of a more general profile. The startup phase of this project (2013–2017) was supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Also in the series: Number 1: Leslie Kurke, The Traffic in Praise: Pindar and the Poetics of Social Economy, 2013 Number 2: Edward Courtney, A Commentary on the Satires of Juvenal, 2013 Number 3: Mark Griffith, Greek Satyr Play: Five Studies, 2015 Number 4: Mirjam Kotwick, Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Text of Aristotle’s Meta- physics, 2016 Number 5: Joey Williams, The Archaeology of Roman Surveillance in the Central Alentejo, Portugal, 2017 Number 6: Donald J. Mastronarde, Preliminary Studies on the Scholia to Euripides, 2017 Early Greek Alchemy, Patronage and Innovation in Late Antiquity Olivier Dufault CALIFORNIA CLASSICAL STUDIES Berkeley, California © 2019 by Olivier Dufault. -
Heroic Furies: Spirituality and Nihilism in European Thought
Heroic Enthusiasts: Spirituality and Nihilism in European Thought Dr. Melanie J. Van Oort - Hall The separation of philosophy from religion, but also of religion from spirituality is a recent phenomenon. In our postmodern, subject oriented civilization, oftentimes, religion is associated with ‘overbearing dogma,’ ‘authoritarianism,’ while spirituality is associated with ‘freedom,’ ‘creativity,’ ‘harmony,’ etc. Nevertheless, there is another side to spirituality in the history of European thought that rather celebrates the opposite of harmony and is more nihilistic. This more nihilistic side of spirituality is probably particular to Modernity in that it tends to celebrate the self over against the community and sometimes advocates the self’s necessary destruction or annihilation in an attempt to recreate itself – a project with a questionable ratio of success. In order to better understand the development of the rise of nihilistic spirituality in modern European thought, we will focus on the philosophical background to Giordano Bruno’s suicidal figures in Gli eroici furori or The Heroic Enthusiasts. As perhaps one of the first ‘modern’ thinkers, who attempted to re-vitalize the philosophy and religion of the Presocratic philosophers within the framework of Renaissance Neoplatonism and Hermetism, Bruno represents a new understanding of the self in relation to the Cosmos that by nature becomes nihilistic. The word nihilism, which Friedrich Nietzsche characterized as the spirit of modernity, is derived from the Latin term, nihil or “nothing.” In Zur Genealogie der Moral or On the Genealogy of Morals, he deemed nihilism as a form of spirituality, a detail important for this paper. In his posthumously published Will to Power, notes he wrote around the same time he published Genealogie (1887), Nietzsche says that “Radical nihilism is the conviction of an absolute untenability of existence when it comes to the highest values one recognizes...”1 Significantly for Nietzsche, nihilism is a devaluation of this existence. -
Hypatia and Tsong Kha-Pa Giordano Bruno and Paracelsus
Hypatia and Tsong Kha-pa Giordano Bruno and Paracelsus The third “On The Path” Seminar Saturday 15th December 2018 from 3 to 6.15 pm “The public must be made acquainted with the efforts of many World-adepts, of initiated poets, writers, and classics of every age, to preserve in the records of Humanity the Knowledge of the existence, at least, of such a philosophy, if not actually of its tenets. The Initiates of 1888 would indeed remain incomprehensible and ever a seemingly impossible myth, were not like Initiates shown to have lived in every other age of history. This could be done only by naming Chapter and Verse where may be found mention of these great characters, who were preceded and followed by a long and interminable line of other famous Antediluvian and Postdiluvian Masters in the arts. Thus only could be shown, on semi-traditional and semi-historical authority, that knowledge of the Occult and the powers it confers on man, are not altogether fictions, but that they are as old as the world itself.” H. P. Blavatsky, “The Secret Doctrine” Vol. 1, Introductory, p. xlv The United Lodge of Theosophists 62 Queen’s Gardens London W2 3AH - 2 - Hypatia (b. 370) “Neo-platonism. Lit., “the new Platonism” or Platonic School. An eclectic pantheistic school of philosophy founded in Alexandria by Ammonius Saccas, . It sought to reconcile Platonic teachings and the Aristotelean system with oriental Theosophy. Its chief occupation was pure spiritual philosophy, metaphysics and mysticism. Theurgy was introduced towards its later years. It was the ultimate effort of high intelligences to check the ever-increasing ignorant superstition and blind faith of the times; the last product of Greek philosophy, which was finally crushed and put to death by brute force.” (“The Theosophical Glossary” H. -
Unit 8 – Alchemy and Chemistry in the Renaissance
Unit 8 – Alchemy and Chemistry in the Renaissance Sapienza University of Rome, Italy This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - Non-commercial 4.0 International The Roots of Chemistry and alchemy FEW SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES DEFINED THE COMPLEXITY OF THE RENAISSANCE AS MUCH AS ALCHEMY, AN AREA WHERE PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE, OCCULTISM AND THEOLOGY CAME TOGETHER. ALCHEMY, A GENUINE PROTOSCIENCE?, DISPLAYED THE TRANSFORMATION FROM THEORETICAL DOGMA TO THE OBSERVATION AND PRACTICE BASED METHODS THAT GRADUALLY DEVELOPED DURING THIS PERIOD OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 2 Attribution - Non-commercial 4.0 International The charm of alchemy The mysterious, occult side of alchemy still captures the imagination of the modern public, with Harry Potter chasing the elusive Philosopher’s Stone and names such as John Dee spawning thousands of occult sites studying the esoteric symbolism behind alchemical symbols Most of the modern interpretations have a basis in historical fact, and writers such as Chaucer, Ben Jonson, and Dante gleefully included alchemists as shady charlatans and figures of parody This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 3 Attribution - Non-commercial 4.0 International The reinaissance alchemist However, this comedic touch should not detract from the idea that Renaissance alchemists were often bona fide scientists, searching for truth and often applying the scientific method to their research In fact, it can be argued that, in terms of the development of science, the alchemists