SECTION G WHO'S WHO IN AURORA CONSURGENS A BRIEF HISTORY OF ALCHEMY "[T]he main line of development of alchemy began in Hellenistic Egypt, and particularly in Alexandria and other towns in the Nile delta." Holmyard, p. 25 "[E]vidence that alchemy was being practised in the centuries immediately before and after the birth of Christ is provided by the fact that, about A.D. 300, an author named Zosimos, of Panopolis (Akhmim) in Egypt, wrote an encyclopedia on the subject in twenty-eight books. Some of the passages in it are apparently original, but a large part of the work is a compilation from earlier texts now lost." Holmyard, p. 27 "Events of the seventh to tenth centuries proved to have a decisive effect upon the development of alchemy." Holmyard, p. 60 "[S]uccessful wars of conquest brought Egypt, Palestine, Syria, much of Asia Minor, Crete, Sicily, Rhodes, Cyprus, and part of North Africa under Muslim control. ... [I]n the eighth century Muslim armies ... crossed into Spain. ... The invasion of Spain was quickly completed and the conquerors then passed into France; here, however, they were finally brought to a halt in 732, when Charles the Hammer dealt them a crushing blow at Pointiers. "Thus within a century after the Prophet's death [632] Islam had become a vast empire stretching from the Pyrenees to the Indus ... "When political conditions became quieter the Muslims soon manifested a great interest in learning, and having overrun not only Alexandria and Harran but all the other principal centres of Greek culture they were able to indulge it to the full. ... [T]he chief works in Greek on philosophy astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and other sciences were translated into Arabic ..." Holmyard, 62f. "Until the twelfth century almost the sole contact between Islam and Christian Europe was through the crusades, which were clearly not favourable to the transmission of learning. Soon after 1100, however, European scholars began to discover that the Saracens [Muslims] were possessed of much knowledge and ancient wisdom, and the bolder spirits began to travel in Muslim lands in search of learning and enlightenment. Sicily, an appanage [vassal state] of Islam from 902 to 1091, was captured by the Normans in the latter year, and the island thus became a centre of diffusion of Arabic learning. It was, however, in Spain—still largely under Moorish control—that the greatest activity prevailed. Students were welcomed to the colleges and libraries at Toledo, Barcelona, Pamplona, and other Spanish towns, and study was soon followed by translation." Holmyard, 105 "[A]ll the principal, and many of the minor, alchemical writers and books became familiar ... quickly to the West in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ... " Holmyard, 109 47 NAMES AND WORKS Albertus Magnus (the Great) "the dominant figure in Latin learning and natural science of the thirteenth century ... the one learned man of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries to be called 'the Great.' Albertus Magnus, Count of Bollstädt, was born at Lauingen in Suabia, probably in the year 1193 ... Joining the Dominican Order at Padua in 1223, he rapidly became a prodigy of learning and was proopularly known as the Doctor Universalis ... From 1228 to 1245 he taught at Freiburg, Ratisbon, Strasbourg, and Cologne, while from 1245 to 1248 he lectured in Paris and began the compilation of his great philosophical treatises. He was Provincial of his Order from 154 to 1257, and bishop of Ratisbon from 1260 to 1262; he then left his episcopal palace on the Danube and retired to a cloister at Cologne to devote the rest of his life to writing and study ... He is said to have died at Cologne on 15 November 1280 ... A genuinely pious man, he conformed strictly to the rules of his Order ... His fame as a teacher was so great that the young Thomas Aquinas made the long journey from Italy to Cologne to become his pupil. "Albertus ... was probably the best-read man of his time, and ... he had an extensive and unusually accurate of contemporary science ... He visited mines, mineral outcrops, and alchemical laboratories ... "Albertus was not an Arabic scholar, but was well acquainted with Latin translations of Avicenna ... and other Muslim writers." In 'The Little Book of Alchemy', he relates that he was given a knowledge of alchemy by the grace of God. ... He ... proceeds to discuss the various operations and pieces of apparatus used in alchemy, and describes the common chemical substances and experiments that may be carried out with them. Finally, recipes are given for the production of gold and silver. "Albert's almost equally famous pupil, Thomas Aquinas, believed like his master in the possibility of making gold and silver alchemically ... " Holmyard, pp. 114-117 Alphidius 12th century? CW 11, par. 161, n. 74 Alphonsus Amalricians "An heretical sect founded towards the end of the twelfth century, by Amaury de Bène or de Chartres (Lat., Almaricus, Amalricus, Amauricus), a cleric and professor in the University of Paris, who died between 1204 and 1207. The Amalricians, like their founder, professed a species of pantheism, maintaining, as the fundamental principle of their system, that God and the universe are one; that God is everything and everything is God." http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01379b.htm Averroës Muslim writer p. 118 Avicenna "Abu Ali ibn Sina, known in Europe as Avicenna. ... This Islamic genius, the 'Prince of Physicians', who has been described as the Aristotle of the Arabians and certainly the most extraordinary man the nation produced, was not in fact an Arab but a Persian. ... Appointed physician to one of the princes of the country at the tender age of seventeen, Avicenna held many 48 important posts in after years, on one occasion being grand vizier or prime minister to Shams al- Daula at Hamadhan. He later went to Ispahan, and after an eventful life died at Hamadhan in 1036 or 1037. In his comparatively brief span of existence he accomplished an amazing mass of literary, medical, philosophical, and scientific work ... " Holmyard, pp. 92f. Calid see Morienus Christian Rosencreuz "a poor but noble Knight who was born in Germany in 1358. As the result of a vow taken in his early youth, the young man started out on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. While living in Asia Minor he learned Arabic, studied with several Arabian alchemists and translated an important occult document into Latin. On his way home he stopped in Spain, where he tried to interest some of the more intellectual Moors in his occult doctrines. Failing in this, he returned to his native Germany where he assumed the mystical name of Christian Rosencreuz, or Christian Rosy-Cross. He soon attracted a group of disciples and together they built a Lodge which they called the 'House of the Holy Spirit.'" http://www.wisdomworld.org/setting/rosicrucians.html Convention of Philosophers see Turba Philosophorum "The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of texts from the second and third centuries of our era that survived from a more extensive literature. Reflecting the generalized spiritual orientation of late Hellenistic gnosis rather than a tradition in any organized sense, these sometimes contradictory texts share only their claim to a common source of revelation, Hermes Trismegistus. In most of the texts his revelations are presented as a dialogue with one of three pupils: Tat, Asclepius, or Ammon. According to Augustine[115], Asclepius was the grandson of the great Greek god of the same name, and Tat was likewise the grandson of his divine namesake (the Roman deity Mercurius, the same as the Greek god Hermes).The Hermetic texts are often cited as examples of the extent of late Hellenistic syncretism, for they exhibit traits of magic, astrology, alchemy, Platonism and Stoicism, and the Mysteries, as well as Judaism and gnostic thought." http://www.granta.demon.co.uk/arsm/jg/corpus.html "By 'Dionysius the Areopagite' is usually understood the judge of the Areopagus who, as related in Acts, xvii, 34, was converted to Christianity by the preaching of St. Paul, and according to Dionysius of Corinth (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., III, iv) was Bishop of Athens." http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05013a.htm Emerald Table see Tabula Smaragdina Ephraem Syrus "(Ephraim the Syrian), a saint who lived in Mesopotamia during the first three quarters of the 4th century A.D. He is perhaps the most influential of all Syriac authors; and his fame as a poet, commentator, preacher and defender of orthodoxy has spread throughout all branches of the Christian Church." http://87.1911encyclopedia.org/E/EP/EPHRAEM_SYRUS.htm Gerhard Dorn "lebte Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts als Arzt in Frankfurt am Main, Straßburg und Basel. Er war leidenschaftlicher Anhänger des Paracelsus und hat in mehreren Streitschriften die 49 Lehren seines Meisters verteidigt. Mehr ist über ihn nicht bekannt." http://www.richardwolf.de/latein/dorn.htm "was a doctor a at the end of the 16th century in Frankfort, Strasbourg and Basel. He was a passionate follower of Paracelsus and discussed defended the views of his teacher in extensive works. More about him is not known." Great Mirror see Vincent of Beauvais' Gregory the Great "540, Rome-604, Rome architect of the medieval papacy (reigned 590-604), a notable theologian who was also an administrative, social, liturgical, and moral reformer. Drawing upon St. Augustine of Hippo's City of God for his views, Gregory formulated ideas of a Christian society that became formalized in the Middle Ages. Among his accomplishments were a reform of the mass from which came the Gregorian chant. Since the 8th century he has been regarded as a doctor (teacher) of the church." Encyclopaedia Britannica Holy Ghost Movement see Joachim of Flora Honorius of Autun A theologian, philosopher, and encyclopedic writer who lived in the first half of the twelfth century.