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Alchemical literature

From EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki


Alchemical literature is a genre of literature encompassing works on Alchemy as a form of scripture, it was a protoscience with a metaphysical aproach that used botany, metallurgy, herbal medicine, automation, transmutation of elements, Action at a distance, music, magic in order to reach it objectives. It is the precursor of modern Chemistry.

The word Alchemy is formed from the Arabic word al-kīmiyāʾ, composed from definite article al- that means The, and kīmiyāʾ (الكيمياء), that could originate from Ancient Greek words χημεία (khēmeia, that means "casting together", "weld", "alloy"), χημία (khēmia, black earth, ancient name for Egypt), or χυμεία (khumeía, “art of alloying metals”), or χύμα (khúma, “fluid”), or χέω (khéō, “I pour”), or from χυμός (juice).[1][2][3][4][5][2][6]

Alchemical writers used Classical figures from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology to illuminate their works and allegorize alchemical transmutation.[7] These included the pantheon of gods related to the Classical planets, Isis, Osiris, Jason, and many others. It has been argued that early alchemical writers borrowed the vocabulary of Greek philosophical schools but did not implement any of its doctrines in a systematic way.[8]

Ancient literature[edit]

Hermes Trismegistus[edit]

See also: Hermes, Hermes Trismegistus, Hermetica, and Hermeticism

Hermes Trismegistus (or Thrice-Great Hermes) is a legendary Hellenistic figure that originated as a syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth.[9] Is a central figure in the mythology of alchemy. Hermes and his caduceus or serpent-staff, were among alchemy's principal symbols. Hermetism, is a label used to designate a philosophical system that is primarily based on the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus. Corpus Hermeticum and Emerald Tablet are texts attributed to him.[10]

Greco-Roman alchemists[edit]

Pherecydes of Syros was considered to have had the greater significance in teaching on the subject of metempsychosis or the "transmigration of souls", which holds that every soul is immortal and, upon death, enters into a new body. His disciple Aristotle wrote the book Metaphysics. Another of his disciples, Pythagoras, taught metempsychosis in 600 BC that was sourced from Indian monks.[11][12]

Clement of Alexandria claims to have wrote what were called the "forty-two books of Hermes", covering all fields of knowledge.[13] The Hermetica of Thrice-Great Hermes is generally understood to form the basis for Western alchemical philosophy and practice, called the hermetic philosophy by its early practitioners. These writings were collected in the first centuries of the common era.[14]

Most of the Greco-Roman alchemists preceding Zosimos are known only by pseudonyms, such as Moses, Isis, Cleopatra, Democritus, and Ostanes. Others authors such as Komarios, and Chymes, we only know through fragments of text. After AD 400, Greek alchemical writers occupied themselves solely in commenting on the works of these predecessors.[15] By the middle of the 7th century alchemy was almost an entirely mystical discipline.[16] It was at that time that Khalid Ibn Yazid sparked its migration from Alexandria to the Islamic world, facilitating the translation and preservation of Greek alchemical texts in the 8th and 9th centuries.[17][18]

Empedocles believed in the transmigration of the soul/metempsychosis, that souls can be reincarnated between humans, animals and even plants.[19] For Empedocles, all living things were on the same spiritual plane; plants and animals are links in a chain where humans are a link too.[20] Empedocles was a vegetarian[21][22] and advocated vegetarianism, since the bodies of animals are the dwelling places of punished souls.[23] Wise people, who have learned the secret of life, are next to the divine,[20][24] and their souls, free from the cycle of reincarnations, are able to rest in happiness for eternity.[25][26]

Zosimos of Panopolis wrote in the Final Abstinence (also known as the "Final Count").[27][28]

Middle ages[edit]

Khalid ibn Yazid was an Umayyad prince and purported alchemist to whom is attributed the The Book of the Composition of Alchemy.</ref>[29]

Jabir ibn Hayyan was a 7th century writer, author of an enormous number and variety of works in Arabic, often called the Jabirian corpus. The works that survive today mainly deal with alchemy and chemistry, magic, and Shi'ite religious philosophy, his writings are included in The Great Book of Mercy, The One Hundred and Twelve Books, The Seventy Books.[30]

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa writes Three Books of Occult Philosophy in 1531.[31]

Paracelsus, also known as the father of Toxicology. His hermetical beliefs were that sickness and health in the body relied upon the harmony of humans (microcosm) and nature (macrocosm). He took a different approach from those before him, using this analogy not in the manner of soul-purification but in the manner that humans must have certain balances of minerals in their bodies, and that certain illnesses of the body had chemical remedies that could cure them. As a result of this hermetical idea of harmony, the universe's macrocosm was represented in every person as a microcosm. His theories were the basis for Paracelsianism and Iatrochemistry.[32]

George Ripley wrote the books The Compound of Alchemy; or, the Twelve Gates leading to the Discovery of the Philosopher's Stone (Liber Duodecim Portarum) in 1471, [33] The Cantilena Riplaei, The Compound of Alchemy is based largely on the work of a little-known alchemist of the fifteenth century, named Guido de Montanor.[34] and 'Worthies of England'.

Guido di Montanor writes "Scala philosophorum" (Scale of the Philosophers), this work was one of the first known to present a systematic order and structure for alchemic processes.[35]

Robert Boyle, is largely regarded today as the first modern chemist, and one of the pioneers of modern experimental scientific method. He is best known for Boyle's law,[36] which describes the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas, if the temperature is kept constant within a closed system.[37] In Some Physico-Theological Considerations about the Possibility of the Resurrection (1675), he used a chemical experiment known as the reduction to the pristine state as part of an attempt to demonstrate the physical possibility of the resurrection of the body. Throughout his career, Boyle tried to show that science could lend support to Christianity.[38] In his work The Sceptical Chymist (1661), Boyle abandoned the Aristotelian ideas of the classical elements—earth, water, air, and fire—in favor of corpuscularianism that help him to develop his mechanical corpuscular philosophy, which laid the foundations for the Chemical Revolution.[39]. In his later work, The Origin of Forms and Qualities (1666), Boyle used corpuscularianism to explain all of the major Aristotelian concepts, marking a departure from traditional Aristotelianism.[40]

Isaac Newton was interested in Alchemy works and wrote extensively on the subject. In 1888, after spending sixteen years cataloguing Newton's papers, Cambridge University kept a small number and returned the rest to the Earl of Portsmouth. In 1936, a descendant offered the papers for sale at Sotheby's.[41] The collection was broken up and sold for a total of about £9,000.[42] John Maynard Keynes was one of about three dozen bidders who obtained part of the collection at auction. Keynes went on to reassemble an estimated half of Newton's collection of papers on alchemy before donating his collection to Cambridge University in 1946.[43][41][44] All of Newton's known writings on alchemy are currently being put online in a project undertaken by Indiana University: "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton"[45] and summarised in a book.[46][47] Isaac Newton used concepts from corpuscularianism to develop hia corpuscular theory of light.

Renaissance[edit]

Thomas Norton wrote in 1477 The Ordinal of Alchemy. In 1582 Giordano Bruno writes De umbris idearum. Johann Daniel Mylius writes Opus medico-chymicum in 1618. Michael Maier writes in 1617 Atalanta Fugiens and Tripus Aureus, his student Daniel Stolz von Stolzenberg writes in 1624 the emblem book Viridarium Chymicum.

In 1652 Elias Ashmole published Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, an extensively annotated compilation of English alchemical literature.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ "Alchemy | Origin and meaning of alchemy by Online Etymology Dictionary".
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "alchemy", entry in The Oxford English Dictionary, J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, vol. 1, 2nd ed., 1989, ISBN 0-19-861213-3 Search this book on ..
  3. ↑ p. 854, "Arabic alchemy", Georges C. Anawati, pp. 853-885 in Encyclopedia of the history of Arabic science, eds. Roshdi Rashed and Régis Morelon, London: Routledge, 1996, vol. 3, ISBN 0-415-12412-3 Search this book on ..
  4. ↑ "Alchemy | Origin and meaning of alchemy by Online Etymology Dictionary".
  5. ↑ Weekley, Ernest (1967). Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21873-2 Search this book on .
  6. ↑ p. 854, "Arabic alchemy", Georges C. Anawati, pp. 853-885 in Encyclopedia of the history of Arabic science, eds. Roshdi Rashed and Régis Morelon, London: Routledge, 1996, vol. 3, ISBN 0-415-12412-3 Search this book on ..
  7. ↑ Yves Bonnefoy. 'Roman and European Mythologies'. University of Chicago Press, 1992. pp. 211–213
  8. ↑ Dufault, Olivier (2015). "Transmutation Theory in the Greek Alchemical Corpus". Ambix. 62 (3): 215–244. doi:10.1179/1745823415Y.0000000003. PMID 26307909. Unknown parameter |s2cid= ignored (help)
  9. ↑ A survey of the literary and archaeological evidence for the background of Hermes Trismegistus as the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth may be found in Bull, Christian H. (2018). "The Myth of Hermes Trismegistus". The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus: The Egyptian Priestly Figure as a Teacher of Hellenized Wisdom. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World. 186. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 31–96. doi:10.1163/9789004370845_003. ISBN 978-90-04-37081-4. ISSN 0927-7633. Search this book on
  10. ↑ Copied from the article Hermes Trismegistus
  11. ↑ Forlong, J. G. R. (1897). Short studies in the science of comparative religions. B. Quartich. pp. 35–36. Search this book on
  12. ↑ Copied from the article Pherecydes of Syros
  13. ↑ Clement, Stromata, vi. 4.
  14. ↑ Copied from the article Clement of Alexandria
  15. ↑ F. Sherwood Taylor. Alchemists, Founders of Modern Chemistry. p.26.
  16. ↑ Allen G. Debus. Alchemy and early modern chemistry: papers from Ambix. p. 36
  17. ↑ Glen Warren Bowersock, Peter Robert Lamont Brown, Oleg Grabar. Late antiquity: a guide to the postclassical world. p. 284–285
  18. ↑ Copied from the article Alchemy
  19. ↑ Frag. B127 (Aelian, On Animals, xii. 7); Frag. B117 (Hippolytus, i. 3.2)
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Wikisource Wallace, William (1911). "Empedocles" . In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 344–345.
  21. ↑ Heath, John (2005-05-12). The Talking Greeks: Speech, Animals, and the Other in Homer, Aeschylus, and Plato. Cambridge University Press. p. 322. ISBN 9781139443913. An excellent study of Empedocles' vegetarianism and the various meanings of sacrifice in its cultural context is that of Rundin (1998). Search this book on
  22. ↑ Plato (1961) [c. 360 BC]. Bluck, Richard Stanley Harold, ed. Meno. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521172288. This suggests that e.g. Empedocles' vegetarianism was partly at least due to the idea that the spilling of blood brings pollution. Search this book on
  23. ↑ Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians, ix. 127; Hippolytus, vii. 21
  24. ↑ Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, iv. 23.150
  25. ↑ Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, v. 14.122
  26. ↑ Copied from the article Empedocles
  27. ↑ The title of the τελευταὶα ἀποχή is traditionally translated as the "Final Count". Considering that the treatise does not mention any count nor counting and that it makes a case against the use of sacrifice in the practice of alchemy, a preferable translation would be "the Final Abstinence". See Dufault, Olivier (2019). Early Greek Alchemy, Patronage and Innovation. Berkeley: California Classical Studies. pp. 127–131. Search this book on
  28. ↑ Copied from the article Zosimos of Panopolis
  29. ↑ Copied from the article Khalid ibn Yazid
  30. ↑ Copied from the article Jabir ibn Hayyan
  31. ↑ Copied from the article Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
  32. ↑ Copied from the article Paracelsus
  33. ↑ Rampling, Jennifer. "Transmission and Transmutation: George Ripley and the Place of English Alchemy in Early Modern Europe".
  34. ↑ Rampling, "Establishing the Canon."
  35. ↑ "Scala Philosophorum". www.alchemywebsite.com. Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks Series No. 42. Retrieved 2019-08-30.
  36. ↑ Acott, Chris (1999). "The diving "Law-ers": A brief resume of their lives". South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society Journal. 29 (1). ISSN 0813-1988. OCLC 16986801. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
  37. ↑ Levine, Ira N. (2008). Physical chemistry (6th ed.). Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill. p. 12. ISBN 9780072538625. Search this book on
  38. ↑ Wragge-Morley, Alexander (2018). "Robert Boyle and the representation of imperceptible entities". The British Journal for the History of Science. 51 (1): 1–24. doi:10.1017/S0007087417000899. ISSN 0007-0874. PMID 29103389. Unknown parameter |s2cid= ignored (help)
  39. ↑ Ursula Klein (July 2007), "Styles of Experimentation and Alchemical Matter Theory in the Scientific Revolution", Metascience, Springer, 16 (2): 247–256 esp. 247, doi:10.1007/s11016-007-9095-8, ISSN 1467-9981
  40. ↑ Osler, Margaret J. (2010). Reconfiguring the World. Nature, God, and Human Understanding, from the Middle Ages to Early-Modern Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-8018-9656-9. Search this book on
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 Kean, Sam (2011). "Newton, The Last Magician". Humanities. 32 (1). Retrieved 25 April 2016.
  42. ↑ Greshko, Michael (4 April 2016). "Isaac Newton's Lost Alchemy Recipe Rediscovered". National Geographic.
  43. ↑ Mann, Adam (14 May 2014). "The Strange, Secret History of Isaac Newton's Papers". Science. Retrieved 25 April 2016.
  44. ↑ Dry, Sarah (2014). The Newton papers : the strange and true odyssey of Isaac Newton's manuscripts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-995104-8. Search this book on
  45. ↑ "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton". Indiana University, Bloomington. Retrieved 25 April 2016.
  46. ↑ Levitin, Dimitri (March 2019). "Going for Gold". Literary Review. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  47. ↑ Newman, William R (2018). Newton the Alchemist Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature's "Secret Fire". Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-17487-7. Search this book on

External links[edit]

  • Media related to Alchemy at Wikimedia Commons



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