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Introduction

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

in The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the history of Western esotericism. This book offers an overview of the main movements, currents, and figures of these ... More

This introductory chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about the history of Western esotericism. This book offers an overview of the main movements, currents, and figures of these traditions from late antiquity to the 20th century. It examines the ancient Hellenistic sources of Western esotericism, the Italian Renaissance magic, Rosicrucianism and cabala, and planetary and angel magic. It also evaluates the works of several noted esoteric philosophers including Paracelsus, Jacob Boehme, and Emanuel Swedenborg.Less

Alchemy, Paracelsus, and German Naturphilosophie

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

in The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction

This chapter examines the works of Paracelsus on alchemy and German Naturphilosophie and its relation to the history of Western esotericism. It suggests that alchemy played a large part in ... More

This chapter examines the works of Paracelsus on alchemy and German Naturphilosophie and its relation to the history of Western esotericism. It suggests that alchemy played a large part in Renaissance esotericism and its rapid diffusion during the period 1550–1650 is directly related to its combination with Neo-Platonic and Hermetic approaches to nature, and especially to the controversy surrounding Paracelsus. It discusses Paracelsus' esoteric ideas concerning the cosmic all-life, the spiritualization of matter and the divine nature of virtue and energy, which are now integral elements in the new philosophies of science of vitalism and holism and in the archetypes of Jungian psychoanalysis.Less

Rosicrucianism

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

in The Western Esoteric Traditions: A Historical Introduction

This chapter examines the influence of Rosicrucianism on the history of Western esotericism. During the early part of the 17th century, the original Rosicrucian manifestos attracted widespread ... More

This chapter examines the influence of Rosicrucianism on the history of Western esotericism. During the early part of the 17th century, the original Rosicrucian manifestos attracted widespread interest and a wave of applications to join the order. Its first manifesto, titled Fama Fraternitatis, together with these other texts is strongly suggestive concerning the Protestant and Paracelsian sympathies of the manifesto authors. The Rosicrucian myth inspired literature, 18th-century Masonic adaptations, the rituals of the Golden Dawn, the leading magical order of the modern occult revival and until today it exerts a powerful mystique.Less

‘H Two O’ to ‘O Two H’

Peter Wothers

in Antimony, Gold, and Jupiter's Wolf: How the elements were named

It was not until the late eighteenth century—over a hundred years after the discovery of phosphorus—that it was appreciated that both phosphorus and sulfur were ... More

It was not until the late eighteenth century—over a hundred years after the discovery of phosphorus—that it was appreciated that both phosphorus and sulfur were actually elements. Prior to this time, it was thought that all matter was made up of four so-called elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The realization that this was not so centred on understanding that the air is actually composed of a number of different gases, and in particular, understanding what happens when things burn. The discovery that water could be broken down into, or indeed synthesized from, two simpler elementary substances started a chemical revolution in France. The fruits of this revolution are embodied in the very names we now use for these two components, hydrogen and oxygen. However, the path to enlightenment was tortuous, lasting over 200 years. At its peak at the end of the eighteenth century, chemists fell into two distinct camps—those for the new French chemistry, and those against it. Several different names were given to the gases before ‘hydrogen’ and ‘oxygen’ triumphed. As it turns out, one of these names is still based on an incorrect theory, and it might have been more appropriate if the names hydrogen and oxygen had been swapped around. From the sixth century BC, the ancient Greek philosopher Thales taught that water was the primary matter from which all other substances were formed. Perhaps this idea came from water’s ready ability to form solid ice, ‘earth’, or vapours and mists, ‘airs’. Other philosophers thought the primary substance was air; others still, fire. It was less common for earth to be thought of in this way, possibly, as Aristotle later wrote, because it was too coarse-grained to make up these fluids. In the fifth century BC Empedokles brought the four ‘elements’ together—earth, air, fire, and water—and for many centuries it was thought that these made up everything around us. Less

The poisonous elements of alchemy

John Emsley

in The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison

The South Sea Bubble of 1720 saw prices on the London stock market rise to unsustainable heights and new companies were launched to take advantage of the public’s ... More

The South Sea Bubble of 1720 saw prices on the London stock market rise to unsustainable heights and new companies were launched to take advantage of the public’s willingness to invest. As in the dot.com bubble of the late 1990s, many of the companies were little more than hope and hype and among them was one for ‘transmuting of quicksilver into a malleable fine metal’. Back in the early 1700s the idea that it was possible to convert mercury into gold was still widely accepted, even by eminent scientists such as Isaac Newton. He had spent much of his earlier life carrying out alchemical experiments, as we shall see. Nor was he alone. Indeed alchemy was actively encouraged by dukes, emperors, monarchs, and popes. The company that sought to make gold was banned, along with a hundred others, in July 1720 as the Government tried to control the South Sea Bubble (which finally burst in September of that year). Just how insane things had become was demonstrated by another company whose prospectus declared that it was ‘for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is’. Less

Mercury poisons us all

John Emsley

in The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison

Mercury is everywhere and we cannot avoid it. The average adult contains around 6 mg of mercury – assuming they have no mercury amalgam fillings in their ... More

Mercury is everywhere and we cannot avoid it. The average adult contains around 6 mg of mercury – assuming they have no mercury amalgam fillings in their teeth – and this is something we have to live with because we can do almost nothing to reduce it. Our average intake of mercury is about 3 mg/day for adults, and about 1 μg for babies and young children. At these levels the amount we consume in a lifetime is less than a tenth of a gram, although in previous centuries people would consume more than this in a day in the form of medication, generally for embarrassing diseases, such as the unspeakable syphilis or, even worse, the unmentionable constipation. We shed mercury from our body through our urine, faeces, and even our hair. We could excrete mercury via our saliva glands, which are greatly stimulated by mercury, but the mercury in saliva tends to return to the stomach. So where does it all come from? The answer is mainly from the food we eat, although a little comes from the air we breathe and the water we drink, and some may even come from our own body if we have mercury amalgam fillings in our teeth. Agricultural soils may hold as much as 0.2 ppm of mercury and this finds its way into plants and food crops. Grass contains relatively little mercury, around 0.004 ppm, which explains why grazing animals are not really contaminated, and meat and dairy products have low levels. Seawater contains even less mercury than the cleanest soil and has only 0.00004 ppm, yet some fish absorb mercury to the extent of concentrating it in excess of 1 ppm. Are we harmed by this amount of mercury? Probably not. In December 1997, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a seven-volume report on mercury and announced a safe daily dose of 0.1 μg/kg body weight, which for an ordinary adult would be 7 μg. Were this limit to be acted upon then it would outlaw the sale of all swordfish, shark, and most tuna, whereas the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), which has a more pragmatic view of mercury, bans their sale only if their mercury content exceeds 1 ppm. Less

What Was Revolutionary about the Chemical Revolution?

Nicholas W. Best

in Essays in the Philosophy of Chemistry

THE CHANGES TO CHEMICAL theory and practice that took place in late eighteenth-century France were truly revolutionary because of the radical nature of the ... More

THE CHANGES TO CHEMICAL theory and practice that took place in late eighteenth-century France were truly revolutionary because of the radical nature of the theoretical and methodological changes that occurred, because they were deliberately so, and because that was the start of a tradition in the philosophy of chemistry. What makes the Chemical Revolution unique among scientific revolutions is that it was anticipated by both philosophers and scientists before it occurred. This meant that the chemists who effected those changes were aware of the subversive nature of their reforms and carried out the revolution in a deliberate fashion. Three major shifts in the science of chemistry coincided in late eighteenth-century France to make the Chemical Revolution the turning point in the history of chemistry: Oxygen chemistry overthrew the reigning phlogiston theory; a cadre of prominently political chemists reformed chemical terminology, providing a new system of names based on oxygen theory; and an empiricopragmatic conception of elements as simple substances replaced a waning belief in hypostatical chemical principles. This last shift (although itself gradual) ensured that the revolutionary changes in theory and nomenclature would be the last truly radical reforms chemistry would ever need. Furthermore, the Chemical Revolution was itself a revolution in the philosophy of chemistry as it forced a change in tacit assumptions about the nature of both matter and scientific knowledge. Moreover, studies of this revolution have long shaped general philosophy of science and continue to do so. Cherry-picking the history of science for examples to fit an a priori philosophical theory should be even less acceptable in philosophy of the special sciences than in other branches of philosophy. If philosophers of science are to learn from history, it should be by analyzing changes within periods that historians recognize as revolutionary and giving a philosophical account. Hence the Chemical Revolution is a crucial point for even the most minimally naturalistic philosophy of chemistry. For some time now, historians of science have understood that the chemistry practiced before the 1770s cannot be dismissed as prescientific mysticism, as was once supposed. Less

The Change in the Philosophical Situation Brought about by the Reformation: Paracelsus’s New Natural Philosophy and the “No” in Jakob Böhme’s God

Vittorio Hösle

in A Short History of German Philosophy

This chapter examines the thoughts of natural philosopher Theophrastus Bombastus of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493–1541), and Jakob Böhme (1575–1624). Like most of the innovative ideas of the ... More

This chapter examines the thoughts of natural philosopher Theophrastus Bombastus of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493–1541), and Jakob Böhme (1575–1624). Like most of the innovative ideas of the sixteenth century, Paracelsus's philosophical-scientific ideas belong to the time of fermentation between the collapse of Scholastic science and the emergence of the new science in the seventeenth century. The polemic against traditional medicine, especially the humoral pathology that derived from books rather than from direct experience, is conducted in a churlish manner reminiscent of Luther and with bombastic self-praise. Böhme is considered first epoch-making German philosopher of the modern period. He was a cobbler who had had experienced mystical visions and wanted to provide a deeper foundation for his traditional Lutheran piety (inspired by the Bible) through a philosophical account of the development of God, nature, and redemption through Christ.Less

Demonic Mines

Phillip John Usher

in Exterranean: Extraction in the Humanist Anthropocene

This chapter shifts attention from the hillsides to the shafts and galleries that miners hollow out underground. Via a close reading of Agricola’s De animantibus subterraneis (On Subterranean ... More

This chapter shifts attention from the hillsides to the shafts and galleries that miners hollow out underground. Via a close reading of Agricola’s De animantibus subterraneis (On Subterranean Creatures) and of sections of De re metallica not discussed in the previous chapter, as well as works by French writer François Garrault and by Paracelsus, this chapter asks if it is possible to understand “belief” in mining spirits as colluding with the chemical realities and medical dangers for humans connected with extracting matter. From this section, it thus emerges that for early modern humanists extraction of matter ex terrawas never just a question of human agents yielding extractive and controlling mastery over inanimate hillsides and underground rock faces.Less

Aristotelian Corpuscular Theory and Andreas Libavius

in Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution

In the early seventeenth century, Paracelsus's term spagyria—which originally emphasized analysis or Scheidung over synthesis—was subjected to linguistic analysis by the fiery polemicist Andreas ... More

In the early seventeenth century, Paracelsus's term spagyria—which originally emphasized analysis or Scheidung over synthesis—was subjected to linguistic analysis by the fiery polemicist Andreas Libavius, an outspoken opponent of Paracelsus who nonetheless defended chymistry. Libavius's treatment would explicitly link spagyria to atomism via the intermediary of Aristotle's fourth book, Meteorology. Libavius's references to meteorological and alchemical processes as due to synkrisis and diakrisis reveal his longstanding affection for the Meteorology. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the analysis that Libavius did achieve a straightforward synthesis of the doctrines in Aristotle's Meteorology with his understanding of Democritean atomism.Less

From Paideia to Humanism

Jennifer A. Herdt

in Forming Humanity: Redeeming the German Bildung Tradition

This chapter traces main historical influences on the Bildung tradition: Greek paideia, the Roman virtue of humanitas (and its complicity with imperialism), and Christian humanism, with special ... More

This chapter traces main historical influences on the Bildung tradition: Greek paideia, the Roman virtue of humanitas (and its complicity with imperialism), and Christian humanism, with special attention given to three figures who transform Christian humanism: Meister Eckhart, Martin Luther, and Paracelsus. Meister Eckhart was the first to employ the German vernacular in order to speak of creation, fall, and restoration of the image of God, and in so doing to forge the vocabulary of Bildung. Luther conceived of Christians as through faith becoming “living pictures” of Christ, the essential image of God. Paracelsus, meanwhile, developed an epigenetic conception of Bildung as an unfolding process of development, with human beings as microcosm of creation tasked with revealing the mysteries of God’s creation. Independent human agency cannot restore the lost imago; it is divine formation (Bildung) that is required, not human imagination (Einbildung). Human image-making gets in the way, or imagines God in devilish form. The chapter argues that these various strands of Christian reflection on Bildung and the imago dei contributed critical conceptual resources for wrestling with the nature and limits of human moral agency and the power and perils of human imagination.Less

Chemical Philosophy in the 16th and 17th Centuries: Vitalism, Paracelsian Alchemy, and Aristotelian Hylomorphism

Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino

in The Chemical Philosophy of Robert Boyle: Mechanicism, Chymical Atoms, and Emergence

This chapter provides the philosophical background for the discussion of Robert Boyle’s chemical philosophy by highlighting the most relevant theories that either influenced Boyle or to which Boyle ... More

This chapter provides the philosophical background for the discussion of Robert Boyle’s chemical philosophy by highlighting the most relevant theories that either influenced Boyle or to which Boyle was responding. The chapter begins by addressing the vitalistic character of Renaissance alchemy. The chapter then discusses the Scholastic theory of substantial form, to which Boyle seeks to provide an alternative. After this, the chapter addresses the Paracelsian spagyria and theory of the tria prima, since these come under specific attack in Boyle’s writings. The doctrines of semina rerum and minima naturalia are then discussed as they relate to vitalistic corpuscularian theories of matter. Finally, the theories and work of early modern alchemists Daniel Sennert and Jan Baptista van Helmont are discussed in detail since the experiments of these alchemists had a significant impact on the Boyle’s experimental work.Less

The Homunculus and the Mandrake: Art Aiding Nature versus Art Faking Nature

William R. Newman

in Genesis Redux: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Artificial Life

This chapter explores a tradition of chemical rather than mechanical attempts to create life artificially. It determines a more general objection on the part of alchemists to the procedures of visual ... More

This chapter explores a tradition of chemical rather than mechanical attempts to create life artificially. It determines a more general objection on the part of alchemists to the procedures of visual artists, which, the alchemists claimed, imposed merely external, accidental changes on matter rather than shaping it from within. The chapter argues that the aspersions that alchemists cast on the visual arts in comparing their genuine but artificial gold with the superficial changes wrought by painting and sculpture play out in different form when alchemical writers come to discuss the homunculus, or artificial test-tube baby. Paracelsus von Hohenheim argues that the mandrake incorrectly described by necromancers and philosophers is really a homunculus, which they have misidentified. The Paracelsian alchemist can produce a genuine mandrake or Alraun in the form of the homunculus, by sealing up human semen for a proper period of time with the requisite application of heat.Less

Health and Order in the Human Body

Deborah Boyle

in The Well-Ordered Universe: The Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish

While Cavendish wrote a great deal about medicine, surprisingly little attention has been paid to this aspect of Cavendish’s thought. This chapter shows how focusing on the themes of peace and order ... More

While Cavendish wrote a great deal about medicine, surprisingly little attention has been paid to this aspect of Cavendish’s thought. This chapter shows how focusing on the themes of peace and order illuminates Cavendish’s medical thinking. The chapter begins by locating Cavendish’s views in historical context, showing that she sided with Galenists rather than iatrochemists such as Paracelsus and van Helmont. Her objections to iatrochemistry are shown to be part of a broader rejection of alchemy. The chapter argues that Cavendish’s views on health, disease, causes of disease, and cures for diseases are firmly grounded in her natural-philosophical thinking, especially her theory of occasional causation and “imitation.”Less

Translatio: St. Vitus’s Dance, Demonism, and the Early Modern

Kélina Gotman

in Choreomania: Dance and Disorder

Renegade physician Paracelsus compared St. John’s Day dances to earthquakes, epileptic tremors, and tics. This ecosophical and vitalist concept, according to which all sorts of bodies echo one ... More

Renegade physician Paracelsus compared St. John’s Day dances to earthquakes, epileptic tremors, and tics. This ecosophical and vitalist concept, according to which all sorts of bodies echo one another’s shaking motions, countered long-held academic prejudice against witchcraft; neither choreomaniacs nor witches were subject to supernatural forces. Rather, the ‘vital spirits’ caused limbs, like branches, to shake. What’s more, dancing was now thought to cure dancing, and municipal authorities keen to keep a Strasbourg dancing mania in check employed guards to help wear dancers out—while exorcism associated religious, municipal, and medical experts. The translatio or passage from collective to individual disorder, epitomized in St. Vitus, now patron saint of all dance maniacs, continued throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as neurologists’ theories of chorea, epilepsy and insanity aligned popular carousing with individual quaking motions. Choreomania came to signal the epidemic proliferation of what Giorgio Agamben has styled purposeless gesture.Less

‘Every Where Environ’d, and Incessantly Touch’d’: Natural Philosophies of Feeling in Seventeenth-Century England

Joe Moshenska

in Feeling Pleasures: The Sense of Touch in Renaissance England

This chapter begins with the correspondence between Henry More and Descartes concerning the tangibility of matter and of God. It then turns to Lucretius’s account of experiences of touch below the ... More

This chapter begins with the correspondence between Henry More and Descartes concerning the tangibility of matter and of God. It then turns to Lucretius’s account of experiences of touch below the threshold of conscious awareness, and the development of this line of thought by thinkers including Margaret Cavendish, Walter Charleton, Ralph Bathurst, Thomas Hobbes, John Smith, and Kenelm Digby. It considers the emphasis on artisanal touch inspired in part by the writings of Paracelsus, which informed the tactile theology of Jakob Böhme and the experimental practice of Robert Boyle. The activities of the healer Valentine Greatrakes, known as Greatrakes the Stroker, are considered, whose abilities inspired a range of interpretations in which natural philosophical, theological, and occult explanations converged.Less

Spiritualizations, or Rubedo

Theodore Ziolkowski

in The Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present

This chapter begins with a survey of the theoretical revivals of alchemy immediately before and after World War I by such scholars as Herbert Silberer, Edmund von Lippmann, “Fulcanelli,” and others. ... More

This chapter begins with a survey of the theoretical revivals of alchemy immediately before and after World War I by such scholars as Herbert Silberer, Edmund von Lippmann, “Fulcanelli,” and others. This interest inspired the American poets Ezra Pound, “H. D.,” and Robert Hillyer to introduce the alchemist as representative of the poet/artist. In Germany, meanwhile, several novelists were obsessed with the figure of the alchemist: notably Werner Bergengruen, Gustav Meyrink, and Franz Spunda, who are less interested in the practice of exoteric alchemy and more so in alchemy as a spiritualizing force. Each national literature tends to favor its own national alchemist: Nicolas Flamel in France; John Dee in England; and Paracelsus in Germany. During those same years C. G. Jung devoted lectures to Paracelsus as “the spiritual man,” but soon turned more generally to alchemy for “the idea of redemption” and for its “primordial images.”Less