Tilton on Spiritual Alchemy

{"result":["[Summary from page 1 to page 26 out of a total of 334:\nPages 1:\n\nPages 2:\nHereward Tilton\nThe Quest for the Phoenix\nw\nDE\nG\n\nPages 3:\nArbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte\nBegr\u00fcndet von\nKarl Hollf und Hans Lietzmannf\nherausgegeben von\nChristoph Markschies und Gerhard M\u00fcller\nBand 88\nWalter de Gruyter \u00b7 Berlin \u00b7 New York\n2003\n\nPages 4:\nHereward Tilton\nThe Quest for the Phoenix\nSpiritual Alchemy and Rosicrucianism\nthe Work of Count Michael Maier (1569 \u2014\nWalter de Gruyter \u00b7 Berlin \u00b7 New York\n2003\n\nPages 5:\n\u00a9 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI\nto ensure permanence and durability.\nISBN 3-11-017637-8\nBibliographic\ninformation published\n\u00bf7 Die Deutsche\nBibliothek\nDie Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed\nbibliographic data is available in the Internet at <http://dnb.ddb.de>.\n\u00a9\nCopyright 2003 by Walter de Gruyter G m b H & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin\nAll rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. N o part of this book may\nbe reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including\nphotocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in\nwriting from the publisher.\nPrinted in Germany\nCover design: Christopher Schneider, Berlin.\n\nPages 6:\nLearn O ye students, that which the Philosophers have long\nsince intimated, saying that truth is not discerned but by\nerror, and that nothing begets more grief to the heart than\nerror in this work; for when a man thinks he has done and\nhas the world, he shall find nothing in his hands.\n(Baqsam in The Flying Atalanta, discourse XXXIX)\nForeword\nThe following work is the fruit of research carried out in libraries and\narchives across Europe under the aegis of the Deutscher Akademischer\nAustauschdienst Forschungsstipendium and the University of Queensland\nResearch Travel Award; in the course of my travels a number of people\nstepped forward to assist me. Amongst those I would like to thank here\nare Prof. Dr. Karin Figala and Dr. Ulrich Neumann of the Technische\nUniversit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen, for their readiness to impart knowledge and their\ngenerosity with the sharing of valuable primary sources related to Maier;\nDr. Jos\u00e9 Bouman and Dr. Cis van Heertum of the Bibliotheca Philosophica\nHermetica, Amsterdam, for their assistance with a beautiful collection; Dr.\nJill Bepler of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenb\u00fcttel, for welcoming\nme to an illustrious institution; PD Dr. Carlos Gilly of Universit\u00e4t Basel, for\nsharing his knowledge of Rosicrucian matters; Prof. Antoine Faivre of the\nSorbonne, for providing timely advice on methodology; Prof. Vladimir\nKarpenko of Charles University, Prague, for providing me with food for\nthought; Assoc. Prof. Michael Lattke of the University of Queensland,\nBrisbane, for help with logistics; Dr. Tara Nummedal of Brown University,\nProvidence, for engaging in a fruitful dialogue; PD Dr. Heiko Droste of\nHamburg, for his insistence that truth is founded only upon error; Dr. Sabine\nHorst of Stuttgart, for her invaluable language training; and Dr. Lisa Colledge\nof London, for her kind support during my research at the British and\nBodleian libraries. My special thanks go to Assoc. Prof. Richard Hutch of\nthe University of Queensland, Brisbane, for his sage advice; to my parents\nHarold and Hilary; and to my good friend and wife PD Dr. Michaela Boenke\nof Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen, for her unwavering technical\nand personal support.\n\nPages 7:\n\nPages 8:\nTable of Contents\nForeword\n\u03bd\nI. Introduction: Jung and Early Modern Alchemy\n1. The alchemical chimera\n2. The reception of Jung amongst historians of alchemy\n3. The arguments of Principe and Newman\n4. The origins of Jung's alchemy and the work of Richard Noll\n5. 'Secret threads': the seventeenth century 'Carl Jung of Mainz' and\nCount Michael Maier\n6. Spiritual alchemy, Rosicrucianism and the work of Count Michael\nMaier\n1\n2\n9\n18\n22\n30\nII. Maier's Formative Years\n1. The context of Maier's life and thought\n2. Auguries of fortune: Maier's childhood and parentage\n3. The influence of Governor Heinrich Rantzau\n4. Galenism and Maier's studies at Frankfurt an der Oder\n5. 'First love and grief : Maier's peregr\u00ecnat\u00eco acad\u00e9mica\n6. The theses on epilepsy\n7. Contact with the arcana\n8. Maier's first alchemical experiment\n35\n38\n45\n48\n54\n59\n61\n65\nIII. Bohemia and England\n1. Maier at the court of Emperor Rudolf II\n2. The Hymnosophia\n3. The reversal of fortune\n4. The most secret of secrets\n5. A 'Rosicrucian mission' to England?\n6. The seventeenth rung of the alchemical ladder and the art of\ngold-making\n69\n71\n77\n80\n87\n91\n\nPages 9:\nVili\n7. A journey to England\n8. Francis Anthony and the 'drinkable gold'\n9. The Golden Tripod: \"Truth is concealed under the cover of\nshadows\"\n99\n102\n107\nIV. The Rosicrucian 'Imposture'\n1. Illness and a chance encounter\n2. The origins of Rosicrucianism and the Leipzig Manuscript of\nMichael Maier\n3. Johann Valentin Andreae and the nature of the Order\n4. The serious jest\n5. An invitation to Rosicrucians, wherever they may lie hidden\n6. Uncovering the true Brethren\n7. Defining Rosicrucianism: Silentium post Clamores and the\nThemis Aurea\n8. Regni Christi frater. Maier's 'entrance into the Order'\n113\n116\n127\n131\n139\n150\n160\n173\nV. The Completion of the Work\n1. The squaring of the natural circle\n2. Maier and the Calvinist court of Moritz of Hessen-Kassel\n3. Millennialism, nationalism and the descent into war\n4. The Civitas Corporis Humani - procuring a medicine of piety\n5. Ulysses and the death of Maier\n6. The phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n181\n189\n192\n202\n208\n215\nVI. Conclusion: Maier and the Historiography of Alchemy\n1. Piety and the coniunctio oppositorum\n2. Chymia and alchemia\n3. The 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\n4. Alchemy and the re-emergence of Rosicrucianism\n5. The historiography of alchemy\n233\n235\n237\n249\n253\nBibliography\n257\nIndex\n278\nIllustrations\n289\n\nPages 10:\nI. Introduction: Jung and early modern alchemy\n1. The alchemical chimera\nThe early modern period witnessed the emergence of theosophy, Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry as esoteric currents with specifically 'alchemical'\nconcerns. Nevertheless, the task of defining alchemy in this period is fraught\nwith difficulties, and the relationship between the spiritual alchemies of the\nWestern esoteric tradition and the laboratory quest for the alchemical agent of\ntransmutation remains to be clarified. Indeed, the very term 'alchemy' had\naccumulated a variety of meanings by the turn of the sixteenth century, and\nthe nature of the endeavours to be placed under its rubric remains a\ncontentious issue to this day. Arguing against the implicitly religious\ninterpretation of the ambiguous alchemical corpus put forward by the\nSwiss psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), Lawrence Principe\nand William Newman have recently contended that the symbolic literature\nof laboratory alchemy in the early modern period dealt primarily with\ncode-names (Decknamen) for chemical processes, and for the greater part\nbore no relation to matters of spiritual or psychological transformation.\nFurthermore, Principe and Newman argue that Jung's schema falsely implies\na discontinuity between alchemy and modern chemistry. In their view, there\nis a lack of any clear and widespread demarcation between the words chemia\nand alchemia in the early modern texts, and consequently they have\nrecommended that we dispense with the term 'alchemy' altogether when\nreferring to this period, utilising instead the more common early modern\nappellations of chemia or chymia, whilst reserving the term 'alchemy' for the\nmedieval period alone.1\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. and William R. Newman. \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy.\" In Newman, William R. and Anthony Grafton (eds.). Secrets of\nNature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press,\n2001, pp. 385-431; \"Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographie Mistake,\" Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998, pp. 32-65; also\nNewman, William R. \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language? Eirenaeus Philalethes\nand Carl Jung,\" Revue D'Histoire des Sciences, Vol. 49, No. 2, 1996, pp. 159-188.\n\nPages 11:\n2\nJung and early modern alchemy\nAlthough Fai vre has dealt extensively with the subject of alchemy from\nthe perspective of the history of Western esotericism,2 the primary historical\nenquiry into the status of laboratory alchemy in early modernity continues\nto take place amongst historians of science. As a consequence the following\nstudy enters both these arenas of discourse. Clearly the arguments of\nPrincipe and Newman deal not only with questions of historiography and\nnomenclature, but concern the very nature of laboratory alchemy in the\nsixteenth and seventeenth centuries and its relation to the esoteric traditions.\nThese introductory pages constitute an extended theoretical preamble on this\ncurrent controversy, which will serve as a prelude for an analysis of the\nconcrete example of the alchemy of Count Michael Maier and his place in the\nhistory of early Rosicrucianism. In the course of that analysis it will be seen\nthat the relation of Maier's religious sentiments to his laboratory practice no less than his role in the history of Western esotericism - presents\ndifficulties for the contentions of Principe and Newman. These difficulties\nwill be detailed in the conclusion with the aim of defining alchemy as a\nsubject of study in the field of the history of Western esotericism. There it\nwill be shown that if the study of esoteric currents of thought (and hence the\nstudy of their categories) is taken seriously, the term 'alchemy' becomes\nentirely indispensable, and appears to refer to a broad yet coherent complex\nof ideas with precisely its origins in the early modern period and the work of\nalchemists such as Maier (that author's eschewal of the term 'alchemy'\nnotwithstanding). Indeed, if Carl Gustav Jung's work is itself considered as a\nreligious artefact, then he may be understood as only the latest purveyor of a\n'spiritual alchemy' with expressly modern characteristics.\n2. The reception of Jung amongst historians of alchemy\nWhilst the ideas of Principe and Newman have attained a certain popularity\nat this point in time, the reception of Jung and his psychoanalytic approach\namongst historians of alchemy has not always been negative. On the contrary,\nJung's alchemical studies earned the controversial and mystery-mongering\npsychologist his closest encounter with academic respectability. Since his\nextensive work on the subject in the 1930's, 40's and 50's, Jung's belief that\nalchemical symbolism expresses psychological processes of an essentially\nSee, for example, Faivre, Antoine. Access to Western Esotericism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994, passim.\u00b7, The Golden Fleece and Alchemy. Albany: State\nUniversity of New York Press, 1993; \"Mystische Alchemie und Geistige Hermeneutik.\"\nIn Correspondences\nin Man and World. Eranos Yearbook, 1973. Leiden: E. J. Brill,\n1975, pp. 323-360.\n\nPages 12:\nThe reception of Jung\n3\nreligious nature has held wide currency in the academic study of alchemy. In\n1942 Jung published his Paracelsica: Zwei Vorlesungen \u00fcber den Arzt und\nPhilosophen Theophrastus,3 in which he boldly declared that the Swiss\nalchemist Paracelsus (c.1493-1541) had anticipated the findings of twentieth\ncentury psychoanalysis:\nI had long been aware that alchemy is not only the mother of chemistry, but is also the\nforerunner of our modern psychology of the unconscious. Thus Paracelsus appears as a\npioneer not only of chemical medicine but of empirical psychology and psychotherapy. 4\nIn Jung's opinion the symbols of Paracelsian alchemy, and of alchemical\nliterature in general, make more or less veiled reference to the evolution of\nthe individual psyche - a dialectical process of 'individuation' in which\nconsciousness is confronted with the forces of the unconscious mind.\nFurthermore, Jung felt that alchemy was not only the precursor to the modern\npsychology of the unconscious, but also a bridge in the history of ideas\nbetween his own thought and the religion of the Gnostics.5 Thus he spoke of\nParacelsus as a man whose soul \"was intermingled with a strange spiritual\ncurrent which, issuing from immemorial sources, flowed beyond him into a\ndistant future.\" 6\nUpon its first appearance Jung's understanding of Paracelsus was met with\nenthusiasm by historians of chemistry; in his 1946 review of Paracelsica\nfor Ambix, Gerhard Heym wrote that no modern authority prior to Jung\nhad been able to decipher the 'abstruse and obscure' vocabulary of the\n'psychology' of Paracelsus.7 Heym was joined in his praise by no less\n3\nA revision of two lectures: Paracelsus als Arzt, delivered to the Schweizerischen\nGesellschaft f\u00fcr Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften at the annual\nmeeting of the Naturforschenden Gesellschaft, Basel, September the 7 th , 1941; and\nParacelsus als geistige Erscheinung, delivered at Einsiedeln, the birthplace of Paracelsus, on October the 5 th , 1941, at the celebrations marking the 400 th anniversary of his\ndeath; Jung, Carl Gustav. \"Studien \u00fcber Aichemistische Vorstellungen.\" C. G. Jung\nGesammelte Werke. Vol. 13. Freiburg im Breisgau: Walter-Verlag, 1978, p. 125.\n4\nJung, Carl Gustav. \"Alchemical Studies.\" The Collected Works ofC. G. Jung. Vol. 13.\nTrans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967, p. 189; Jung, \"Studien\n\u00fcber Aichemistische Vorstellungen,\" p. 209: \"Es war mir schon lange bewu\u00dft, da\u00df die\nAlchemie nicht nur die Mutter der Chemie ist, sondern auch die Vorstufe der heutigen\nPsychologie des Unbewu\u00dften. So sehen wir Paracelsus als einen Bahnbrecher nicht nur\nder chemischen Medizin, sondern auch der empirischen Psychologie und der psychologischen Heilkunde.\"\n5\nIbid., p. 224.\nIbid., p. 209: \"...Paracelsus, dessen Seele verwoben ist in ein seltsames geistiges Leben,\nwelches, aus \u00e4ltesten Quellen entspringend, weit \u00fcber ihn hinaus in die Zukunft str\u00f6mt.\"\nHeym, Gerhard. \"Review. Paracelsica, Zwei Vorlesungen \u00fcber den Arzt und Philosophen Theophrastus,\" Ambix, Vol. 2, No. 3, December 1946, pp. 196-198.\n6\n7\n\nPages 13:\n4\nJung and early modern alchemy\neminent a scholar of Paracelsianism than Walter Pagel, who likewise claimed\nthat Jung's Paracelsica had finally made 'accessible' to him the obscure\nterminology of Paracelsian iatrochemistry.8 Writing in Isis in 1948, Pagel\ndescribed Jung as the creator of \"an encyclopaedia, atlas and new\ninterpretation of alchemical symbolism which will be fundamental for all\nfuture studies on the subject.\" 9 In the same place Pagel reviewed Jung's\nPsychologie und Alchemie (1944), a work based on two lectures delivered to\nthe Eranos Tagung in 1935 and 1936.10 In this work Jung attempted to\ncorrelate alchemical symbolism with motifs from the dream life of one of\nhis patients - a man we now know to be Wolfgang Pauli, the Nobel\nprize-winning physicist and Jung's collaborator on the synchronicity theory.\nHaving argued that both the alchemical corpus and the dreams of\ncontemporary citizens express a psychological process of self-realisation,\nJung embarks on an exploration of what he understands to be religious\nconceptions in alchemy, during which he sets forward a succinct account of\nhis theory of projection and the historiography it entails:\nWhat [the alchemist] sees in matter, or thinks he sees, is chiefly the data of his own\nunconscious which he is projecting into it. In other words, he encounters in matter, as\napparently belonging to it, certain qualities and potential meanings of whose psychic nature\nhe is entirely unconscious. This is particularly true of classical alchemy, where empirical\nscience and mystical philosophy were more or less undifferentiated. The process of fission\nwhich separated the \u03c6\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c7\u03b1 from the \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c7\u03b1\nset in at the end of the sixteenth century and\nproduced a quite fantastic species of literature whose authors were, at least to some extent,\nconscious of the psychic nature of their \"alchymical\" transmutations. 11\n8\n9\n10\n11\nPagel, Walter. \"Jung's Views on Alchemy,\" Isis, Vol. 39, No. 1, May 1948, pp. 44-48.\nIbid., p. 48.\nTraumsymbole des Individuationsprozesses.\nEranos Yearbook, 1935. Zurich: Rhein,\n1936; Die Erl\u00f6sungsvorstellungen\nin der Alchemie. Eranos Yearbook, 1936. Zurich:\nRhein, 1937. First published in English as The Integration of the Personality. New York:\nFarrar & Rinehart, 1939.\nJung, Carl Gustav. \"Psychology and Alchemy.\" The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol.\n12. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968, p. 218; Jung, Carl\nGustav. \"Psychologie und Alchemie.\" C. G. Jung Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 12. Freiburg\nim Breisgau: Walter-Verlag, 1972, p. 267: \"Was er im Stoffe sieht und zu erkennen\nmeint, sind zun\u00e4chst seine eigenen unbewu\u00dften Gegebenheiten, die er darein projiziert;\ndas hei\u00dft es treten ihm aus dem Stoff diesem anscheinend zugeh\u00f6rige Eigenschaften und\nBedeutungsm\u00f6glichkeiten entgegen, deren psychische Natur ihm g\u00e4nzlich unbewu\u00dft ist.\nDies gilt haupts\u00e4chlich von der klassischen Alchemie, in welcher naturwissenschaftliche\nEmpirie und mystische Philosophie sozusagen ununterschieden vorliegen. Der mit dem\nEnde des 16. Jahrhunderts einsetzende Spaltungsproze\u00df, welcher die \u03c6\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c7\u03b1 (das Physische) von den \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c7\u03b1 (das Mystische) trennte, hat nun eine wesentlich phantastischere Literaturgattung hervorgebracht, deren Autoren die seelische Natur der \u201ealchimistischen\" Wandlungsprozesse einigerma\u00dfen bewu\u00dft war.\"\n\nPages 14:\nThe reception of Jung\n5\nIt is this notion of the supposed post-Reformation 'fission' in the alchemical\nliterature of the physica and the mystica, elements that were formerly unified\nin the 'classical' period of ancient and medieval alchemy, which Principe and\nNewman refute on the grounds that no clear distinction between chemia and\nalchemia arises in the literature prior to the eighteenth century.12 In their\neyes, any effort to distinguish a 'mystical' alchemy from a 'physical' chemistry in the seventeenth century is presentisi - that is to say, it projects\ncontemporary categories into a time in which such distinctions were alien.\nFurthermore, they argue that Jung's schema supports the false notion of a\ndiscontinuity in the evolution of chemistry, a disjuncture between a modern\nmechanistic science and an alchemy that is defined by its 'spiritual or psychic\ndimension'. 13\nPrincipe and Newman also see Jung as the chief progenitor of a tendency\n\"to downplay or eliminate any natural philosophical or 'scientific' content in\nalchemy\" 14 - and as we shall see, this has been a common criticism voiced by\nhistorians of science, be they partisans or foes of the Jungian approach.\nIndeed, in his review of Psychologie und Alchemie Pagel also stated that Jung\nwas \"prone to belittle the role of alchemy as a precursor to modern science\"\nby overemphasising the psychological aspect of the texts he studied.15\nNevertheless, he felt that Jung had revolutionised the academic study of\nalchemy:\n[Jung] succeeds: (1) in placing alchemy into an entirely new perspective in the history of\nscience, medicine, theology and general human culture, (2) in explaining alchemical\nsymbolism, hitherto a complete puzzle, by utilising modern psychological analysis for the\nelucidation of an historical problem and - vice versa - making use of the latter for the\nadvancement of modern psychology; and all this in a scholarly, well documented and\nscientifically unimpeachable exposition. If not the whole story of alchemy, he has tackled its\n\"mystery,\" its \"Nachtseite,\" i.e., the problem most urgent and vexing to the historian. 1 6\nPagel was an early opponent of positivism in the field of the history of\nscience; whilst many of his contemporaries had dismissed the magical and\nreligious beliefs of pre-modern and early modern scientists as retrogressive,\nPagel attempted to demonstrate the 'organic coherence' of such beliefs with\nrecognisably 'modern' elements in the scientific worldviews he studied.17 On\n12\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" pp. 404,\n407-408.\n13\nIbid., pp. 417-418.\nIbid., p. 412.\nPagel, \"Jung's Views on Alchemy,\" p. 48.\nIbid.\nOn this subject, and on the historiography of alchemy in general, see Debus, Allen G.\n\"Chemists, Physicians, and Changing Perspectives on the Scientific Revolution,\" History\n14\n15\n16\n17\n\nPages 15:\n6\nJung and early modern alchemy\nthis count he felt Jung's theories were an antidote to the positivist view of\nscience as progress towards a truth divorced from its philosophical and\npsychological context. 18\nAnother early contributor to the influence of Jung's ideas in the academic\nstudy of alchemy was the Swiss-educated John Read, who commented in\n1947 that it had required 'the discernment of a master' to elucidate the\nintimate relationship of alchemy to psychology. 19 Soon the conception that\nalchemy had involved the projection of unconscious psychological processes\ninto the objective world of the laboratory became a commonplace amongst\nacademics in the field. Even those positivistic writers who were antagonistic\ntowards the role of the irrational in alchemy referred to Jung's theories in\norder to demarcate the realm of 'genuine' science from mere superstition.\nThus Eduard Farber in The Evolution of Chemistry (1952) scorned the\n'mystical' class of alchemical texts as a collection of 'fantastic tales', devoid\nof both art and science, which might interest a psychoanalyst such as Jung\nbut were of no use for the historian of chemistry.20 In similar vein, Maurice\nCrosland wrote in his Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry\n(1962):\nThe psychologist Jung considered the paradox as 'one of our most valued spiritual possessions' and stated that a religion 'becomes inwardly impoverished when it loses or reduces its\nparadoxes', because an unambiguous language is unsuited to express the incomprehensible.\nIt seems clear that, whereas mystical alchemy may well have thrived on paradox, its\nexistence in the literature was stultifying to alchemy as a science. 21\nAlthough more rationalistic sensibilities were offended by the mysticallyminded 'adept', whose \"cloud of obscure nomenclature and speculation\ncontributed nothing to chemistry,\" 22 other historians followed Pagel in\nan attempt to address the complete intellectual output of the alchemists.\nOne such writer was Betty Dobbs, who - in stark contrast to Principe and\nNewman - utilised Jung's ideas to emphasise the continuity of the\nalchemical tradition with modern chemistry in her work The Foundations of\nNewton's Alchemy (1975). There she traced the influence on Isaac Newton's\n18\n19\nof Science Society Distinguished Lecture, Isis, Vol. 89, N o . l , March 1998, pp. 66-81;\nalso Pagel, Walter. William Harvey's Biological Ideas. New York: Karger, 1967, p. 82.\nPagel, \"Jung's Views on Alchemy,\" p. 48.\nRead, John. The Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons\nLtd., 1947, p. 2.\n20\nFarber, Eduard. The Evolution\n1952, pp. 39-40.\n21\nCrosland, Maurice. Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry. New York: Dover,\n1962, p. 27.\nFarber, Evolution of Chemistry, p. 40.\n22\nof Chemistry. New York: The Ronald Press Company,\n\nPages 16:\nThe reception of Jung\n7\nintellectual development of alchemical writers such as Michael Maier, who\ninspired Newton to dabble with his 'chemical' interpretation of myth and\nhieroglyph and study the older texts of the alchemical canon.23 Dobbs charted\nNewton's efforts to experimentally verify the notions of alchemy, particularly\nthose of the Neoplatonist alchemists, and she described Newton's career as\n'one long attempt to integrate alchemy and the mechanical philosophy.' 24\nAlthough she also criticised Jung's ahistorical approach, Dobbs followed\nJung's historiography in the course of her work, describing an 'older' ancient\nand medieval alchemy in which psychological processes remained largely\nunconscious to the adept, and a 'newer' alchemy arising with the advent\nof the Reformation, in which divisions began to appear between a conscious\nalchemical mysticism and an experimentally-based alchemy. 25 Attempting\nto give some more historical grounding to Jung's schema, Dobbs called\nupon the ideas of the left-leaning psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. 26 According\nto Fromm, large-scale 'individuation' or reflexive personal development\nemerged in the wake of the collapse of medieval social structures; Dobbs\nsuggested such a socio-historical process may have given rise to 'a\nmore spiritual variety of alchemy'. 27 On the other hand, a more rigorous\nexperimental study of alchemical processes also ensued:\nThat was excellent for chemistry, which was thereby enabled to incorporate into itself a\nrational alchemical paradigm, but it was deadly for the older alchemy. It had been too\nthoroughly chemicalised to carry out its older functions of a religious and psychological\nnature, for those functions required a considerable ignorance about the substances with\nwhich the alchemist worked. From that time on the intertwined halves of the older alchemy\nwere irrevocably separated. 2 8\nSo although Dobbs followed Jung in his distinction between a 'scientific' and\na 'spiritual' alchemy in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, she did\nnot believe Jung's work supported the notion of a radical discontinuity in the\nevolution of chemistry. Rather, she believed modern chemistry had emerged\nfrom a new 'experimental alchemy' that was integrally linked to the scientific\nrevolution of the Enlightenment:\n23\nDobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. The Foundations\nUniversity Press, 1975, pp. 90, 192.\n24\nIbid., p. 230.\nIbid., pp. 34, 42, 80.\nIt should be said that Dobbs incorrectly refers to Fromm as an 'analytical psychologist',\nthe term utilised by Jungian psychoanalysts.\nIbid., p. 42.\nIbid.\n25\n26\n27\n28\nof Newton's Alchemy. Cambridge: Cambridge\n\nPages 17:\nJung and early modern alchemy\n8\n...it seems clear that both the mechanical philosophers and the reformers who were\ndescended intellectually from the mystical Rosicrucians contributed to the new alchemy\nwhich insisted upon full communication of alchemical secrets, experimental study of\nalchemical processes, and full description of experimental results in common chemical\nterminology... The function of the movement towards the rationalization of alchemy was to\njoin alchemy to the mainstream of the scientific revolution, destroy its quasi-religious aspect,\nand set it on a path of gradual evolution into objective chemistry. 29\nThe first major challenge to the historiography promoted by Jung came\nfrom the French historian of alchemy, Barbara Obrist. From the outset of her\nLes D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie Alchimique (XIVe -XVe si\u00e8cles) (1982), a study of\nalchemical illustration in the late medieval period, Obrist felt it necessary\nto dispense with Jung's perspective - a perspective which, she lamented, had\nacquired the status of a self-evident truth and was no longer questioned by\nhistorians of alchemy. 30 Arguing against its 'monopolisation' of the academic\nstudy of alchemy, Obrist described Jung's theory as an 'ahistorical vision'\nwhich does not take into account the specific political, social and intellectual\ncontexts of the periods and societies in which alchemy has functioned.\nWhilst we have seen that this criticism had been voiced by earlier writers\nmore sympathetic to the Jungian approach, Obrist extended her critique to\nthe historiography proposed by Jung. Thus Jung's 'early' or 'classical'\nalchemy - to which Dobbs had recourse in her work - is an erroneous\nconstruct presented as a 'great timeless unit' framed by late antiquity and the\nseventeenth century. Obrist believed that Jung utilised his theory of universal\narchetypal propensities of the human psyche \"in order to make products as\nstrange as alchemical writings and illustrations, pertaining to fundamentally\n'other' intellectual milieus, accessible to the reader of the twentieth\ncentury.\" 31\nAccording to Obrist, this ahistorical approach of Jung led him to propagate\ntwo mistaken conceptions regarding alchemy, which were later reinforced by\nthe historian of religions, Mircea Eliade, in The Forge and the Crucible\n(1962): firstly, the fundamental religiosity of the alchemists, and secondly,\ntheir 'animistic' (that is to say, vitalistic) worldview. 32 With regard to the\nfirst error, Obrist cites Jung's attitudes towards Christological motifs in the\nlate medieval literature, which she believes served the primarily rhetorical\npurpose of explaining purely chemical processes figuratively. Stating that the\nmedieval alchemist possessed \"a very developed consciousness of the levels\nof designations and strategies of language,\" she argues that there is nothing to\n29\n30\n31\n32\nIbid., pp. 80-81, 91.\nObrist, Barbara. Les D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie\nSycomore, 1982, p. 14.\nIbid.,p. 16.\nIbid., p. 17.\nAlchimique\n(XIVe -XV\nsi\u00e8cles). Paris: Le\n\nPages 18:\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n9\njustify the notion that laboratory workers of this time were engaged in a\nspiritual quest for selfhood. 33 Rather, she believes Jung projected the\nProtestant myth of the solitary, interior search into the Middle Ages, thus\nportraying the medieval alchemist as a lone pre-Reformer, and all alchemy as\nan enterprise opposed to the dogmas of the Church. These misconceptions of\nJung, Obrist argues, are inspired primarily by the esoteric literature of the\nseventeenth century and its perpetuation into the nineteenth and twentieth\ncenturies in the form of 'theosophy' - a literature in which mystical quests,\nreligion and alchemy are indeed bound together. 34 As for the second error\nreferred to by Obrist, the views of Jung and Eliade merely echo those of\nH\u00e9l\u00e8ne Metzger, who sought to distinguish alchemy from a mechanistic\nchemistry with reference to its supposed vitalistic and organic view of the\ncosmos - a distinction recently undermined by Newman's identification of a\ncorpuscularian tradition within medieval and early modern alchemy. 35\n3. The arguments of Principe and Newman\nIn a manner similar to Obrist, Principe and Newman reject both Jung's historiography and his theory of projection, although their criticisms focus on the\nalchemy of early modernity rather than that of the medieval period. In his\nfirst foray into the subject of the Jungian interpretation of alchemy and its\nreception, Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language? Eirenaeus Philalethes\nand Carl Jung (1996), Newman draws upon the work of the pseudonymous\nseventeenth century author Eirenaeus Philalethes to demonstrate that the\nsurreal symbols of seventeenth century laboratory alchemy are in fact\n\"secretive names for mineral substances\" rather than \"parables of the psyche\nunfolding its own transformation,\" as Jung had proposed. 36 Newman cites the\nwork of Obrist, as well as that of Robert Halleux, in support of his\ncontentions, and states that in view of the rejection of Jung by such \"serious\nhistorians of alchemy,\" his own critique could be considered 'otiose'. 37\nWhilst there is much that is to be commended in the extensive work of\nPrincipe and Newman on the subject of early modern alchemy, an evenhanded appraisal of their contribution to the field requires that we sort the\n33\n34\n35\n36\n37\nIbid., pp. 16,20.\nIbid., p. 17.\nMetzger, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. \"L'\u00e9volution du r\u00e8gne m\u00e9tallique d'apr\u00e8s les alchimistes du XVIIe\nsi\u00e8cle,\" Isis, Vol. 4, 1922, pp. 466-482; Newman, William R. \"The Corpuscular Theory\nof J. \u0392. Van Helmont and its Medieval Sources,\" Vivarium, Vol. 31, 1993, pp. 161-191.\nNewman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" pp. 160, 174.\nIbid., pp. 160-161.\n\nPages 19:\n10\nJung and early modern alchemy\nwheat from the chaff and dispense with a number of methodological and\nfactual errors in their analyses from the outset. On this count, it must be\nstated that Halleux by no means holds \"an overtly anti-Jungian position.\" 38\nOn the contrary, in the passage cited by Newman (and referred to again by\nPrincipe and Newman in their most recent work on the matter 39 ) Halleux\npraises Jung's scrupulous adherence to the fruits of erudition concerning the\ndating and authorship of texts, and speaks of Jung's 'brilliant' exegesis of\ncertain particularly 'mystical' texts such as the Hellenistic Egyptian Visions\nof Zosimos,40 Indeed, Halleux draws directly from Jung's writings in his\nexposition of medieval alchemy; his only caveat is that put forward by\nthose other partisans of Jung, Pagel and Dobbs - namely the ahistorical\nnature of the Jungian approach.41 Contrary to Principe and Newman,\nHalleux's opinions on the matter of medieval alchemy are diametrically\nopposed to those of Obrist on precisely the subject of Jung; for example,\nHalleux refers to the corpus of pseudo-Arnoldus de Villanova to emphasise\nthe close connection of religion with alchemy in the medieval period, and to\nshow that the medieval adept was often concerned with 'a process of spiritual\nself-transformation'. 42 Obrist, on the other hand, refers to the same corpus in\nthe following manner:\nIn the texts attributed to Arnold, the metaphor of Christ appears amongst others which are\nused as examples, helping to demonstrate chemical processes that are difficult to understand.\nThey are metaphors like the others, and nothing but metaphors, a fact which Arnold and the\nauthors who follow in his tradition explain extremely well, and which also applies to the\nillustrations of such treatises. Nothing allows us to speculate on the religiosity of an author\nwhen he uses a consciously rhetorical process. 4 3\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\nIbid.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 406:\n\"...the historians Barbara Obrist and Robert Halleux have presented detailed arguments\nagainst Jung's interpretation based upon their extensive reading of late medieval and\nRenaissance alchemical texts, indeed, some of the very same figurative texts that Jung\nfound most attractive.\"\nHalleux, Robert. Les Textes Alchimiques. Brepols: Turnhout, 1977, p. 55.\nIbid., pp. 140 ff.\nIbid., p. 142.\nObrist, Les D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie Alchimique, p. 21 : \"Dans les textes attribu\u00e9s \u00e0 Arnaud,\nla m\u00e9taphore du Christ figure parmi d'autres qui servent d'exempla, aidant \u00e0 d\u00e9montrer\ndes processus chimiques difficiles \u00e0 comprendre. Ce sont des m\u00e9taphores comme les\nautres, et rien que des m\u00e9taphores, ce qu'Arnaud et les auteurs qui le suivent dans la\nm\u00eame tradition expliquent fort bien et qui vaut aussi pour l'illustration de tels trait\u00e9s.\nRien ne permet de sp\u00e9culer sur la religiosit\u00e9 d'un auteur lorsqu'il utilise consciemment\nun proc\u00e9d\u00e9 rh\u00e9torique.\"\n\nPages 20:\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n11\nThe misappropriation of Halleux by Principe and Newman could be explained as a simple matter of error in translation, and undoubtedly does not\nhinder the main thrust of their arguments; nevertheless, by exaggerating the\nweight of evidence in favour of their own ideas, newcomers to the subject are\nliable to gain a false impression concerning the acceptability of certain\nconceptions in the academic milieu. And here we must emphasise the\nimportance of utilising an inclusive and ideally value-neutral language when\ndealing with the history of alchemy, lest we appear to repeat the positivist\nerrors of authors such as Herbert Butterfield, who famously derided\nhistorians of alchemy as being \"tinctured with the same type of lunacy they\nset out to describe.\" 44 On this count Newman caricatures the Jungian\ninterpretation of alchemy by stating that the work of Eirenaeus Philalethes is\nnot \"the product of a disordered mind\" or the work of \"an irrational mystic\nunable to express himself in clear English.\" 45 It matters little that 'irrational\nmystics' have given rise to some of the finest literature in the English\nlanguage; what is at stake here is the devaluation of religious sentiments - be\nthey present in the work of Eirenaeus Philalethes or not. Furthermore, if we\nfollow Principe and Newman in counterposing a positively valued 'correct\nchemical analysis' 46 carried out by 'serious historians of alchemy' 47 with a\nnegatively valued 'analysis of unreason' 48 , we not only run the risk of\ncommitting a violence against the texts at hand, but we also perform a\ndisservice to contemporary scholarship on the subject of alchemy by\nexcluding certain voices (principally those of the psychoanalysts) from the\nrealms of valid discourse.\nThis initial criticism should serve to clarify the approach adopted by the\ncurrent author - and it should also be abundantly clear that the criticisms I\nwill shortly direct at the Jungian hermeneutic are not the work of a follower\nof Jung, lest I too should be accused of being \"tinctured with the same type of\nlunacy\" as the people I study.\nThe second error committed by Principe and Newman, and one that\nstands closer to the heart of their argument, is their fundamentally inaccurate portrayal of the Jungian theory of projection and its relation to\nthe unconscious. Thus in their most recent work, \"Some Problems with\nthe Historiography of Alchemy,\" Principe and Newman make a general\n44\nButterfield, Herbert. The Origins of Modern Science, 1300-1800. New York: MacMillan,\n1952, p. 98; cited in Principe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of\nAlchemy,\" p. 389.\n45\nNewman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" pp. 165, 188.\nIbid., p. 188.\nIbid., p. 161; Principe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of\nAlchemy,\" p. 401.\n46\n47\n48\nNewman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" p. 174.\n\nPages 21:\n12\nJung and early modern alchemy\ndescription of Jung's approach to alchemy in which they portray the\nprojection of the symbols of 'individuation' onto the elements in the alembic\nas a conscious process:\nAccording to Jung, alchemists were concerned less with chemical reactions than with\npsychic states taking place within the practitioner. The practice of alchemy involved the use\nof 'active imagination' on the part of the would-be adept, which led to a hallucinatory state\nin which he 'projected' the contents of his psyche onto the matter within his alembic... the\nactual substances employed in a process made no difference at all to the alchemist so long as\nthey stimulated the psyche to its act of projection. 4 9\nTo state that the alchemists were 'concerned with psychic states', or that\nthey utilised 'active imagination' - a Jungian psychotherapeutic technique\ninvolving a 'dialogue' between the conscious and unconscious minds implies that they held a conscious understanding of self-transformation as the\ngoal of their Art; according to Jung's theory of projection, the alchemists\nwere by and large unaware of the course of their psychic life during\nlaboratory practice, and were conscious only of the very worldly goal of the\ntransmutation of metals. Thus Jung and his followers do not suggest the\nalchemists were indifferent to the chemical nature of the substances in their\nretort, as Principe and Newman expressly state.50 Rather, Jung argued that the\n'classical' alchemy he referred to was \"a chemical research into which there\nentered an admixture of unconscious psychic material by the way of\nprojection;\" and on this point it is pertinent to note that Principe and Newman\nmisrepresent Jung's declaration that the alchemists dealt \"not only with\nchemical experiments,\" giving instead \"not with chemical experiments as\nsuch,\"51 In Jung's view, only a minority of adepts through the centuries\ndemonstrated a conscious understanding of the 'interior' dimensions of their\nwork:\nCertainly most of the alchemists handled their nigredo in the retort without knowing what it\nwas they were dealing with. But it is equally certain that adepts like Morienus, Dorn,\nMichael Maier, and others knew in their way what they were doing. It was this knowledge,\n49\n50\n51\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 402.\nIbid.\nJung, \"Psychologie und Alchemie,\" p. 282: \"Im alchemischen Opus handelt es sich zum\ngr\u00f6\u00dften Teil nicht nur um chemische Experimente allein, sondern auch um etwas wie\npsychische Vorg\u00e4nge, die in pseudochemischer Sprache ausgedr\u00fcckt werden\" (emphasis\nmine); Principe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\"\npp. 401-402: \"We are called upon to deal, not with chemical experimentations as such,\nbut with something resembling psychic processes expressed in pseudo-chemical\nlanguage.\"\n\nPages 22:\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n13\nand not their greed for gold, that kept them labouring at the apparently hopeless opus, for\nwhich they sacrificed their money, their goods and their life. 5 2\nAs for those adepts whom Jung believed were more or less aware of the\npsychological dimensions of their work, and whose numbers increased\nfollowing the sixteenth century 'fission' he stipulates, there is no indication\nin Jung's work that he \"wrote laboratory experimentation out of the picture\"\nwhen considering such individuals.53 Thus Jung describes Paracelsus as both\nthe father of modern pharmacology and 'a pioneer of empirical psychology\nand psychotherapy', and makes mention of the post-Paracelsus emergence of\na 'fantastic species of literature' to which the works of Count Michael Maier\nbelong - fantastic because they are neither wholly unconscious projections\nupon a 'chemical research', nor are they purely speculative alchemical tracts\nof the ilk of the theosopher Boehme. 54\nWhilst Jung's portrayal of medieval and antique alchemy as 'a great\ntimeless unit' is indeed problematic, there remains no justification for the\nassertion of Principe and Newman that Jung believed any alchemical text that\ncould be decoded into modern chemical language must thereby be excluded\nfrom the realms of a 'good' or 'genuine' alchemy.55 In light of this fact, the\ninsistence of these authors that the strange symbols utilised by the alchemists\nare \"the products of a skilled use of traditional techniques of deception\nthat extend back many centuries in the literature of alchemy\" in no way\ncontradicts the Jungian interpretation of alchemy. 56 Indeed, in the early\ntwentieth century it was widely understood that alchemical symbolism was\na secret vocabulary of Decknamen for chemical substances, and Jung cited\nthe definitive works of Ruska on this very matter approvingly. 57 Ruska\n52\nJung, Carl Gustav. \"Mysterium Coniunctionis.\" The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol.\n14. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976, p. 521; Jung, Carl\nGustav. Mysterium Coniunctionis. Vol. 2. D\u00fcsseldorf: Walter Verlag, 1995, p. 298:\n\"Ganz gewi\u00df haben die meisten Alchemisten ihre nigredo in der Retort behandelt, ohne\nzu ahnen, was sie handhabten. Aber ebenso gewi\u00df ist es, da\u00df Adepten wie Morienus,\nDorneus, Michael Maier und andere in ihrer Art wu\u00dften, worum es ging. Aus diesem\nWissen und nicht etwa aus Goldgier entsprang bei ihnen die N\u00f6tigung zu dem anscheinend hoffnungslosen opus, dem sie Geld, Gut und Leben opferten.\"\n53\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 402.\nSee above, \u03b7. 11.\nJung's assertion that there are \"good and bad authors in alchemical literature\" refers\nmerely to the existence of charlatanism in the alchemical corpus; the fact that the texts of\nsuch charlatans are recognisable, in Jung's view, by their 'studied mystification', clearly\nreveals that Jung was not referring to texts that were decodable into modern chemical\nlanguage; see Jung, \"Psychology and Alchemy,\" p. 316.\n54\n55\n56\n57\nNewman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" p. 188.\nSee, for example, Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis: \"Die 'Chelidonia' kommt als\nGeheimname vor in jener Fassung der Turba, die vom Text, den Ruska gibt, nicht\n\nPages 23:\n14\nJung and early modern alchemy\ntestified to the wide acceptance of this fact in his formulation of the theory of\nDecknamen:\nIt is well known that the Greeks, Syrians, Persians, Arabians, Latinists, in short all nations\nthat concerned themselves with alchemy in the course of two thousand years, gave\ncodenames to the substances utilised in their secret craft, in order to protect the Art against\nthe ignorant masses. The names are taken in part from the characteristics of the bodies\nconcerned, so that quicksilver was known as the \"volatile slave,\" tin the \"gnasher,\" copper\n\"the green\" because of the colour of verdigris and the colour of its flame, or ammonia was\ngiven the names of various birds. Often they are connected with mystical and religious\nconceptions, as when the metals are defined with the names of the planets or their assigned\nGods. Sometimes the names are also arbitrarily invented. 58\nThe central flaw in Principe and Newmans' exposition of the theory of Decknamen as it relates to the Jungian hermeneutic lies in their use of a simplistic\neither-or logic - either the symbols of alchemy are products of the unconscious psyche, or they are secret code-names for chemical substances.\nThis leads them to the following completely untenable position:\n...if the images used in alchemical texts are in fact irruptions of the unconscious, then there\nwould be no possibility of \"working backwards\" from them to decipher such images into\nactual, valid laboratory practice. 59\nOf course, the notion that a symbol may possess more than one significance\nis as integral to psychoanalysis as it was to seventeenth century alchemy. As\nRuska states, certain symbols in the history of alchemy have borne explicit\nreligious or mystical significance alongside their narrowly chemical meaning;\nthus we shall soon explore the import of the lead-Saturn-melancholy\ncorrespondence in the work of Maier, and his pietistic interpretation of the\nrelationship between gold, the sun and the human heart. As for those symbols\nwhich Ruska describes as being of 'arbitrary invention', Principe and\nNewman explain them away simply by stating that the physical appearance\nof chemicals in the vessel is sometimes 'evocative'. 60 Whilst the latest\nneurophysiological research on the nature of religious experience has lent\nunerheblich abweicht. 'Quidam Philosophi nominaverunt aurum Chelidoniam, Karnech,\nGeldum' usw. Geldum erkl\u00e4rt Ruska als Chelidonium maius L.\" Jung, Mysterium\nConiunctionis, p. 252, n. 81. Throughout his works Jung cites Ruska and his translations\nas authoritative.\n58\n59\n60\nRuska, Julius and E. Wiedemann. \"Aichemistische Decknamen,\" Beitr\u00e4ge\nzur\nGeschichte der Naturwissenschaften,\nVol. 67, 1924, pp. 17-36; verdigris is a green or\ngreenish blue poisonous pigment resulting from the action of acetic acid on copper.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 406.\nIbid., p. 407.\n\nPages 24:\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n15\nsome credence to Jung's ideas,61 one need not adhere to the Jungian theory\nof a phylogenetically determined collective unconscious to see that Principe\nand Newmans' 'explanation' is no explanation at all. When Theobald de\nHoghelande describes \"the wonderful variety of figures that appear in\nthe course of the work... just as we sometimes imagine in the clouds or in the\nfire strange shapes of animals, reptiles or trees,\" there can be no doubt that\nthe 'arbitrary' symbols of alchemy are evoked from the psyche of the\nindividual alchemist as much as from the physical processes in the vessel.62\nThe psychoanalyst, of course, admits of no 'arbitrary invention' of the\npsyche - there is a hidden cause behind every product of consciousness, and\neach symbol thrown up by imaginative association betrays an unconscious\ncomplex of ideas. That the processes in the alchemical vessel were guided by\na recognised chemical logic in no way precludes the possibility that another\npurely subjective logic came into play through the assignment of Decknamen\nto those processes by such association (a phenomenon known as pareidolia\nto the contemporary psychiatrist).63\nBe this as it may, the following study will have no recourse to\npsychoanalytic ideas, be they Freudian or Jungian; my purpose here is to\nreconstruct the worldview of Count Michael Maier via an 'empirical'\napproach to the study of Western esotericism similar to that recently outlined\nby Wouter Hanegraaff, and wherever possible to rely upon the alchemists'\nown testimony concerning the nature of their work. 64 But it is necessary to\nestablish from the outset that an art which variously promises unlimited\nabundance of worldly wealth, freedom from disease, ancient wisdom and\neternal life could not fail to bear a deep psychological significance for its\npractitioners, and that the substances in the alchemical vessel carried the\nweight of the adept's hopes and imaginings. In the work of Maier (as Jung\ncorrectly surmised) that psychological dimension of the opus is consciously\n61\n62\n63\n64\nSee Newberg, Andrew and Eugene D'Aquili. Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science\nand the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001, pp. 75-76 et passim.\nCited in Jung, \"Psychology and Alchemy,\" pp. 238-239.\nWhilst the objection may be raised that the majority of alchemists dealt only with an\nestablished symbolic topology rather than their own imaginative inventions, it is difficult\nto deny that symbols as burdened with psychological import as the Passion of Christ or\nas rich in traditional cultural associations as Saturn would continue to constitute a\nrepository for imaginary factors within the practitioner.\nOn the distinction between 'religionist', 'reductionist' and 'empiricist' approaches to\nesotericism, and the necessity of recognising the historicity of religious phenomena\nwhilst maintaining a methodological agnosticism concerning meta-empirical claims in\nthe data at hand, see Hanegraaff, Wouter. \"Empirical Method in the Study of Esotericism,\" Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1995, pp. 99-129;\nsee also Hanegraaff, Wouter. \"Beyond the Yates Paradigm: The Study of Western\nEsotericism between Counterculture and New Complexity,\" Aries, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001,\npp. 5-37.\n\nPages 25:\n16\nJung and early modern alchemy\nrecognised and expressed, and there is no need to draw on reductionist\nassumptions from modern psychoanalysis to identify or explain it. On the\ncontrary, the origins of Rosicrucianism and the emergence of primarily\nGermanic 'spiritual' alchemies from heterodox Protestant sources casts a\nrevealing light on the place of Jung's own psychological theories in the\nhistory of ideas.\nThis point leads us back to the criticism voiced by Pagel, Dobbs, Halleux,\nObrist, Principe and Newman alike, namely the ahistorical nature of the\nJungian approach. By consciously eschewing an historical analysis of\nalchemical literature, and treating its symbolism as a mythology of timeless\norigin in the collective psyche, Jung failed to give an adequate account of the\ncultural matrix from which his own ideas emerged, and consequently failed\nto recognise the bewildering diversity of endeavours that - for better or worse\n- have been gathered together under the rubric of the term 'alchemy'. Thus\nwe would not expect alchemists such as the Paracelsian Gerhard Dorn or the\ntraditionalist Michael Maier to be motivated by greed for gold - as Jung\nsuggests in the passage we have cited - because their primary interest lay in\niatrochemia65 and the production of the Universal Medicine. Furthermore,\nMaier understood his relentless peregrinatici in search of patronage as a\nmacrocosmic image of the operations within the alchemical vessel, a process\nof spiritual purification that was indeed integrally linked to his struggle for\nworldly wealth. And without a detailed understanding of the ultimate goal\nof Maier's laboratory experiments - a 'medicine of piety' that would cure\ndiseases and impious urges alike by restoring the balance of humours in the\nbody - it is not possible to understand the intimate connection of the\n'chemical' and psychological dimensions of his alchemy. Despite the fact\nthat the alchemical canon is littered with pseudonymous and anonymous\ntracts that are difficult to date, and despite the paucity of biographical data\npertaining to many known alchemists, in the case of Count Michael Maier we\nare presented with a wealth of explicit autobiographical allusions that offer\nself-avowed insight into the psychological wellsprings of his alchemy.\nThere are a number of key elements in Maier's alchemy - a distinctively\nProtestant and individualistic spiritual quest, a paradoxical conjunction\nof spiritual and material factors, a confluence of pagan and Christian\nsentiments, an esoteric 'tradition' stemming from antiquity, a nascent\nGerman nationalism, solar mysticism, and Rosicrucianism itself - which\n65\nAlthough most frequently used in reference to Paracelsian practice, iatrochemia in the\nmore general sense of the manufacturing of medicines from inorganic material existed\nprior to Paracelsus, e.g. in the work of Johannes de Rupescissa in the fourteenth century\n(see Haage, Bernhard Dietrich. Alchemie im Mittelalter. D\u00fcsseldorf: Artemis und\nWinkler, 2000, p. 195). As Maier was not a Paracelsian, the term iatrochemia will be\nused in this broader sense in the following pages.\n\nPages 26:\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n17\nconfirm Obrist's contention that Jung's views have their origins in precisely\nthe type of 'alchemy' propagated by Maier. However, this fact mitigates\nagainst Obrist's statement that Jung is dealing with worldviews that are\nfundamentally 'other' when it comes to early modern alchemy. For all\nits very tangential relation to the course of modern psychology, Jung's\n'analytical psychology' clearly possesses the four fundamental characteristics\nof modern esotericism set forth by Faivre,66 i.e. a doctrine of correspondences\nand sympathies; 67 a belief in a living and revelatory Nature; 68 an emphasis on\nimagination as the means to revelation;69 and the practical objective of\npersonal 'transmutation' through such revelation.70 When we also consider\nJung's tendencies towards solar mysticism, 71 his rather unflattering\nentanglement with a mystical German nationalism,72 and his explicitly\nprophetic utterances concerning the imminence (i.e. at some time between\n1997 and 2012) of an astrologically determinable catastrophe leading to a\nNew Age in which pagan and Christian doctrines will be united, 73 we are no\n66\nSee Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 10 ff.; also Faivre, Antoine and KarenClaire Voss. \"Western Esotericism and the Science of Religions,\" Numen, Vol. 42, 1995,\npp. 60 ff.\n67\nE.g. the concept of 'synchronistic' events arising as the result of acausal correspondences in the universe, c.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting\nPrinciple.\" In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 8. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton:\nPrinceton University Press, 1972, pp. 417-531.\n68\nE.g. the ultimate indivisibility of psyche and matter, c.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"On the\nNature of the Psyche.\" In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 8. Trans. R. F. C.\nHull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972, pp. 159-234, and the existence of\narchetypes in Nature as expressions of a 'meaningful orderedness', c.f. Jung, \"Synchronicity.\"\nE.g. the use of 'active imagination' as a means of uncovering the archetypal layers of the\npsyche, c.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"The Concept of the Collective Unconscious.\" In The\nCollected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 9, Part 1. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton\nUniversity Press, 1968, pp. 42-53.\n69\n70\n71\n72\n73\nE.g. the process of 'individuation' towards the Self through the encounter with the\narchetypal realm, c.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"On the Psychology of the Unconscious.\" In\nThe Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 7. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton\nUniversity Press, 1966, pp. 1-119.\nC.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"Symbols of Transformation.\" The Collected Works of C. G.\nJung. Vol. 5. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967,passim.\nC.f. \"Wotan.\" In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 10. Trans. R. F. C. Hull.\nPrinceton: Princeton University Press, 1970, pp. 179-193.\nC.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"Aion - Researches into the Ph\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 1 to page 26 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 26 to page 44 out of a total of 334:\nPages 26:\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n17\nconfirm Obrist's contention that Jung's views have their origins in precisely\nthe type of 'alchemy' propagated by Maier. However, this fact mitigates\nagainst Obrist's statement that Jung is dealing with worldviews that are\nfundamentally 'other' when it comes to early modern alchemy. For all\nits very tangential relation to the course of modern psychology, Jung's\n'analytical psychology' clearly possesses the four fundamental characteristics\nof modern esotericism set forth by Faivre,66 i.e. a doctrine of correspondences\nand sympathies; 67 a belief in a living and revelatory Nature; 68 an emphasis on\nimagination as the means to revelation;69 and the practical objective of\npersonal 'transmutation' through such revelation.70 When we also consider\nJung's tendencies towards solar mysticism, 71 his rather unflattering\nentanglement with a mystical German nationalism,72 and his explicitly\nprophetic utterances concerning the imminence (i.e. at some time between\n1997 and 2012) of an astrologically determinable catastrophe leading to a\nNew Age in which pagan and Christian doctrines will be united, 73 we are no\n66\nSee Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 10 ff.; also Faivre, Antoine and KarenClaire Voss. \"Western Esotericism and the Science of Religions,\" Numen, Vol. 42, 1995,\npp. 60 ff.\n67\nE.g. the concept of 'synchronistic' events arising as the result of acausal correspondences in the universe, c.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting\nPrinciple.\" In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 8. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton:\nPrinceton University Press, 1972, pp. 417-531.\n68\nE.g. the ultimate indivisibility of psyche and matter, c.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"On the\nNature of the Psyche.\" In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 8. Trans. R. F. C.\nHull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972, pp. 159-234, and the existence of\narchetypes in Nature as expressions of a 'meaningful orderedness', c.f. Jung, \"Synchronicity.\"\nE.g. the use of 'active imagination' as a means of uncovering the archetypal layers of the\npsyche, c.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"The Concept of the Collective Unconscious.\" In The\nCollected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 9, Part 1. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton\nUniversity Press, 1968, pp. 42-53.\n69\n70\n71\n72\n73\nE.g. the process of 'individuation' towards the Self through the encounter with the\narchetypal realm, c.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"On the Psychology of the Unconscious.\" In\nThe Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 7. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton\nUniversity Press, 1966, pp. 1-119.\nC.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"Symbols of Transformation.\" The Collected Works of C. G.\nJung. Vol. 5. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967,passim.\nC.f. \"Wotan.\" In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 10. Trans. R. F. C. Hull.\nPrinceton: Princeton University Press, 1970, pp. 179-193.\nC.f. Jung, Carl Gustav. \"Aion - Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self.\" The\nCollected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 9, Part 2. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. London: Routledge,\n1991, pp. 86, 94, et passim. \u00b7, also Jung, Carl Gustav. \"A Psychological Approach to the\nTrinity.\" In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 11. Trans. R. F. C. Hull. Princeton:\nPrinceton University Press, 1969, pp. 107-200; for Jung's last prophetic utterances, see\nWhitney, Mark (dir.). Matter of Heart. Los Angeles: C. G. Jung Institute, 1983.\n\nPages 27:\n18\nJung and early modern alchemy\nlonger dealing with a doctrine that stands in the realms of science as it is\nknown today; rather, we are hearing the distant but distinct echoes of\nseventeenth century esotericism and a syncretic Protestant millennialism that\nonce found expression in the Rosicrucian phenomenon.\n4. The origins of Jung's alchemy and the work of Richard Noll\nRather than taking their cue from Jung's explicit claim that the 'historical\nnexus' of his work lies in the Freemasonic and Rosicrucian traditions,\nPrincipe and Newman follow Richard Noll in emphasising certain nineteenth\ncentury occultists as the predecessors of Jung's interpretation of alchemy (we\nmight more simply state 'the predecessors of Jung's alchemy', if we follow\nEco in characterising alchemy primarily as a hermeneutic tradition).74 On this\ncount Principe and Newman ascribe the origins of Jung's views to the\nEnglish occultist Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942); the rather insubstantial\nbasis for their assertion is Noll's observation that Waite's works were\ncirculating amongst members of Jung's Zurich Psychological Club in the\n1910's. 75 Principe and Newman point to the supposed influence of Waite in\norder to support their central historiographie thesis that the conception of\nalchemy as a process of personal transmutation from a base, earthly state into\n\"a more noble, more spiritual, more moral, or more divine state\"- a\nconception which we shall follow Principe and Newman 76 in describing as\n'spiritual alchemy' - has its origins in the nineteenth century:\nAlthough it was in fact a commonplace of the early modern period to build extended\nreligious conceits on alchemical processes and to draw theological parallels therefrom - an\naspect of alchemical writing Luther praised in passing - the occultists of the nineteenth\ncentury went much further to claim that alchemy itself was an art of internal meditation\nrather than an external manipulation of apparatus and chemicals... The similarity of Jung's\npsychologising view to the 'spiritual evolution' system of A. E. Waite's Azoth is clear, and\nwhat we now know of Jung's juvenile interest in the occult and the currency of Victorian\nesoterica in Jung's early circles supports this observable similarity... we therefore come to\nthe rather surprising conclusion that the residues of Victorian occultism have deeply colored\nthe historical study of the discipline. It seems unlikely that many historians would continue\n74\nOn the history of alchemy as the history of the interpretation of alchemy, see Eco,\nUmberto. The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press,\n1990, pp. 18-20.\n75\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 402;\nNoll, Richard. The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung. New York: Random\nHouse, 1997, pp. 229-230.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 388.\n76\n\nPages 28:\nThe origins of Jung's alchemy\n19\nto engage in the blithe generalizations criticized in this chapter if they realized their dubious\norigins. 77\nWe shall soon contest the crypto-positivist notion that early modern\nalchemists merely built 'extended religious conceits' on purely 'chemical'\nprocesses, and the assertion of Principe and Newman that the 'yoking' of\nnatural magic and astrology to alchemy was \"consummated only during the\nfinal years of the ancien r\u00e9gime in France.\" 78 For now it will suffice to\nmention that, even if we accept the unsubstantiated theory of Waite's role in\nthe formation of Jung's views, the Englishman did not disregard laboratory\nexperiment in his portrayal of the history of alchemy, nor did he believe in\nthe possibility of gold-making, as Principe and Newman claim; rather, he\nadopted the position that the alchemists advanced a 'theory of universal\ndevelopment' with equal application to metals and human beings, and that 'a\nfew of the Hermetic symbolists' focused on 'man' as the subject of their\nwork. 79 Furthermore, Jung's approach has little in common with Waite's\nargument in the Azoth, or the Star in the East (1893) that \"all alchemists were\nmystics and alchemy a mystic work.\" 80 Rather, his historiography more\nclosely parallels Waite's work of 1926, The Secret Tradition in Alchemy, in\nwhich Waite revises his earlier opinion and traces the origins of 'spiritual\nalchemy' to the age of Luther - the time of the 'fission' which Jung believed\nto herald the widespread emergence of a conscious recognition of the\npsychological aspects of the alchemical work. 81\nIn any case, we find no mention of Waite's theories on alchemy in Jung's\nworks. On this count it must be said that Principe and Newman rely too\nheavily on the partisan diatribes of Noll, an ex-Jungian who has sought to\nexpose his former mentor as a dangerous right-wing cultist and charlatan.\nConsiderable controversy was aroused in 1994 by the publication of Noll's\nThe Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement, in which Jung's\nanalytical psychology was depicted as an attempt to fuse Freudian\npsychoanalysis with neo-pagan sun worship. Employing loosely Weberian\nconceptions, Noll portrays Jung as a prophet of the v\u00f6lkisch movement\nemergent in German Europe at the fin-de-si\u00e8cle, and a founder of the\n77\n78\n79\nIbid., pp. 388,418.\nIbid., pp. 387-388.\nIbid., p. 394; Waite, Arthur Edward. Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers. London:\nGeorge Redway, 1888, p. 33: \"...though it be impossible for the metal, it is true for the\nman.\"\n80\nWaite, Arthur Edward. Azoth, or the Star in the East. London: Theosophical Publishing,\n1893, p. 54.\n81\nWaite, Arthur Edward. The Secret Tradition\n1926, p. 366.\nin Alchemy.\nNew York: Alfred Knopf,\n\nPages 29:\n20\nJung and early modern alchemy\ncharismatic cult that is contemporary Jungianism.82 At the time of his book's\npublication a strange polemic of Noll's featured in the editorial pages of The\nNew York Times entitled The Rose, the Cross and the Analyst. Rather than\nlegitimately drawing attention to Jung's place within the history of\nesotericism, as his title would naturally suggest, Noll oddly had nothing to\nsay concerning Rosicrucianism. Rather, he argued that Jung was a cult leader\nand 'new Christ' of the same ilk as Luc Jouret of the Order of the Solar\nTemple, whose followers had been led to their deaths by \"the same potent\nmixture of sun worship, alchemy and spiritual rebirth\" espoused by Jung.\nNoll also took the opportunity to affiliate Jung with David Koresh of the\nBranch Davidians and Jim Jones of the People's Temple - and given the\nviolent and tragic history of these groups, such inaccurate associations\nunderstandably provoked a chorus of protest from Jungian psychotherapists\nand sympathisers. 83 Whatever genuinely religious foundations analytical\npsychology may possess, a comparison of Jungian psychotherapy to the\nmillennialist cults in question was simply inaccurate and misleading from the\nperspective of the academic study of religion,84 and merely demonstrated\nNoll's well-established predilection for sensationalism.85\nThere was an unacknowledged personal subtext to the inaccuracies of\nNoll's work: a clinical psychiatrist by training, he had earlier published a\nnumber of articles in which he garnered experimental evidence to support\nJung's conceptions of the archetype, psychological projection, and a\ntranspersonal and atemporal 'collective unconscious'. 86 The uncritical na\u00efvet\u00e9\n82\n83\n84\n85\n86\nNoll, Richard. The Jung Cult - Origins of a Charismatic Movement. Princeton:\nPrinceton University Press, 1994.\nNoll, Richard. \"The Rose, the Cross and the Analyst,\" The New York Times, October 15,\n1994, p. 19. Two days prior to the publication of this article, Luc Jouret had led 52 of his\nfollowers in a mass murder/suicide in Switzerland and Canada; according to Noll, both\nJung and Jouret were charismatic Swiss occultists posing as 'new Christs'. For the\nJungian response to these outlandish claims, see Kirsch, Thomas B. \"The Rose, the\nCross and the Analyst,\" Anima, vol. 21, 1994, pp. 67-69.\nFor scholarly critiques of Noll's thesis, see Segal, Robert. \"Critical Notice,\" Journal of\nAnalytical Psychology, vol. 40, 1995, pp. 597-608; Shamdasani, Sonu. Cult Fictions: C.\nG. Jung and the Founding of Analytical Psychology. London: Routledge, 1998.\nConsider, for example, Noll's Bizarre Diseases of the Mind - a book which\ndemonstrates an entirely exploitative attitude towards its 'real-life' subject matter that is\nstrongly reminiscent of contemporary American television culture. A small sampling of\nthe chapter contents should suffice to demonstrate this point: 'True Tales of Lycanthropy' (\"Werewolves? In the twentieth century? You bet there are!\"), 'Vampires!'\n(\"these are rare instances - but they do happen. Be certain of that...\") and 'Deathly\nHorrors: Mummification and Necrophilia' (\"Morbid? Yes. But many cases have been\ndocumented...\"); Noll, Richard. Bizarre Diseases of the Mind. Berkeley: Berkeley\nPublishing Group, 1990, pp. 88, 109, 165.\nNoll, Richard. \"Multiple Personality, Dissociation, and C. G. Jung's Complex Theory,\"\nJournal of Analytical Psychology, Vol 34, No. 4, October 1989, pp. 353-370; Noll,\n\nPages 30:\nThe origins of Jung's alchemy\n21\nNoll exhibited in his earlier writings appears to be inversely proportional to\nthe antagonism expressed towards Jung following his break with the Aion\nSociety and the C. G. Jung Center of Philadelphia in 1993, a fact that leads\none to suspect he was less than objective on both counts.87 Through a\nrepeated emphasis on certain doctrinal commonalities between analytical\npsychology and Nazi ideology - commonalities that have stronger, older\nroots in German esoteric tradition than racialist fin-de-si\u00e8cle occultism The Jung Cult utilised a guilt-by-association methodology that played on\nlingering anti-German sentiments in the English-speaking West. For\nexample, Noll presented Jung's 'Gnostic' myth, the Septem Sermones ad\nMortuos (1916) as central evidence that Jung was involved in \"a v\u00f6lkisch\nintellectual and spiritual elite, an underground 'secret Germany'\" that would\nrevitalise the German peoples by means of an Aryan 'inner sun'. 88 It is more\npertinent to note that the hero of Jung's adolescence, Johann Wolfgang von\nGoethe, composed a similar 'Gnostic' tract amidst his own existential crisis, a\nwork inspired by the alchemical and gnostic conceptions he had received\nfrom the Pietist Moravian Brethren.89 As Goethe before him, Jung stood\nwithin an esoteric tradition emphasising the unity of pagan and Christian\ntruths. Nevertheless, the one-sidedness of Noll's anti-Germanic caricature in\nThe Jung Cult was counterbalanced somewhat in his The Aryan Christ: The\nSecret Life of Carl Jung (1997) - a work which, whilst still advocating the\nerroneous thesis that Jung believed himself to be an 'Aryan Jesus', 90 dealt at\ngreater length with Pietist and Rosicrucian currents as the ideological source\nof Jung's thought. 91\n87\n88\n89\n90\n91\nRichard. \"C. G. Jung and J. B. Rhine: Two Complementary Approaches to the\nPhenomenology of the Paranormal.\" In Shapin, Betty and Lisette Coly (eds). Parapsychology and Human Nature. New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1989.\nHence Noll's introduction to the Encyclopedia of Schizophrenia and the Psychotic\nDisorders, where he speaks with adulation of Jung as a 'giant' on whose shoulders he\nhas stood, and thanks the deceased psychoanalyst \"for the tremendous impact his life and\nwork have had on my life, both personally and professionally.\" Noll, Richard (ed.).\nEncyclopedia of Schizophrenia and the Psychotic Disorders. New York: Facts on File,\n2000.\nNoll, The Jung Cult, pp. 244-246.\nGoethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Poetry and Truth. Vol. 1. Trans. Minna Smith. London:\nG. Bell & Sons Ltd., 1911, p. 313.\nIn the very same lecture that Jung deals with his vision of self-transformation into the\nMithraic/Gnostic leontocephalus, he clearly states that anyone who succumbs to the\ntemptation of personally identifying with such an image 'would become a crank or a\nfool', a statement in keeping with his 'phenomenological' approach; Segal, \"Critical\nNotice,\" p. 605; Noll, The Jung Cult, p. 211.\nNoll, The Aryan Christ, pp. 3-21.\n\nPages 31:\n22\nJung and early modern alchemy\n5. 'Secret threads': the seventeenth century 'Carl Jung of Mainz'\nand Count Michael Maier\nHowever, rather than following the unreliable work of Noll, or looking\nfor Jung's influences on the basis of perceived doctrinal similarities insignificant as they might be in the case of Waite - we should first look to\nJung's own testimony on the matter when considering the genesis of his\nspiritual alchemy. In the winter of 1955-1956, following the death of his\nwife, Jung was decorating the tower-house he had constructed on the shores\nof Lake Zurich at Bollingen. Whilst chiselling the names of his paternal\nancestors on three stone tablets for the courtyard of his tower, Jung tells us he\nbecame aware of certain 'fateful links' with his forebears:\nI feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left\nincomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors...\nIt has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my\nforefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps\ncontinue, things which previous ages had left unfinished. 9 2\nIn accordance with this sense of evolving family destiny, Jung painted the\nceiling of his tower with the heraldic arms formulated by his grandfather and\nnamesake, a Grand Master of the Swiss Lodge of Freemasons. Jung's\nantipathy for his father, a Calvinist preacher, and for the 'lifeless' orthodoxy\nhe represented had led to his strong identification with Carl Gustav Jung\nsenior - a famous Basel physician and Romantic who, family rumour had it,\nwas the illegitimate son of Goethe.93 The arms of his grandfather apparently\n92\nJung, Carl Gustav. Memories Dreams Reflections. Trans. R. and C. Winston. New York:\nVintage Books, 1973, p. 233; Jung, Carl Gustav. Erinnerungen\nTr\u00e4ume\nGedanken.\nStuttgart: Rascher Verlag, 1962, p. 237: \"Ich habe sehr stark das Gef\u00fchl, da\u00df ich unter\ndem Einflu\u00df von Dingen oder Fragen stehe, die von meinen Eltern und Gro\u00dfeltern und\nden weiteren Ahnen unvollendet und unbeantwortet gelassen wurden... So schien es mir\nimmer, als ob auch ich Fragen zu beantworten h\u00e4tte, die bei meinen Ahnen schon\nschicksalsm\u00e4\u00dfig aufgeworfen, aber noch nicht beantwortet worden sind, oder als ob ich\nDinge vollenden oder auch nur fortsetzen m\u00fcsse, welche die Vorzeit unerledigt gelassen\nhat.\"\n93\nIbid., pp. 41. Whilst Jung described the story of his descent from Goethe as an\n\"annoying tradition,\" a student friend recalled Jung's pride in recounting the tale according to Gustav Steiner, \"it was not the legend that perplexed me, but the fact that he\ntold us about it;\" Ellenberger, Henri. The Discovery of the Unconscious. New York:\nBasic Books, 1970, p. 665. Jung makes no attempt in his autobiography to clarify the\nquestion of his ancestry for his readers; the editor of Erinnerungen Tr\u00e4ume Gedanken,\nAniela Jaff\u00e9, mentions in an appendix the improbability of Goethe's siring a son by\nJung's great-grandmother, but she also recalls Jung's sense of gratification as he\nrecollected the legend: Jung, Erinnerungen, p. 399.\n\nPages 32:\n'Secret Threads'\n23\ndepicted a blue cross in the upper right of the shield, separated by a blue bar\nfrom blue grapes in a field of gold in the lower left. The symbolism,\naccording to Jung, was 'Masonic or Rosicrucian' - just as the Rosicrucian\nmotif of the cross and red rose represents opposing Christian and pagan\nforces, so the blue cross and grapes symbolise \"the heavenly and the chthonic\n(i.e. earthly) spirit.\"94 In the midst of the separating blue bar is a golden star,\nwhich Jung referred to as the aurum philosophorum ('philosophers' gold') or\nsymbol for the unity of opposites. For the ageing psychologist, this esoteric\nsymbolism represented \"the historical nexus of my thinking and life.\" 95\nCrucially, in his autobiography Jung goes on to trace the roots of his\ndestiny as the founder of analytical psychology beyond his grandfather.\nAlthough his train of thought is typically obscure on this point, Jung suggests\nhe is descended from a Dr. Carl Jung of Mainz (d.1645), whom he portrays\nas a follower of none other than Count Michael Maier, a 'founder' of\nRosicrucianism. As a 'Paracelsian' this supposed ancestor was purportedly\nacquainted with Gerhard Dorn, a man whom Jung believed to have \"grappled\nwith the process of individuation\" more than any other alchemist. Jung goes\non to comment suggestively that \"all this is not without a certain interest\" in\nlight of his own concern with alchemical symbolism and the coniunctio\noppositorum ('conjunction of opposites'). 96 In this way Jung intimates that\nthe unanswered questions he felt driven to resolve through his lifelong\nintellectual and therapeutic work stretch back to the Rosicrucianism of Count\nMichael Maier and the alchemy of the Paracelsians.\nMy concern here is not to cast judgment upon Jung's imaginings.\nRather, it is to demonstrate that Jung considered the esoteric traditions of\nFreemasonry and Rosicrucianism as his own spiritual heritage, and that there\nare good reasons for accepting his claim. Indeed, if we wish to look to\ncitations of theory rather than Jung's autobiographical musing when tracing\nthe origins of his hermeneutic, then our starting point is provided by Herbert\nSilberer (1882-1923), the man whom Jung followed in proclaiming the\nconiunctio oppositorum to be the central idea of alchemical procedure. 97\nSilberer was a Freemason and pupil of Freud who toyed with Jung's theory\nof archetypes and the progressive nature of the unconscious prior to his\nsuicide in 192 3 98 In the work Silberer dedicated to alchemy, Probleme\n94\n95\n96\n97\n98\nJung, Erinnerungen, p. 236.\nIbid.\nIbid., pp. 236-237.\nJung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, p. 228; as its title suggests, the coniunctio\nis the central problem tackled by Jung in this work.\noppositorum\nApparently Silberer also experimented with sleep deprivation in his quest to unlock the\nsecrets of the 'hypnogogic' and 'hypnopompic' states between waking and sleeping; as\nhe poignantly remarked when discussing the Jungian term 'introversion', \"Die Intro-\n\nPages 33:\n24\nJung and early modern alchemy\nder Mystik und ihrer Symbolik (1914), we find the fundamental tenets of\nJung's alchemy in embryonic form. These include Silberer's comparison of\nalchemical symbolism with dream motifs and his conception that the\n\"elementary types\" of the unconscious had \"insinuated themselves into the\nbody of the alchemical hieroglyphics\" as the alchemists struggled with the\n\"riddles of physico-chemical facts.\" 99 Here we have the theory of a projection\nof psychic contents of a supra-individual nature onto the alchemical work of\nthe laboratory, formulated more than twenty years prior to Jung's first public\nutterances on the subject. In his autobiographical Erinnerungen Tr\u00e4ume\nGedanken ('Memories, Dreams, Reflections,' 1961) Jung appears (somewhat\ncharacteristically) to downplay Silberer's role in the genesis of his own\nthought by stating that he had 'completely forgotten' the psychoanalyst's\nwork prior to his own 'discovery' of the psychological import of alchemical\nsymbolism in 1928.100 Nevertheless, in the foreword and conclusion of the\nwork he considered to be his opus magnum, the Mysterium Coniunctionis\n(1956), Jung pays homage to Silberer as the 'first' researcher to uncover the\npsychological significance of alchemy, with the proviso that his predecessor\nwas still constrained by the 'primitive' state of psychological knowledge in\n1914 - an allusion to Silberer's dependence on Freudian theory and the\nundeveloped state of Jung's own ideas at that time:\nHerbert Silberer, who unfortunately died too early, has the merit of being the first to discover\nthe secret threads that lead from alchemy to the psychology of the unconscious. The state of\nversion ist kein Kinderspiel. Sie fuhrt zu Abgriinden hin, von denen man verschlungen\nwerden kann, rettungslos. Wer sich der Introversion unterzieht, gelangt an einen Punkt,\nwo sich zwei Wege trennen; und dort mu\u00df er eine Entscheidung treffen...\"; Silberer,\nHerbert. Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik. Vienna: Hugo Deller & Co., 1914, p.\n171.\n99\nIbid., p. 206: \"Die viel besprochnen Elementartypen haben sich also bei der Gelegenheit\nin das Corpus der alchemistischen Hieroglyphik eingeschlichen, als die Menschheit, den\nchemisch-physikalischen Tatsachen als R\u00e4tseln gegen\u00fcberstehend, mit dem Ausdruck\nrang zu ihrer gedanklichen Bew\u00e4ltigung...\"\n100 \"Merkw\u00fcrdigerweise hatte ich ganz vergessen, was Herbert Silberer \u00fcber Alchemie\ngeschrieben hatte. Zur Zeit, als sein Buch erschien, kam mir die Alchemie als etwas\nAbseitiges und Skurriles vor, so sehr ich auch Silberers anagogischen, d. h. konstruktiven Gesichtspunkt zu sch\u00e4tzen wu\u00dfte. Ich stand damals in Korrespondenz mit ihm\nund habe ihm meine Zustimmung ausgedr\u00fcckt. Wie sein tragisches Ende zeigt, war\njedoch seine Ansicht von keiner Einsicht gefolgt... Erst durch den Text der \u201eGoldene\nBl\u00fcte\", der zur Chinesischen Alchemie geh\u00f6rt, und den ich 1928 von Richard Wilhelm\nerhalten hatte, ist mir das Wesen der Alchemie n\u00e4her gekommen.\" Jung, Erinnerungen,\npp. 207-208. On this matter also see Jung's letter to Erich Neumann dated the 22 nd of\nDecember, 1935, in Jung, Carl Gustav. Letters. Adler, Gerhard and Aniela Jaff\u00e9 (eds.).\nVol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973, p. 206 ff.; and Martin, Luther H. \"A\nHistory of the Psychological Interpretation of Alchemy,\" Ambix, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1975,\npp. 10-20.\n\nPages 34:\n'Secret Threads'\n25\npsychological knowledge at that time was still too primitive and still too much wrapped\nup in personalistic assumptions for the whole problem of alchemy to be understood\npsychologically. 1 0 1\nJung's intellectual hubris notwithstanding, it is clear that the confluence of\nalchemical and psychoanalytic doctrine to be found in the works of Silberer\nand Jung alike marks a qualitatively new phase in the history of alchemical\ninterpretation. However, if Silberer and Jung are to be evaluated from a\nbroader perspective in the history of ideas as the purveyors of a 'spiritual\nalchemy', as Principe and Newman suggest, then we must follow those\n'secret threads' of which Jung speaks and trace the sources of their (nonexclusive) conception of alchemy as a process of self-transformation within\nthe alchemist.\nIn his Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik, Silberer attributes the\n'rediscovery' of the psychological content of alchemy to the 'profound'\nEthan Allen Hitchcock (1798-1870); throughout his work Silberer states that\nhe is indebted to Hitchcock when he argues that the central subject of the\nHermetic Art is humankind - i.e. its subject is das Subjekt.102 Hitchcock was\na Union general and military adviser to Abraham Lincoln who, like Silberer,\nwas influenced by Freemasonic doctrine: indeed, his father Samuel was a\nprominent Freemason who incorporated the society's motifs into the seal of\nthe state of Vermont. 103 Hitchcock's thesis as set forward in his Remarks\n101\nJung, \"Mysterium Coniunctionis\" (English edition), p. 555; Jung, Mysterium\nConiunctionis (German edition), p. 334: \"Dem leider zu fr\u00fch verstorbenen Herbert Silberer\nkommt das Verdienst zu, der erste gewesen zu sein, die geheimen F\u00e4den, die von der\nAlchemie zur Psychologie des Unbewu\u00dften laufen, entdeckt zu haben. Allerdings war\nder Zustand der damaligen psychologischen Erkenntnis noch zu primitiv und zu sehr in\npersonalistischen Voraussetzungen befangen, als da\u00df das Gesamtproblem der Alchemie\npsychologisch h\u00e4tte erfa\u00dft werden k\u00f6nnen.\"\n102\nSilberer, Probleme der Mystik, pp. 211, 97: \"Das Verdienst, den \u00fcber das Chemische und\nPhysikalische hinausgehenden Gehalt der Alchemie wiedergefunden zu haben, geb\u00fchrt\nwohl dem Amerikaner Ethan Allen Hitchcock, der seine Ansichten \u00fcber die Alchemisten\nin dem Buch \"Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists\" niederlegte, das 1857 in\nBoston erschien... Die Entdeckungen, zu welchen der tiefsinnige Hitchcock gelangte,\nsind f\u00fcr unsere Analyse so wichtig, da\u00df ihre ausfuhrliche Entwickelung nicht umgangen\nwerden kann... Hitchcock liefert uns in einem einzigen Wort den Schl\u00fcssel zum\nVerst\u00e4ndnis der hermetischen Meister, wenn er sagt: Das Subjectum ist - der Mensch.\nMan kann sich auch eines Wortspiels bedienen und sagen: das Subjectum ist das\nSubjekt.\"\n103\nSee Smith, Henry Perry. History of Addison County Vermont. Syracuse, N.Y.: D. Mason\n& Co., 1886, p. 143; also Thomas, John D. \"The Engine of Enlightenment: Samuel\nHitchcock and the Creation of the University of Vermont Seal.\" Unpublished paper, an\nabstract of which is to be found in The Center for Research on Vermont Newsletter, Vol.\n24, No. 1, April 1999. Although I am loath to further propagate unsubstantiated myths\nand fabrications concerning the history of esotericism, it has been alleged that Ethan\nAllen Hitchcock belonged to a certain 'Council of Three' in the Freemasonic 'Order of\n\nPages 35:\n26\nJung and early modern alchemy\nupon Alchemy and the Alchemists (1857) is that the alchemists were\nconcerned with the procurement of a spiritual 'new birth' through the casting\nout of the 'superfluity' of evil.104 Thus he declares that \"the subject of\nAlchemy was Man, while the object was the perfection of Man,\" but as true\n'Reformers' of the Church the alchemists were compelled to obscure their\nproperly religious purpose in a pseudo-chemical language. 105 Silberer did not\nadopt as untenable a position on the question of Decknamen and laboratory\nexperimentation as his predecessor, but rather dealt at length in Probleme der\nMystik und ihrer Symbolik with \"the problem of multiple interpretation.\" 106\nHis research led him to propose three simultaneous significations of\nalchemical symbolism: a regressive significance \"leading to the depths of the\nimpulsive life;\" an 'anagogie' or progressive significance leading to \"high\nreligious ideals;\" and a chemical significance pertaining to the realms of\nscience and natural philosophy. 107 If we dispense with the 'regressive\nsignificance' drawn from Freud, we have the broad outlines of the dual\ninterpretation proposed by Jung - on the one hand alchemical symbolism\nreflects laboratory experiment, and on the other it reflects 'individuating'\ntendencies towards the realisation of the ' S e l f , to translate Silberer's terms\ninto those of Jung's spiritual alchemy.\nAs we cannot accept Jung's claim that he had 'forgotten' Silberer's work,\nreplete as it is with Jung's own theories applied to the subject of alchemy,\nthen we must recognise Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik as Jung's\nfirst documented and most formative encounter with alchemy, and it behoves\nus to examine more closely the origins of the ideas advanced by Silberer.\nBoth Silberer and his predecessor Hitchcock drew their spiritual alchemy in\nlarge part from conceptions expressed in the higher degrees of Freemasonry,\nwhich have as their goal the progressive transformation of the human\npersonality from a state of primitivity and darkness to a higher level of\nhuman consciousness. Indeed, since the late eighteenth century various\nFreemasonic Lodges have incorporated spiritual alchemical conceptions into\ntheir higher degrees, a fact which has led many authors in the last two\ncenturies to trace the origins of modern Freemasonry to Rosicrucian\nthe Lily', which claimed its descent from Rosicrucianism by charter of the Supreme\nGrand Lodge of France; Hitchcock supposedly took his place in this 'Council' alongside\nAbraham Lincoln and the occultist P. B. Randolph (1825-1875). These assertions have\nbeen discredited in the article \"Abraham Lincoln was not a Freemason,\" Lincoln Lore,\nNo. 1595, January 1971.\n104\nHitchcock, Ethan Allen. Remarks upon Alchemy\nNichols, and Co., 1857, pp. 226-227.\n105\nIbid., pp. viii-ix, 22.\n106\nSilberer, Probleme der Mystik, pp. 133-146.\n107\nIbid.,pp. 138, 145-146.\nand the Alchemists.\nBoston: Crosby,\n\nPages 36:\n'Secret Threads'\n27\nHermeticism. 108 The relation of Rosicrucianism to Freemasonry remains a\ncontested issue, both within academic and Freemasonic circles. The origins\nof the controversy may be traced to Buhle's lieber den Ursprung und\ndie vornehmsten Schicksale der Orden der Rosenkreuzer und Freymaurer\n(1804), in which the author argued that speculative masonry or Freemasonry\narose in England between 1629 and 1635 through the work of Robert Fludd\n(1574-1637), who had been introduced to the Rosicrucian mysteries by\nCount Michael Maier (an erroneous lineage recently exposed by Figala and\nNeumann). 109 Buhle's conception that Freemasonry had its origins in the\nmania of early Rosicrucianism rather than the guilds of the medieval masons\nor the Egyptian and Greek mysteries (as Masonic lore claimed) was seconded\n108\nAlchemical symbolism may be found to this day in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish\nRite of Masonry, particularly in the Knight of the Sun/Prince Adept 28th degree; kind\ninformation of M. Evans.\n109\nBuhle, Johann Gottlieb. Ueber den Ursprung und die vornehmsten Schicksale der Orden\nder Rosenkreuzer und Freymaurer. Eine Historisch-kritische\nUntersuchung. G\u00f6ttingen:\nJohann Friedrich R\u00f6wer, 1804, pp 245-246.: \"Michael Maier, der pers\u00f6nlich nach\nEngland reiste, und sich eine Zeitlang dort aufhielt, fand nicht nur die g\u00fcnstigste\nAufnahme; sondern Robert Fludd u. a. schlossen auch mit ihm die innigste Freundschaft,\nlaborirten mit ihm gemeinschaftlich, und, nachdem Maier nach Deutschland zur\u00fcckgekehrt war, theilten sie ihm noch die Resultate ihrer Forschungen und Experimente in\neiner vertrauten Correspondenz mit... Wahrscheinlich empfiengen Fludd und seine\nGenossen die erste Nachricht von der in der Fama und Confessio bekant gemachten\nRosenkreuzergesellchaft durch ihren Freund Maier.\" Unfortunately, Buhle offers us no\nevidence concerning the existence of correspondence between Fludd and Maier. The\ncontention that Maier brought Rosicrucianism to England via Fludd, who changed its\nname to 'Freemasonry' due to the disrepute into which the 'Fraternity of the Rose Cross'\nhad fallen, was also set forward by Ferdinand Katsch in his Die Entstehung und der\nwahre Endzweck der Freimaurerei. Berlin: E. S. Mittler und Sohn, 1897. The conception\nof Fludd's 'friendship' with Maier seems to have arisen on the basis that there is no\ndirect evidence to the contrary; for repetitions of the myth, see Craven, J. B. Count\nMichael Maier, Doctor of Philosophy and of Medicine, Alchemist, Rosicrucian, Mystic:\nLife and Writings. Kirkwall: William Pearce and Son, 1910, p. 6; Yates, Frances. The\nRosicrucian Enlightenment. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972, p. 81; Hubicki,\nW. \"Maier, Michael.\" In The Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 9. New York:\nScribner, 1974, p. 23; Edighoffer, Roland. Die Rosenkreuzer. M\u00fcnchen: C. H. Beck,\n1995, p. 13; \u00c2kerman, Susanna. Rose Cross over the Baltic: The Spread of\nRosicrucianism\nin Northern Europe. Leiden: Brill, 1998, p. 90. The concept of a\n'meeting' or 'friendship' was first cast into doubt by Waite in his Brotherhood of the\nRosy Cross. London: Rider and Sons, 1924, pp. 314 ff.; convincing evidence against the\nmyth is to be found in Figala, Karin and Ulrich Neumann. \"Michael Maier (1569-1622):\nNew Bio-Bibliographical Material.\" In Martels, \u0396. R. W. M. von (ed.). Alchemy\nRevisited: Proceedings of the International Conference on the History of Alchemy at the\nUniversity of Groningen, 17-19 April 1989. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990, p. 45, and Moran,\nBruce T. The Alchemical World of the German Court: Occult Philosophy and Chemical\nMedicine in the Circle of Moritz of Hessen (\u00a1572-1632). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag,\n1991, pp. 107-108.\n\nPages 37:\n28\nJung and early modern alchemy\nin \u00dcber den Wahren Ursprung der Rosenkreuzer und des Freymaurerordens\nof Christoph Gottlieb von Murr, who - amongst other things - pointed\nto certain motifs in Maier's Septimana Philosophica as evidence of\nFreemasonry's true doctrinal heritage. 110 Later in the nineteenth century\nSandys further emphasised the role of Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), the noted\nEnglish enthusiast of Rosicrucian and alchemical lore and one of the earliest\nknown Freemasons, as the chief conduit of Rosicrucian influence on\nFreemasonry. 111 In this century the Maier-Fludd-Ashmole lineage has been\npromoted by Masonic writers, notably Lennhof and Naudon. 112 Amongst\nacademic writers Frances Yates advanced a similar theory, postulating both\nRosicrucian and courtly Hermetic influences on the rise of Freemasonry\nin seventeenth century England; 113 Schick argued for the existence of\nembryonic traces of the Freemasonic grade system in the work of Maier; 114\nwhilst Stevenson has recently argued for an early and definitive Rosicrucian\ninfluence on Freemasonry in Scotland - the land which produced the first\nhint of a connection between Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry in a verse of\nthe early 1630's:\n110\nMurr, Christoph Gottlieb von. \u00dcber den Wahren Ursprung der Rosenkreuzer und des\nFreymaurerordens.\nSulzbach: Johann Esaias Seidel, 1803, pp. 75-76; von Murr's\nallusion is to the dialogue between Solomon, the Queen of Sheba and Hiram that forms\nthe structure of the Septimana Philosophica, and which is drawn from the dialogue\nconcerning the building of the temple in 2 Chronicles 2; according to von Murr, the\ndialogue's participants are represented on Maier's title page with certain 'Rosicrucians'\n(von Murr's term) sitting behind them (see figure 5). Von Murr had seen Buhle's\nforthcoming work advertised in the G\u00f6ttingischen Gelehrten Anzeigen just as he himself\nhad 'intended to go to the printers', and it seems he beat Buhle to the printing press with\nhis monograph.\n111\nIn Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, Vol. 22, 1845, pp. 11-23; quoted in Gould, Robert\nFreke. The History of Freemasonry: Its Antiquities, Symbols, Constitutions,\nCustoms,\netc. Embracing an Investigation of the records of the Organisations of the Fraternity in\nEngland, Scotland, Ireland, British Colonies, France, Germany, and the United States.\nVol. 2. Edinburgh: T.C. & E.C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, 1885, p. 115. The\nFreemason Gould provides us with a thoughtful dissenting view on the Rosicrucian\nthesis advanced by Buhle and his successors.\n112\nLennhoff, Eugen. Die Freimaurer. Nachdruck der Ausgabe von 1929. Wien: Locker\nVerlag, 1981, p. 63; Naudon, Paul. Les Origines de la Franc-Ma\u00e7onnerie:\nLe m\u00e9tier et\nle sacr\u00e9. Nouvelle \u00e9dition enti\u00e8rement refondue des Origines Religieuses et Corporatives de la Franc-Ma\u00e7onnerie (1953). N. p.: Dervy, 1991, p. 271.\n113\nYates, Frances. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Chicago: University of\nChicago Press, 1991, p. 415.\n114\nSchick, Hans. Das Altere Rosenkreuzertum: Ein Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte\nder\nFreimaurerei. Quellen und Darstellungen zur Freimaurerfrage, Vol. 1. Berlin: Nordland\nVerlag, 1942, p. 252.\n\nPages 38:\n'Secret Threads'\n29\nFor we be brethren of the Rosie Cross;\nWe have the Mason's Word and second sight. 1 1 5\nHowever, the arguments proposed by these various authors suffer from a\npaucity of hard evidence, as one might expect of any ventures into\nFreemasonic history, which was once described as \"the happiest of all\nhunting grounds for the light-headed, the fanciful, the altogether unscholarly\nand the lunatic fringe of the British Museum Reading Room.\" 116\nLess fanciful than any supposed early Rosicrucian influence on Freemasonry is the fact that the eighteenth century inheritor of the Rosicrucian\nmantle, the Gold- und Rosenkreutz Order, infiltrated Freemasonic Lodges on\nthe continent in the later eighteenth century and directly inspired the\nalchemical conceptions of the higher Freemasonic grades. The central work\nappearing from the circle of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz was Jolyfief s Der\nCompa\u00df der Weisen (1779), which placed Rosicrucian alchemical conceptions in the context of the Freemasonic doctrine of personal moral\nadvancement. 117 We may note that the nineteenth century Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia was grafted onto regular Freemasonry in a similar fashion\nto its predecessor and included higher degrees inspired by those of the Goldund Rosenkreutz\\ and we may also remark in passing that the Gold- und\nRosenkreutz grades and laws formed the basis for Waite's quasi-Masonic\nHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 118 In any event, it seems that Silberer\nwrote his Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik in his capacity as a\nFreemason as much as that of a psychoanalyst, as he devotes an entire\nchapter of his work to the subject of Rosicrucian alchemy and its survival in\nthe higher Freemasonic grades of his time (although he adheres to the theory\nof a seventeenth century Rosicrucian influence on the Lodges). 119 These are\nthe 'secret threads' running from alchemy to the psychology of the\nunconscious of which Jung speaks, and we may surmise that they were less a\n'discovery' of Jung's than of Silberer's.\n115\nFrom the Muses' Threnodie; cited in Stevenson, David. The Origins of Freemasoniy:\nScotland's Century, 1590-1710. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 102.\n116\nIbid., p. 3.\n117\nJolyfief, Augustin Anton Pocqui\u00e8res de. Der Compa\u00df der Weisen, von einem\nMitverwandten der innem Verfassung der \u00e4chten und rechten Freym\u00e4urerey. Leipzig:\nChristian Ulrich Ringmacher, 1779, also published in Berlin by Friedrich Maurer, 1782;\nBeyer, Bernhard. Das Lehrsystem des Ordens der Gold- und Rosenkreuzer. Leipzig:\nPansophie-Verlag, 1925, p. 21.\n118 p a i v r 6 ; Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 90-91.\n119\nSilberer, Probleme der Mystik, pp. 110-133.\n\nPages 39:\n30\nJung and early modern alchemy\n6. Spiritual alchemy, Rosicrucianism and the work of\nCount Michael Maier\nCan these 'secret threads', i.e. the conception of a spiritual alchemy present\nin the work of Silberer and Jung, be traced further back in history than the\nlate eighteenth century Gold- und Rosenkreutz? Silberer's entire analysis of\nalchemy in the Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik was derived from a\nsingle primary source, a certain Parabola included in the late eighteenth\ncentury Rosicrucian compilation, the Geheime Figuren der Rosenkreuzer aus\ndem l\u00f6ten und 17ten Jahrhundert.\u2122 The editor of this compilation states\nthat it had been collated from a number of \"old manuscripts\" that had been\n\"brought to light\" for the first time,121 whilst Silberer guessed that the\nParabola was either a work of \"the \u0398 R. C.\n(i.e. the work of the editor as\na member of the eighteenth century Gold- und Rosenkreutz) or \"an older\nHermetic philosopher, Fr. R. C\" (i.e. an early Rosicrucian text dating to the\nseventeenth century). 122 Both men were wrong on this count, as the Parabola\nis in fact a portion of the G\u00fcldener Tractat vom Philosophischen Steine of\nJohannes Grasshoff appearing in the Dyas Chymica Tripartita of 1625.123\nGrasshoff was a laboratory practitioner of alchemy who described himself as\na fi-ater aureae crucis, a term that demonstrates the author's loose affiliation\nwith the early Rosicrucian phenomenon. 124 Indeed, contrary to the myth\nof an early seventeenth century origin for the Gold- und Rosenkreutz\norder (to be discussed in our fourth chapter), the late seventeenth century\nItalian 'Gold and Rosy Cross' and its eighteenth century German namesake\nmay well derive their appellation from the conflation of distinct early\nseventeenth century tracts written under the 'Rose Cross' and 'Gold Cross'\nappellations.125\n120\n121\nGrasshoff, Johannes. \"Ein g\u00fcldener Tractat vom Philosophischen Steine.\" In Geheime\nFiguren der Rosenkreuzer aus dem l\u00f6ten und 17ten Jahrhundert. Vol. 2. Altona: n. p.,\nc. 1785-1790; in attempting to distance himself from Silberer's work in his memoirs,\nJung remarks: \"Silberer hatte haupts\u00e4chlich sp\u00e4tes Material benutzt, mit dem ich nicht\nviel anfangen konnte. Die sp\u00e4ten alchemistischen Texte sind phantastisch und barock;\nnur wenn man die Deutung wei\u00df, erkennt man, da\u00df auch in ihnen viel Wertvolles\nsteckt.\"; Jung, Erinnerungen, p. 208.\nGeheime Figuren, titlepage.\nSilberer, Probleme der Mystik, p. 134.\n123\nGrasshoff, Johannes. \"Ein g\u00fcldener Tractat vom Philosophischen Steine.\" In Dyas\nChymica Tripartita. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1625, pp. 55-66.\n124\nOn this point see pp. 124-125 below.\n125\nThus the 1656 Italian manuscript 'La Bugia' of the Marquise Massimiliano Palombara,\nin which mention is made of \"una compagnia intitolata della Rosea Croce o come altri\ndicono dell'Aurea Croce;\" Gabrielle, Mino. Giardino di Hermes: Massimiliano\nPalombara alchimista e rosacroce nella Roma del Seicento; con la prima edizione del codice\n122\n\nPages 40:\nSpiritual alchemy and Rosicrucianism\n31\nThe G\u00fcldener Tractat demonstrates the influence of Count Michael Maier,\nas Grasshoff restates the Renaissance doctrine of the prisca sapientia or\n'pristine wisdom' with reference to the sages of the twelve nations given in\nMaier's Symbola Aureae Mensae Duodecim Nationum (1617). 126 The whole\nis a treatise on alchemical natural philosophy drawn primarily from medieval\nsources, which Grasshoff concludes with the allegorical Parabola in much\nthe same manner that the Allegor\u00eca Bella is presented as the summation of\nMaier's Symbola Aureae Mensae. As in Maier's allegory, Grasshoff begins\nhis Parabola with a melancholic proclamation of the wretchedness of earthly\nlife before setting off on a quest for the Philosophers' Stone - in this case\nsymbolised by the Lion rather than Maier's phoenix. 127 The alchemical\nallegory was much in vogue in the early modern period; authors of that time\ndrew their inspiration from medieval alchemical allegories such as those of\nDuenech, Maria Prophetissa and Merlin, or mimicked the late antique dreamrevelations of the Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos and the Hermetic\nPoimandres.m Most early modern allegories demonstrate a similar intent to\nthat of their medieval and ancient counterparts, being mere tropes for natural\nphilosophical conceptions and laboratory procedure rather than consciously\nconstructed allusions to self-transformation. 129 Such may also be said for\nautografo della Bugia. Rome: Editrice lamia, 1986, p. 90; the manuscript in question is\nin the Vatican Library, MS Reginensis Latini 1521. Research is also said to be pending\non certain 'statutes and articles' dating to 1678 and relating to an Italian 'Gold and Rosy\nCross'; kind information of Susanna \u00c2kerman.\n126\nGrasshoff, \"G\u00fcldener Tractat,\" p. 17; Maier, Michael. Symbola\nDuodecim Nationum. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1617.\n127\nGrasshoff, \"G\u00fcldener Tractat,\" p. 55.\nAureae\nMensae\n128 p o r t ij e D u e n e c h allegory, see the Theatrum Chemicum. Vol. 3. Ursel: Zetzner, 1602, pp.\n756-757; for the allegory of Maria, see \"Practica Mariae Prophetissae in Artem\nAlchimicam.\" In Artis Auriferae. Vol. 1. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1593, pp. 319-324;\nalso \"The Practice of Mary the Prophetess in the Alchemical Art.\" British Library MS\nSloane 3641, 17th century, pp. 1-8; for the allegory of Merlin, see \"Merlini Allegoria\nProfundissimum Philosophici Lapidis Arcanum Perfecte Continens.\" In Artis Auriferae.\nVol. 1. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1593, pp. 392-396; also \"The Allegory of Merlin.\"\nBritish Library MS Sloane 3506, 17th century, pp. 74-75; for an English translation of the\nVisions of Zosimos, see Taylor, F. Sherwood. \"The Visions of Zosimos,\" Ambix, Vol. 1,\nNo. 1, May 1937, pp. 88-92; for an example of the reception of the Poimandres amongst\nearly modern alchemists, see Khunrath, Heinrich. Amphitheatrum Sapientiae\nAeternae.\nThe Amphitheatre Engravings of Heinrich Khunrath. Trans. Patricia Tahil. Edinburgh:\nMagnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, 1981.\n129\nSee, for example, Hinricus Madathanus (Adrian von Mynsicht). \"Aureum Seculum\nRedivivum.\" In Dyas Chymica Tripartita, das ist: Sechs Herzliche Teutsche Philosophische Tract\u00e4tlein. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1625, pp. 74-87; Greverus, Iodocus.\n\"Secretum Nobilissimum et Verissimum.\" In Theatrum Chemicum. Ursel: Zetzner, 1602,\npp. 783-810; also the \"Physica Naturali Rotunda\" m Aperta Arca Arcani\nArtificiosissimi.\nFrankfurt am Main: Johan Carl Unckel, 1617, pp. 117 ff. These allegories follow the\ndream-vision formula of Zosimos and the Poimandres.\n\nPages 41:\n32\nJung and early modern alchemy\nGrasshoff s Parabola, which was no doubt interpreted as a tale of spiritual\ninitiation amongst the adherents of the later Gold- und Rosenkreutz and their\nFreemasonic brethren.\nNevertheless, we would be mistaken if we were to imagine that the origins\nof spiritual alchemy can only be traced to the late eighteenth century, or to\nthe work of nineteenth century occultists as Principe and Newman suggest. If\nwe were to do so, we would not have reckoned with the work of Maier, a\nlaboratory worker who played an influential role in the early Rosicrucian\nmilieu and who has been described as \"the boldest and most consistent of the\nalchemists of the German Renaissance.\" 130 Of particular importance in this\nregard is his Allegoria Bella, which after its initial appearance in 1617 was\nreprinted in Latin in 1678 and 1749, and in English in Waite's translation of\n1893.131 Whilst Principe and Newman have - with some justification characterised Waite's translations of alchemical texts as \"adulterated by the\naddition of occultist elements and slants completely alien to the originals,\" it\nmust be said that Waite's version of Maier's allegory compares favourably\nwith the Latin original, being a slightly abridged but thematically accurate\ndepiction of a work that reveals the essentials of Maier's spiritual alchemy.\nNeedless to say, when dealing with Maier's works in the following treatise\nthere will be no recourse to the translations of other writers, adulterated or\notherwise; indeed, analyses of certain of Maier's works appear here in print\nfor the first time. The second document of central importance to the issue of\nMaier's spiritual alchemy is his autobiography, which constitutes the first\nchapter of the De Medicina Regia (1609) recently uncovered by Figala and\nNeumann at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. 132 As Maier's alchemy is\nintimately bound up with his biography, and with the pilgrimage that he\nconsidered his earthly life to be, the autobiographical elements of the\nMedicina Regia and other contemporary biographical sources will provide\nthe organisational structure for the following exploration of Maier's alchemy.\nThis juxtaposition of biography and doctrine not only enables us to build an\naccurate account of the evolution of Maier's thought over time, but also\nprovides a depiction of Maier's alchemy of which he himself would have\n130\nFigala, Karin. \"Die Exakte Alchemie von Isaac Newton.\" In Verhandlungen\nder\nNaturforschenden\nGesellschaft in Basel. Vol. 94. Basel: Birkh\u00e4user Verlag, 1983, p.\n190.\n131\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 561-607; reprinted as \"Subtilis Allegoria super\nSecreta Chymiae.\" In Museum Hermeticum Reformatum et Ampliflcatum. Frankfurt am\nMain: Sande, 1678, pp. 701-740; idem., in Museum Hermeticum Reformatum\net\nAmplificatum.\nFrankfurt am Main: Sande, 1749, pp. 701-740; \"A Subtle Allegory\nconcerning the Secrets of Alchemy.\" In The Hermetic Museum, Restored and Enlarged.\nTrans. Arthur Edward Waite. London: J. Elliott and Co., 1893, pp. 199-233.\n132\nMaier, Michael. De Medicina Regia et vere heroica, Coelidonia.\nLibrary, 12,-159, 4\u00b0 Published in Prague, 1609.\nCopenhagen, Royal\n\nPages 42:\nSpiritual alchemy and Rosicrucianism\n33\napproved - for the testimony of Maier's own writings show that, in an\nimportant sense, his life was his work.\nIn summary, the aim of the following work is to reconstruct the worldview\nof Maier through a sensitive, non-reductionist approach to the historical data,\nand to avoid violating the texts at hand by projecting contemporary categories\ninto another time and place. On this count, it must be said that the\nhermeneutic paradigm utilised by Principe and Newman in their 'translation'\nof alchemical symbolism into contemporary chemical process is alien to the\nspirit of the early modern perspective. 133 Although these authors correctly\nstate that the theosophical alchemy of Jacob Boehme - who was not\npersonally concerned with laboratory process - is of 'a different order' to the\nexperimental outlook of an author such as Basil Valentine, Principe and\nNewman anachronistically sequester religious and magical elements from\ntheir portrait of the worldview of the early modern laboratory worker:\nAlthough the works of many alchemical writers contain (often extensive) expressions of\nperiod piety, imprecations to God, exhortations to morality, and even the occasional\nappearance of an angelic or spiritual messenger, we find no indication that the vast majority\nof alchemists were working on anything other than material substances towards material\ngoals... This is not to say that there was nothing whatsoever in the broad spectrum of\nhistorical alchemy which was akin to a 'spiritual alchemy'... But Boehme's use of alchemical\nlanguage and imagery - as extensive as it is - remains clearly of a different order than, for\nexample, the practical and theoretical antimonial exercises of Basil Valentine, Alexander von\nSuchten, Eirenaeus Philalethes and others, or the rigorous Scholastic alchemy of \"Geber,\"\nAlbert the Great, Petrus Bonus, or Gaston Duelo. 1 3 4\nWhilst Principe and Newman make brief mention of the fact that the thought\nof Heinrich Khunrath and 'the Rosicrucian enthusiast', Robert Fludd,\npersisted amongst 'secret societies', the developmental continuity of Western\nesotericism is summarily dismissed on the grounds that, in the hands of such\nsocieties, \"alchemical works deliberately written to be obscure and secretive\nin their own age sometimes became meaningless in the next.\" 135 Of course,\nthe historian of esotericism cannot accept that the use of alchemical\nsymbolism within Rosicrucian or Freemasonic circles was 'meaningless';\nrather, it was drawn directly from the work of early modern alchemists such\nas Count Michael Maier - who did in fact replicate the 'antimonial exercises'\nof Basil Valentine in his laboratory practice. Spiritual alchemy is a natural\nextension of the theory of microcosmic-macrocosmic correspondence, and\nthe notion of a vital spirit animating humans, animals, vegetables and\n133\n134\n135\nSee in particular Newman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" pp. 175-185.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" pp. 397399.\nIbid., p. 387.\n\nPages 43:\n34\nJung and early modern alchemy\nminerals alike - regardless if such vitalism is the defining feature of alchemy,\nas Metzger believed. When considering the worldview of the early modern\nlaboratory worker - and even such influential figures in the development of\nmodern chemistry as Newton and Boerhaave, who both retained vitalistic\nconceptions alongside their mechanistic innovations - nothing has been said\nwhen we assert that most early modern alchemists worked on \"material\nsubstances towards material goals.\" Such an assertion merely begs the\nquestion as to the nature of matter itself in the early modern worldview, and\ndisplays precisely the presentism and positivism Principe and Newman claim\nto disown, by which contemporary notions of matter are unconsciously\nelevated to the realm of the definitive. It is surely more pertinent to inquire\ninto the nature of materiality and the scope of chemical law in the eyes of the\nearly modern alchemist, rather than counterposing a narrowly 'chemical'\nhermeneutic with a psychological model such as that proposed by Jung.\nIn our conclusion we shall return to the questions of methodology,\nhistoriography and nomenclature we have dealt with here. For now, let us\nimmerse ourselves in the world and natural magic of Count Michael Maier,\nan influential writer on the nature of alchemical Decknamen and a purveyor\nof spiritual alchemy, Rosicrucianism and pseudo-Egyptianism to later\nesoteric thinkers. In so doing we will uncover the four key elements of his\nalchemy: a doctrine of solar and astral influence; a 'chemical' interpretation\nof Greek and Egyptian mythology; a 'medicine of piety'; and a Hermetic\ntheory of correspondence, in which the alchemist's spiritual life mirrors\nlaboratory process.\n\nPages 44:\nII. Maier's formative years\n1. The context of Maier's life and thought\nCount Michael Maier, one-time physician to Emperor Rudolf II, was born in\nthe summer of 1569 in the vicinity of Kiel in staunchly Lutheran Holstein,\nwhich at that time was an ethnically German provinc\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 26 to page 44 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 44 to page 62 out of a total of 334:\nPages 44:\nII. Maier's formative years\n1. The context of Maier's life and thought\nCount Michael Maier, one-time physician to Emperor Rudolf II, was born in\nthe summer of 1569 in the vicinity of Kiel in staunchly Lutheran Holstein,\nwhich at that time was an ethnically German province of Denmark on the\nnorthern border of the Holy Roman Empire or Deutsches Reich} The greater\npart of his life spans an uneasy lull in the extensive religious and political\nhostilities engendered in the heart of Europe by the Reformation; it is against\nthis broad historical background that his life and thought should be\nunderstood. The freedoms granted by the Peace of Augsburg (1555) had not\nbeen extended to the followers of Calvin and Zwingli, and the formation of\nthe Union for the Defence of Protestant Religion in 1608 by the German\nCalvinist princes and their allies amongst the Lutheran states set the stage for\nthe fratricidal maelstrom of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). The interests\nof Rudolf II lay more in uncovering arcana than attending to affairs of state,\nand under his relatively tolerant reign humanist scholars such as Maier, be\nthey Protestant or Catholic, still formed \"a single body of cosmopolitan\nscholars\" at the imperial court in Prague.2 Nevertheless, amidst the climate of\ngrowing religious antagonism following the fall of Rudolf in 1612 Maier\ngravitated towards the patronage of the Calvinist princes of Germany. On the\neve of war he gained a position at the court of Moritz 'the Learned' of\nHessen-Kassel, a close ally of the Calvinist Elector of the Rhineland\nPalatinate, Friedrich V, and a supporter of his plans to wrest the imperial\nthrone from the Spanish-Austrian house of Habsburg.\nMoritz was the leading patron of the occult arts in the German states, and\na formidable humanist scholar; his promotion of experimental sciences such\n1\nPrior to Figala and Neumann's discovery of the De Medicina Regia, to which we will\nsoon refer, Maier's date of birth was given as 1568, on the authority of Matthew\nMerian's copperplate illustration printed in Maier's Symbola Aureae Mensae (1617) and\nAtalanta Fugiens (1617). See Figala, Karin and Neumann, Ulrich. '\"Author cui Nomen\nHermes Malavici': New Light on the Bio-Bibliography of Michael Maier (1569-1622).\"\nIn Rattansi, Piyo and Antonio Clericuzio (eds.). Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and\n17th Centuries. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994, pp. 124, 141 n.20.\n2\nEvans, R. J. W. Rudolf II and his World: A Study in Intellectual\nOxford: Oxford University Press, 1973, p. 3.\nHistory,\n1576-1612.\n\nPages 45:\n36\nMaier's formative years\nas alchemy was not only an important means of displaying the prestige and\npower of his court, but also reflected the hope of making technological\nadvances that might grant him the upper hand in his struggle against\nthe Habsburgs and the Catholic states of the fragmented empire.3 Alchemy in\nparticular promised the development of new techniques for the manipulation\nof metals (the debasement of coinage through alloying practices caused\nsevere inflation in Hessen-Kassel prior to the war), and the procurement\nof new medicines by courtiers such as Maier might bolster the health of\nthe aristocracy, if not the state as a whole. Furthermore, within the\nCalvinist aegis in Germany the Hermetic arts formed something of an\nintellectual counterculture to the Scholasticism propagated by the Jesuits - a\ncounterculture focussed on an ostensible secret society, the Brotherhood of\nthe Rosy Cross, and the literature of its supporters, amongst whom Maier\nfigured prominently. Whilst orthodox Lutheran and Calvinist theologians\nrailed against the occult sciences, which had as their goal the harnessing of\nsecret and divine powers in Nature, early Rosicrucianism offered a potent\nmixture of heterodox Protestantism, Paracelsianism, and the millennialist\ndream of a new age in which the sciences would be perfected and 'papism'\nwould be banished from the empire.\nThe rise of Rosicrucianism in Protestant Germany reflected a nascent\nGerman nationalism and indigenous 'German' preoccupations in culture; thus\nwe find the oft-repeated parallel drawn in the Rosicrucian literature between\nLuther, the reformer of theology, and Paracelsus, the liberator of medicine\nfrom its corrupted Scholastic or 'papal' state. From the twin sources of\nProtestantism and Paracelsianism there emerged in sixteenth century\nGermany a striving for a new synthesis in science and religion, a wisdom\nderived from both divine revelation and the Light of Nature. 4 This synthesis\nwas expressed on the one hand by early theosophers such as Valentin Weigel\n(1533-1588) and Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), and on the other by laboratorybound alchemists such as Heinrich Khunrath (c.1560-1605) and Oswald Croll\n(c. 1560-1608, a man who considered Weigel to be \"the true successor of\nParacelsus\"); as the first Rosicrucian manifesto, the Fama Fraternitatis\n(c.1610), stated, \"it should not be said that something is true according to\n3\n4\nMoran, Alchemical World of the German Court, pp. 171, 174-175.\nThe 'Light of Nature' is a term utilised by Paracelsus to refer to a principle that both\nconstitutes and penetrates Nature, or a principle standing 'behind Nature' whereby the\nconstitution of humans and things in the world is made meaningful; alongside this\nprinciple Croll placed the 'Light of Grace', or the principle of divine illumination: Pagel,\nWalter. Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the\nRenaissance. Basel: Karger, 1982, pp. 356-357; Gilly, Carlos. Cimelia Rhodostaurotica:\nDie Rosenkreuzer im Spiegel der zwischen 1610 und 1660 entstandenen Handschriften\nund Drucke. Ausstellung der Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica Amsterdam und der\nHerzog August Bibliothek Wolfenb\u00fcttel. Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 1995, p. 17.\n\nPages 46:\nThe context of Maier's life and thought\n37\nphilosophy, but false according to theology.\" 5 Alchemists and theosophers\nalike sought to demonstrate the complementarity of the Bible and the 'Book\nof Nature', and differed only in their emphasis on the one or the other.\nWhilst Maier once spoke nationalistically of Germany as a 'new Egypt',\nin deference to the land he believed to be the ultimate source of the\npristine knowledge inherited by the Germanic peoples, 6 it is to the Italian\nRenaissance that we must look for the doctrinal roots of the amalgamation of\nNeoplatonic, Hermetic and gnostic ideas in the German late Renaissance and in particular to the work of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499).7 A central\nfigure in the Florentine revival of Platonism and Hermeticism, Ficino\ntranslated the recently discovered Corpus Hermeticum into Latin, and revived\nthe Greek conception of 'Egyptian Hermes' as the great sage of the Egyptians\nand contemporary of Moses. 8 Revered by alchemists as the founder of their\nArt, Hermes Trismegistus or 'thrice-great Hermes' was the Greco-Egyptian\nincarnation of Thoth, the Egyptian god of science and the inventor of the\nhieroglyphs. 9 Following certain of the Church Fathers, Italian humanists such\nas Ficino saw the foreshadowing of Christianity in the texts attributed to\nHermes, and identified therein the presence of a philosophia perennis (the\n'perennial philosophy') or prisca sapientia granted directly by God to the\nancients.10 Through Ficino's misdating of the Hermetic treatises and their\nNeoplatonic contents, Hermes Trismegistus also came to be seen as the\nprimeval source of Platonism.11\nMaier was the chief exponent of the prisca sapientia doctrine amongst\nthe early modern German alchemists; his work also draws from Italian\nRenaissance conceptions of magia naturalis or natural magic, which Ficino\ndefined as the \"implanting of heavenly things in earthly objects\" by the\nphilosopher, \"who we are wont rightly to call a magician.\" 12 On this subject\n5\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica,\n65-66.\n6\nMaier, Michael. Verum Inventarti, hoc est, Mu\u00f1era Germaniae... Frankfurt am Main:\nLucas Jennis, 1619, p. 214: \"Si quid igitur utilitatis ex Chymiatria et Paracelsicis\nremediis ad Rempubl. perveniat, id veluti VERUM INVENTUM Germaniae acceptum\nreferatur, quae, ut olim Aegyptus, artium est inventrix et ingeniorum mater.\"\nPagel, Paracelsus, pp. 35 ff.\nIversen, Erik. The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition. Princeton:\nPrinceton University Press, 1993, p. 42.\n7\n8\n9\n10\n11\n12\np. 17; Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism,\npp. 24-25,\nIbid:, a reference to Hermes on the Rosetta Stone (195 BCE), the inscription that allowed\nthe eventual discovery in the early nineteenth century of the true import of hieroglyphs,\napplies to him the epithet 'Great, Great, Great'.\nFaivre, Access to Western Esotericism, p. 58.\nSchmitt, Charles B. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 275.\nIbid., p. 274.\n\nPages 47:\n38\nMaier's formative years\nMaier drew directly from his older contemporary, Giambattista della Porta\n(1535-1615), who developed the threefold division of magic as either\ndiabolic, natural or divine. To a good Lutheran such as Maier, natural magic\nwas simply the application of a deep knowledge of the occult sympathies\npresent in Nature; thus he once described the legendary Liber M. of the\nRosicrucian Fraternity as \"the book of the world (liber mundi), or the book of\nnatural magic.\" 13 The theory of sympathies and correspondences existing\nbetween the sub-lunary earth and the celestial spheres was central to Maier's\nquest for the Universal Medicine, and like his Italian Renaissance\npredecessors, astrology and the manipulation of astral influences played an\nintegral role in his work.\nThe antique doctrine of macrocosmic-microcosmic correspondence, drawn\nfrom medieval alchemical works such as the Tabula Smaragdina of Hermes\nTrismegistus and mediated by Renaissance Neoplatonism, forms the foundation of Maier's spiritual alchemy, in which the life of the soul is understood\nto correspond to the processes in the alchemical vessel by virtue of universal\n'chemical' laws or patterns. These laws are the 'signatures' in Nature\npointing towards her divine origins, or as Maier puts it, the insignia\nimpressa.14 The integral relation Maier perceived between his own life and\nthe magnum opus he strove to complete may be discerned from the tale of a\ncertain augury of fortune appearing at the time of his birth, which we shall\nnow proceed to relate.\n2. Auguries of fortune: Maier's childhood and parentage\nMichael Maier's father was a Golds ticker (gold embroiderer) by the name of\nPeter who served the Danish royalty and nobility, including King Friedrich II\nof Denmark (1559-1588) and the governor of all Schleswig-Holstein,\nHeinrich Rantzau (1526-1598; see figure 3).15 A powerful noble and patron\n13\n14\n15\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 294: \"Per librum M librum mundi seu rerum in\nmundo existentium, earumque proprietatum, aut Magiae naturalis, intelligo.\"\nMaier, Michael. Silentium post Clamores. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1617, p. 18.\nThe King of Denmark is mentioned as a patron of Peter Meier (an alternative form of the\nfamily name utilised by Maier prior to 1611) in the dedication of Maier's Cantilenae\nIntellectuales (1622), which is directed to the grandson of King Friedrich II, Duke\nFriedrich III of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf: \"Meos autem, qui qualesque fuerint, non\nsolum tota Nobilitas Holsata, sed et parens tuus, avusque Divae memoriae, quibus illi,\nquoad vixerunt, servitio fidelissimo astricti fuerunt, optime noverunt.\" That this is a\nreference to the maternal rather than paternal grandfather of Friedrich is suggested by\nMaier's visit to the 'royal court' at the age of 17 (see n. 75 below); on Duke Friedrich III\nsee the Neue Deutsche Biographie. Vol. 5. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1961, pp. 583584. According to Figala and Neumann, \"it is very likely that Peter Meier may be\n\nPages 48:\nAuguries of fortune\n39\nof the arts, it seems Rantzau entrusted Peter Maier with the brocade-work on\nthe dresses of his daughters, upon whom he lavished precious gifts of gold\nand silver.16 Peter Maier's professional concern with gold - the most noble of\nmetals, and a symbol of divine and kingly power \u2014 was a portent of things to\ncome for his son. However, he was not content that Michael should learn\nhis own handicraft, which although it had proved lucrative for his family,\nwas nevertheless a manual labour and lacked the prestige of an educated\nscientific or scholarly profession (which could provide opportunities for\nsocial advancement into the nobility).17 In order to prepare his son for a\nhigher calling, Peter had him educated in the literary arts from the tender age\nof five.18 The trajectory Maier's life took at this early stage was to reach its\nzenith in his appointment as personal physician to the Holy Roman Emperor,\nand his entrance into the ranks of the hereditary peerage as a Count Palatine\nor Pfalzgraf. However, his was by no means an easy passage to success - and\nas we shall see in the following pages, it was a success that was to be\nsomewhat transient.\nIn the course of his work Maier makes a number of autobiographical\nreferences that display a degree of reflection on his familial background and\ncareer, and offer a glimpse into the foundations of his identity. The most\nimportant of these references occur in the De Medicina Regia ( O n the Royal\nMedicine,' 1609).19 The first chapter of this document appears to constitute,\n16\n17\n18\n19\nidentified with one Peter Per/sticker, whose widow Anna in 1587 owned a house in the\nKehdenstra\u00dfe in Kiel;\" Figala and Neumann, \"Author cui Nomen Hermes Malavici,\" p.\n124.\nSteinmetz, Wiebke. Heinrich Rantzau (1526-1598): Ein Vertreter des Humanismus in\nNordeuropa und seine Wirkungen als F\u00f6rderer der K\u00fcnste. Frankfurt am Main: Peter\nLang, 1991, pp. 274-275.\nBeck, Wolfgang. Michael Maiers Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum\n- Eine Schrift\nwider die falschen Alchemisten. Doctoral thesis, Zentralinstitut f\u00fcr Geschichte der\nTechnik der Technischen Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen, 1992, p. 3.\nHubicki's assertion that Maier's studies were financed by Severin Goebel (1530-1612), a\nwell-known physician of Gdansk and K\u00f6nigsberg, are at odds with Maier's own\ntestimony in the De Medicina Regia, and seem to derive from a confusion between two\ndifferent Michael Maiers; see Hubicki, \"Maier, Michael,\" p. 23; Figala and Neumann,\n\"Author cui Nomen Hermes Malavici,\" p. 125. Indeed, the number of errors in Hubicki's\naccount of Maier's life - even if they are derived from the only sources available to him\nat the time - must cast a shadow over all his assertions. We need only mention Hubicki's\nemployment of the perennial myth of Maier's association with Robert Fludd, which was\nrefuted as early as 1924 by Arthur Waite (see above, chapter 1, n. 109), or his\nunsubstantiated suggestion that Maier 'had a hand' in the publication of the Fama\nFraternitatis (which, contrary to Hubicki, was first published in 1614). Consequently I\nhave proceeded with caution with Hubicki's testimony in the current work, and have\nused the well-documented and up-to-date findings of Figala and Neumann as my major\nsecondary source.\nSee above, chapter I, n. 132.\n\nPages 49:\n40\nMaier's formative years\nin effect, a petition for the Emperor's service in the form of a curriculum\nvitae - for Maier was well-versed in the art of tailoring his publications to\nsuit the predilections of potential patrons, and it seems unlikely that its\nappearance in Prague in a limited print-run was coincidental to his entrance\ninto the Emperor's service some short months later. In the De Medicina\nRegia Maier makes mention of a certain augury presaging his birth - an\naugury that draws an intriguing parallel between his life and the alchemical\nprocess. After demonstrating his acquaintance with the production of the\nMercury of the Philosophers - an indication he had reached the 'white' phase\nof the work 20 - Maier goes on to describe the strange experience of his\nmother when she was heavy with child:\nIndeed, from the reports of my mother I suspect some sign of augury once came to pass, if\nfaith can be held in this kind of prophesying; because I was told that three days before I was\nborn, my mother was sojourning for the sake of her peace of mind with another relative of\nmine in the countryside during the summer. As the relative went away for some time, my\nmother sat down in the grass, whereupon a dove flew into her lap, I know not why or by\nwhich instinct; and she, marvelling at its beauty and tameness, tried to catch it, at which\npoint it withdrew and flew away. Although this event may have come to pass by chance, to\nmany it appeared to be a good omen. As for me, I feel indifferently about it - unless I will be\nprovided a better destiny by God, to whom alone is due honour to all eternity. 21\nThe dove is a standard alchemical motif, relating the Christian symbolism\nof a divine power linking heaven and earth to the spiritus ascending and\ndescending within the vessel during the cyclical, purifying process of\ndistillation - hence Maier precedes the tale of his augury with a description of\nthe preparation of the Philosophical Mercury, which entails repeatedly\n\"taking a bird from its nest and placing it back again.\" 22 The medieval\nalchemists had drawn this motif from the traditional representation of the\nHoly Spirit as a dove, most commonly depicted in medieval iconology at the\nbaptism of Christ or the impregnation of Mary by the divine seminal\n20\n21\n22\nSee below, p. 66.\nIbid., p. Ci, verso'. \"Tum demum augurii de me olim concepii ex relatione materna,\nsignum aliquod suspexi, si quid eiusmodi conjecturis, fidei adhibendum sit: Nam triduo\nantequam in lucem editus dicar, mater in aestate una cum parente meo animi gratia rus\nexpaciatur, cumque ille longius secederet, haec in gramine consedit: En nescio unde aut\nquo instinctu, turtur matri sedenti in gremium advolat, cuius pulchritudinem ac cicuritatem dum admiraretur, eamque compraehendere tentaret, iterum se fuga subtraxit: Quae\nres etsi fortituito evenisse potuit, apud multos tamen locum praesagii non infelicis\nsuppleret: Apud me indifferens fiierit, donee Deus de meliori forte prospiciat, cui soli\nerit laus in aeternum.\"\nIbid.'. \"Aves quoque EX NIDO sumpsi atque iterum in nidum posui, ut philosophi\ndicunt; hoc est, Sulfur philosophorum longe aliud, quam prius existimaram, ut vidi,\nagnovi, ut et Mercurium seu aquam mineralem, et ex his duobus, Mercurium Philosophorum.\"\n\nPages 50:\nAuguries of fortune\n41\nprinciple. Here is an indication that Maier, although rarely commenting\nexplicitly on this matter, believed himself to possess a special relationship\nwith the subject of his alchemical work; furthermore, his employment of\nalchemical symbolism indicates a mode of thought at variance with the\npurely didactic use of Christian imagery in medieval alchemy described by\nObrist. For in juxtaposing his strange tale of augury with an account of the\noperation of the transmuting or seminal principle, he likens the alchemical\nvessel to his own mother's womb, and hints at a correspondence between the\nalchemical process, his own life, and the myth of Christ.\nOn the point of his 'indifference' concerning the augury, we might expect\nMaier to dissemble in this manner after making such a seemingly extravagant\nclaim, which may well have been employed as a strategy for finding favour\nin the eyes of the esoterically inclined Emperor. Nevertheless, there is every\nreason to believe that Maier was quite sincere in his personal convictions\nconcerning his 'destiny', which, as he suggests in disclaiming the augury,\nwas in need of some improvement at the leisure of God (by which we may\nalso understand the leisure of the Emperor and his divine right). Maier's was\nwithout doubt a melancholic temperament, even if he was well aware whilst\ncomposing his De Medicina Regia that the greatest living exemplar of\nmelancholy was the Emperor himself. The central expression of this\ntemperament in Maier's works is his identification of worldly suffering with\nthe nigredo or putrefactive phase of the alchemical process, upheld as\nindispensable to the Work by the medieval alchemists. In the Allegoria Bella\n('Pleasant Allegory') appending his Symbola Aureae Mensae, Maier writes:\nThere is in our chemistry a splendid substance, which is passed from master to master, in the\nbeginning of which there is misery with vinegar, but in the end of which there is truly joy\nwith gladness. And so I imagined it would eventuate with me, that in the beginning I might\ntaste much bitterness and endure much frustration, sadness and weariness, but at length I\nmight find ease and happiness. 23\nWhat exactly was this 'splendid substance' of which Maier speaks? One day\nMaier would confide to his patron, Moritz of Hessen-Kassel, that the materia\nof the Art from which gold is born is 'Tusalmat'; a Deckname or code-name\nwhich, when deciphered with the cryptographic key divulged by Borelli in\n1656, yields the term 'Saturnus'. 24 Saturn is the point of departure for both\n23\n24\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 568: \"Esse in Chemia nobile aliquod corpus, quod de\ndomino ad dominum movetur, in cuius initio sit miseria cum aceto, in fine vero gaudium\ncum laeticia, ita et mihi eventurum praesupposui, ut primo multa aspera, amara, tristia,\ntaediosa gustarem, perferrem et experirer, tandem omnia laetiora et faciliora visurus\nessem.\"\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 19, 1, p. 284 recto; Borelli, Petro.\nBibliotheca Chimica. Heidelberg: Samuel Broun, 1656, p. 254.\n\nPages 51:\n42\nMaier's formative years\nthe laboratory and spiritual aspects of Maier's alchemy, and as we shall see, it\nis Saturn which binds these two aspects together as an indivisible whole. The\nArabic alchemists and their successors, following Harranian tradition,\nbelieved that the planet or 'star' Saturn governs the metal lead. 25 Thus in his\nAtalanta Fugiens (1617) Maier quotes the Arabic author 'Rhazes' (Abu Bakr\nMuhammad ibn Zakar\u00efy\u00e2 al-R\u00e2z\u00ef, C.865-C.925) when he states that \"the gates\nof knowledge are opened by Saturn,\" and that \"lead is the father of all\ngentiles or those who love gold, and is the first gate of the arcana.\" 26 But in\nthe humanist worldview of the early modern period Saturn was bound up\nwith a wealth of associations and correspondences beyond the narrowly\nchemical. These associations, accrued over two millennia, cast some light on\nthe significance for Maier of this 'gate of knowledge'. Since antiquity Saturn\nwas considered to be the planet of old age, which on account of its slow\nrevolution and its position as the furthest planet beneath the fixed stars had\nbeen associated by the Greeks with the deity Chronos - that is to say, Time. 27\nFrom these earliest origins Chronos-Saturn had taken on a contradictory\naspect, being both the father of gods and men and the devourer of his\nchildren, on the one hand 'a ruler of the nether gods' exiled beneath the earth,\nand on the other the ruler of the Golden Age and a god of fertility. 28 His\nrepresentation with a scythe led to the medieval association of Saturn with\nDeath as the Reaper. 29 But the correspondence that is most significant for\nan understanding of the overarching spirit governing Maier's alchemy is the\nninth century Arabic association of the planet, on account of its dark colour,\nwith the melancholy temperament. 30 On this account Ficino once wrote that\n25\n26\n27\n28\n29\n30\nAccording to that tradition, stemming from at least the sixth century BCE, Saturn\ngoverns lead; Jupiter, tin; Mars, iron; Venus, copper; Mercury, mercury; the Moon,\nsilver; and the Sun, gold; Haage, Alchemie im Mittelalter, pp. 27, 203 \u03b7. 67.\nMaier, Michael. Atalanta Fugiens, hoc est, Emblemata nova de secretis\nnaturae\nchymica. Oppenheim: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1617, discourse 22: \"Saturnus omnium\ngentilium aut potius aureolorum pater est, et prima porta arcanorum: Cum hoc, inquit\nRhasis in epist. aperiuntur portae scientiarum.\" The conception that lead is the 'father of\nall metals' can be traced to Greek authors in the first century CE; see Lippman, E. O.\nvon. Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie. Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1978, p. 59.\nKlibansky, Raymond et. al. Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural\nPhilosophy, Religion and Art. Nelson: London, 1964, pp. 136-137.\nAccording to Klibansky, the Roman association of Saturn - their god of agriculture with Chronos confirmed a contradiction already inherent in the Greek deity; ibid., pp.\n134-135.\nIbid., pp. 185-186.\nIbid., p. 127. In Klibansky's words, \"the polarity of the notion of Kronos led to two\nopposing basic attitudes... The Saturn to whom the lethargic and vulgar belonged was at\nthe same time venerated as the planet of high contemplation, the star of anchorets and\nphilosophers. Nevertheless, the nature and destiny of the man born under Saturn, even\nwhen, within the limits of his condition, his lot was the most fortunate, still retained a\n\nPages 52:\nAuguries of fortune\n43\nSaturn \"seldom denotes ordinary characters and destinies, but rather people\nset apart from the rest, divine or bestial, blissful, or bowed down by the\ndeepest sorrow.\" 31\nThe melancholic attitude was pervasive - one might even say fashionable\n- in the early modern period. In ideological terms, this popularity was\nderived from the humanist appropriation of the classics; for the pseudoAristotelian Problema XXX. 1 (a tract probably written by Theophrast, a\npupil of Aristotle) had associated the melancholic disposition with spiritual\nexaltation and divine genius, and not only tragic heroes but poets,\nphilosophers and statesmen were believed to derive their greatness from\nmelancholy. 32 With the conjunction of humanist learning and alchemical\nlore in the Renaissance, alchemists too were considered to hold a special\nrelationship to melancholy: as the sixteenth century Italian alchemist Flavio\nGirolamo once asked, \"why is it said that the age of Saturn was the age of\ngold, unless it is because gold is not procured except by melancholy and\nSaturnine contemplatives?\" 33 The centrality of Saturn's place in Maier's\nalchemy was adopted by Newton, who similarly considered lead to be 'the\nmother of all metals'; but in his thought the term is largely divested of its\npsychological sense, which is to the fore in Maier's work. Maier depicts\nSaturn in the emblem from the Symbola Aureae Mensae that accompanied his\nAllegoria Bella in its later re-prints; there the alchemist demonstrates the\nmetamorphosis of Saturn (lead), who tends to trees with flowers of gold and\nsilver (figure 2).\nIf a certain aspect of Maier's life was in some way equivalent to\nalchemical putrefaction or the unpurified leaden state of the alchemical\nsubject - as our quotation from the Allegoria Bella explicitly states - what\nexactly were the sources of the 'bitterness, frustration, sadness and\nweariness' that he alludes to in his writings? In the course of this work those\nsources will become evident as we consider the progress of Maier's career,\nand we will discover that his life was governed by a spirit of paradox in\nkeeping with that central motif of the alchemical opus, the coniunctio\noppositorum. For it was precisely his life-long toil to procure the Universal\nMedicine that formed the nigredo phase of Maier's spiritual alchemy.\n31\n32\n33\nbasis of the sinister; and it is on the idea of a contrast, born of darkness, between the\ngreatest possibilities of good and evil, that the most profound analogy between Saturn\nand melancholy was founded... Like melancholy, Saturn menaced those in his power,\nillustrious though they might be, with depression, or even madness.\" Ibid., pp. 158-159.\nIbid., p. 159.\nIbid., pp. 15 ff.\nQuoted in Brann, Noel. \"Alchemy and Melancholy in Medieval and Renaissance\nThought: A Query into the Mystical Basis of their Relationship,\" Ambix, Vol. 32, No. 3,\n1985, p. 128.\n\nPages 53:\n44\nMaier's formative years\nIn the pages of the De Medicina Regia Maier relates to the reader a\nnumber of hardships he has endured, all of which stem from his struggles to\nestablish a career.34 \"The ascent is not easy, for those who seek the steep\nways\" - according to the verses that Maier quotes when introducing his\neducational qualifications in the De Medicina Regia, one must spend\nsleepless nights in toil (the Latin translates literally as \"working oneself to\ndeath\") in order to find eventual success.35 It was this insomniac lifestyle that\nwould later lead Maier to adopt the owl as the symbol of the alchemist and\nthe true Rosicrucian, a fact which we shall explore further in our fourth\nchapter. Nevertheless, Maier tells us that he was filled with such ardour for\nlearning as a child, that when his father sometimes threatened to dispatch him\nto 'another kind of profession' - i.e. the career of an artisan - he would burst\ninto tears. 36 It was just this threat of sliding back towards the ranks of the\nuneducated masses - a threat that was ever-present in Maier's tenuous\nacademic and professional existence - that played such a great role in\ngenerating the elitist occult mentality of Maier.\nThe young Maier's love of learning was such that he studied not only the\nusual Trivium at the district school (grammar, rhetoric and logic) but also\nmusic and the art of poetry.37 He would later integrate these pursuits closely\nwith his alchemical work; from the fugues of the Atalanta Fugiens to the\ntriad verses of the Cantilenae Intellectuales, music and poetry would become\na vehicle for Maier to express the universal harmony or 'chemical' order of\nthe cosmos he perceived. Following the death of his father when Maier was\nonly thirteen years of age, his mother took over the expenses of his education,\nand he spent two years at a 'more famous school', where he further cultivated\nhis skills in Latin poetry. 38 Concerning the four years he spent from February\nof 1587 at the University of Rostock, where he studied physics, mathematics,\nlogic and astronomy under Heinrich Bruchaeus, 39 Maier tells us that he\n34\n35\n36\n37\n38\n39\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Ai recto.\nIbid., p. Ai verso\u00b7. \"Non levis ascensus, si quis petat ardua, sudor/ Plurimus hunc tollit,\nnocturnae insomnis olivae/ Immoritur, delet, quod mox lauda verat in se.\"\nIbid., p. Ai recto'. \"Postquam a quinto pueritiae anno cura paterna literis semel addicatus\nfuissem, tantum voluptatis etiam in primis earum radicibus, quae alias juventuti amarae\nsunt, hausi, ut si quando pater minitaretur, sese ad aliud officii genus me consecraturum,\nin lachrymas statim irrumperem.\"\nIbid.\nIbid.: \"Anno aetatis 16 ad aliam Scholam celebriorem perrexi, in qua sumptibus maternis\n(nam pater ante biennium obierat) duos annos moratus, praeter alia, poesin uberius\nexcolere caepi.\"\nBruchaeus (1530-1593) was a professor of medicine and mathematics at the University\nof Rostock from 1567; he was 'the most significant personality' in the medical faculty\nthere, and was wont to combine medical, astronomical, philosophical and physical\ntheories in his works. That he was in all likelihood Maier's teacher is borne out by the\n\nPages 54:\nThe influence of Governor Heinrich Rantzau\n45\nprefers not to relate the injuries inflicted upon him there by his harsh fortune.\nWe are only told that he pushed himself through his course by means of his\nmental strength for as long as he was able.40 These difficulties seem to have\nhad some bearing on the fact that he returned home without a degree in 1591,\na failure that Neumann and Figala suggest was occasioned by financial\ndifficulties; for in a letter to Heinrich Rantzau dated the 18th of June, 1590,\nwe find Maier recommending himself as a client for the patronage of his\nfather's benefactor.\n3. The influence of Governor Heinrich Rantzau\nIt is not clear whether Maier's bid for patronage was successful. His letter\nto Rantzau was written from his study-room at Rostock University, \"in\nward G of the College of Philosophy,\" more than six months prior to\nhis undistinguished departure - a fact that indicates financial aid was\nforthcoming from some source.41 We may also note that he had sufficient\nfinancial means to enter the University of Frankfurt an der Oder in 1592.\nWhatever the case may have been, it was the humanist climate fostered by\nHeinrich Rantzau that was decisive for the intellectual development of Maier,\nas Beck has asserted.42 Indeed, regardless of the love Maier may have felt for\nhis father, there is no doubt that Rantzau was his principle role model from an\nearly age, being at once the power behind his father's wealth and an exemplar\nof the Lutheran humanist nobility to which Maier aspired. Rantzau had\nstudied at the University of Wittenberg, boarding there at Luther's very\nhouse; he was both a patron of the arts and the author of numerous treatises\non such diverse subjects as astrology, astronomy, medicine and economics, as\nwell as the history and art of war.43 Amongst those scholars whose careers he\nfact that his Institutiones spherae (1584) is cited by Maier in the course of his Septimana\nPhilosophica; Bruchaeus also taught at Rostock until the time of his death in 1593. See\nKrabbe, Otto. Die Universit\u00e4t Rostock im F\u00fcnfzehnten und Sechzehnten\nJahrhundert.\nVol. 1. Rostock: Adlers Erben, 1854, pp. 708-711; Biographisches\nLexikon der\nHervorragenden \u00c4rzte aller Zeiten und V\u00f6lker. Vol. 1. Berlin: Urban & Schwarzenberg,\n1962, p. 727; Biographie Universelle, Vol. 6. Paris: L. G. Michaud, 1820, p. 70; Maier,\nMichael. Septimana Philosophica. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1620, p. 8.\n40\n41\n42\n43\nIbid., pp. Ai recto-Ai verso: \"Deinde ad Academiam me conferens, bonas artes, quoad\npotui legendo, scribendo, exercendo, disputando, tracta vi per quadriennium: Quas\ninterim fortunae novercantis injurias passus sim, satius erit, hoc loco silere, quam\nreferre: Nam tum carminis illius, quod nunquam non in ore habui, veritatem experiebar.\"\nIbid., p. 328.\nBeck, Michael Maiers Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum,\np. 3.\nHansen, Reimer. \"Der Friedensplan Heinrich Rantzaus und die Irenik in der Zweiten\nReformation.\" In Schilling, Heinz (ed.). Die reformierte Konfessionalisierung\nin\n\nPages 55:\n46\nMaier's formative years\nsustained was the famous Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), a\nfounder of the geo-heliocentric cosmology utilised by Maier. 44 The Rantzau\nfamily was closely associated with the Danish royal family; Heinrich's father\nJohann was a general of King Christian III (r. 1536-1559), who gained the\nDanish throne with the benefit of Johann's military successes and established\nLutheranism as the official state religion in 15 3 6.45 In subsequent decades the\nmight of the Danish court and the relative stability of the lands under its\npower led to a steady growth in literary and scientific activity, a development\nin which Heinrich took up a central role.46\nMaier's letter to Heimich Rantzau, written in verse form and replete with\nclassical allusions employed to extol the glory of his father's patron, reflects\nnot only this impressive efflorescence of late Renaissance humanism in\nDanish Holstein, but constitutes the earliest example of Maier's deft hand\nwith the courting of patrons. Drawing from Cicero and Ovid, Maier deals at\nlength with the themes of fame and mortality:\n...why should we undertake such labour in the course of life, which is so brief and\ninsignificant? Certainly our mind, if it anticipates nothing of the future and keeps all thoughts\nwithin the boundaries with which the length of life is circumscribed, neither weakens itself\nwith great distress nor lets itself be tormented by so much sleeplessness and trouble, nor\nstruggles against life itself. But there lives within the best people a certain virtue, which\ndrives on the mind day and night with the spur of fame, and warns that the memory of our\nname should not pass away with the end of life, but should be kept alive for all posterity. 47\nAlthough derived from a classical source and addressed to Rantzau, these\nwords reflect something of Maier's own mindset, particularly in their preoccupation with the subjects of hardship, restlessness and death; for the\n44\n45\n46\n47\nDeutschland - Das Problem der \"Zweiten Reformation\". G\u00fctersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1986,\npp. 360-361.\nThe first edition of Brahe's Astronomiae Instauratele Mechanica (1598) was issued from\nRantzau's castle in Wandsbek; see Hannaway, Owen. \"Laboratory Design and the Aim\nof Science: Andreas Libavius versus Tycho Brahe,\" Isis, Vol. 77, 1986, p. 589.\nSteinmetz, Heinrich Rantzau, pp. 24-25.\nIbid., p. 17; Hansen, \"Der Friedensplan Heinrich Rantzaus,\" p. 362.\nFigala, Karin and Ulrich Neumann. \"Ein Fr\u00fcher Brief Michael Maiers (1569-1622) an\nHeinrich Rantzau (1526-1598): Einf\u00fchrung, Lateinischer Originaltext und Deutsche\n\u00dcbersetzung,\" Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences, Vol. 35, No. 114, 1985,\np. 320: \"...quid est quod in hoc tam exiguo vitae curriculo et tarn brevi, tantis nos in\nlaboribus exerceamus? Certe si nihil animus praesentiret in posterum, et si, quibus\nregionibus vitae spacium circumscriptum est, eisdem omnes cogitationes terminaret\nsuas, nec tantis se laboribus frangeret neque tot curis vigiliisque angeretur, nec toties de\nvita ipsa dimicaret. Nunc insidet quaedam in optimo quoque virtus, quae noctes et dies\nanimum gloriae stimulis concitat atque admonet, non cum vitae tempore esse dimittendam commemorationem nominis nostri, sed cum omni posteritate adaequandam.\"\nDrawn from Cicero, Pro Archia: see Figala and Neumann, idem.\n\nPages 56:\nThe influence of Governor Heinrich Rantzau\n47\nvestiges of Maier's life and work repeatedly affirm that he too believed a\nnobler spirit must struggle with earthly existence. Maier again draws on\nCicero when he states that fame is the highest reward for virtue, providing us\nwith consolation in the face of death.48 Those men who reach the heights of\nfame are, as it were, ascending into heaven; and it is Heinrich Rantzau,\nwhose repute is like \"a victory wreath stretching from the mountains of Crete\nto the Libyan Sea,\" who has ascended such heights that barely any man could\nclimb higher. 49 Having flattered his would-be benefactor thus, Maier reminds\nRantzau of the high regard he once held for his parents, and of the day he led\nthe solemn funeral procession that carried his father Peter on his last journey\nthrough the city.50 After such eloquent and undoubtedly heart-felt words,\nRantzau would have found the brief plea for patronage which ends Maier's\nletter difficult to refuse, particularly given his own love for Latin verse\ncomposition.\nIn the course of his letter Maier also discloses the early sources of his\nfascination with Egypt, which would later be expressed in the strange\nEgyptology of his Arcana Arcanissima, and in his definitive binding of\npseudo-Egyptian lore to early Rosicrucianism. In another adulatory passage,\nMaier states that Rantzau's love for his Fatherland is such that he has erected\n'heaven-high' pyramids and obelisks to the greater glory of the state of\nHolstein. 51 This is a reference to Rantzau's penchant for the construction of\n'Egyptian' monuments; for Rantzau partook in the Renaissance fascination\nwith the religion of Egypt and its cult of the sun, however imperfectly they\nwere known prior to the deciphering of hieroglyphics in the early nineteenth\ncentury. In 1578 he completed the construction of a pyramid on a hill in\nNordroe, and in 1588 another was built in Segeberg, the administrative and\ngeographical centre of Holstein where Peter Maier had been employed. These\nbuildings not only symbolised the power and eternal fame of the Danish\nmonarchy, but also gave expression to Rantzau's astrological pre-occupation\nwith the nature of the sun's course.52 Despite the 'Egyptomania' that swept\n48\n49\n50\n51\n52\nIbid.\nIbid., p. 322; the city of Gortis on Crete was the capital of the Roman province of Libya.\nIbid., p. 326: \"Imprimis enim patrem meum, Petrum Meierum, phrygionem, civem\nchiloniensem filiarum tuarum vestibus acu pingendis Segebergae praefecisti, ubi etiam\neo in opere vita defunctum, ipse funus ex oppido, solenni ritu una deduxisti et\nhonorificentissime per subditos tuos Chilonium transvehi curasti.\"\nIbid., p. 322: \"Incredibilem tuum erga patriam amorem declarant tot monumenta ad eius\nornatum erecta, tot tantaeque pyramides c\u00e1elo eductae, tot obelisci, tot tamque variae\nstructurae, tot aedificia in Holsatiae urbibus splendidissime extracta.\"\nSteinmetz, Heinrich Rantzau, pp. 251 ff.; on one side of his pyramid at Nordroe,\nconstructed in 1578, Rantzau placed a sun-dial in order to test the theory that the course\nof the sun might alter over many years; on the other side of the pyramid were the letters\nD-T ET U S (Deo trino et uni sacrum).\n\nPages 57:\n48\nMaier's formative years\nEurope in the Renaissance and early modern period, such monuments were\nrare in the German-speaking lands of the sixteenth century, and they must\nhave left a lasting impression on the young Michael Maier. 53 Significantly,\nMaier makes another appeal to Rantzau's Egyptological interests when he\nmentions in his letter that the Egyptians constructed a two-faced statue of\n'Mercury', which depicted on one side a young man in his prime, and on the\nother a venerable man of ripe old age; according to Maier, their intention\nwas to demonstrate that the bravery and energy of the puer must be joined\nwith the wisdom of the senex, qualities that are indeed united in the person\nof Rantzau. 54 Here we have Maier's earliest reference to Mercury, and to\nthe coniunctio oppositorum that would become a central element of his\nalchemical imagination.\n4. Galenism and Maier's studies at Frankfurt an der Oder\nFurther sources of Maier's alchemical worldview - both ideological and\nexperiential - are to be found in the records relating to his university\neducation. The library of the Strahov monastery in Prague houses a copy of\nthe Theses Summam Doctrinae de Temperamentis Corporis Humani Maier\ndefended for his Master of Arts at Frankfurt an der Oder on June the 17th,\n15 92.55 These theses concern the four temperaments and are purely\nAristotelian and Galenic in character.56 Although it was the custom in\n53\n54\n55\n56\nIbid.\nFigala and Neumann, \"Ein Fr\u00fcher Brief,\" pp. 322, 323 n. 22: Maier's reference is in fact\nto a Greco-Egyptian depiction of Hermes (Roman 'Mercury'), appropriated by the\nRomans in their depictions of the deity Janus.\nFersius, Johannes. Theses Summam doctrinae de Temperamentis\nCorporis\nhumani\nbreviter complexae, ad disputandum publice; Propositae a\nM. Iohanne\nFersio\nStrelensis, de quibus iuvante Deo respondebit Michael Meierus Holsatus. Frankfurt am\nMain: Sciurianis, 1592. These theses were independently uncovered by Figala and\nNeumann at around the same time as my own discovery of them, and formed the subject\nof a seminar by their student Bernhard Zagler at the Deutsches Museum, M\u00fcnchen, 14th\nof July 2000.\nGalen (130-199 CE), the personal physician to Emperor Marcus Aurelius, drew above all\nfrom the natural philosophy of Aristotle and the pre-Socratics in the construction of his\nphysiology. In the course of its development from antiquity Galenism was modified\nmany times, most significantly by the Arabic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes, who\nhad a substantial influence on the Scholastic Galenism that dominated the medieval\nuniversities. Jean Fernel (1497-1558) systematised these various developments in his\nUniversa Medicina (1544); in his work the complicated dualistic Galenic hierarchy of\nthe rational, eternal soul and its subordinate organs, humours and elements continued to\nmirror the hierarchy of the medieval cosmos with its divine and angelic powers. In\nMaier's time Galenism was still a highly influential physiological system, despite the\n\nPages 58:\nMaier's studies at Frankfurt an der Oder\n49\nMaier's time for students to give an oral defence and elaboration of the theses\nof their professor rather than to write an original work, this short tract reveals\nthe basic natural philosophical conceptions underlying Maier's alchemy. The\ntheses themselves are the work of Johannes Fersius (7-1611), a Catholic\ndoctor of philosophy, theology and medicine. 57 Frankfurt an der Oder had\nbeen Lutheran since 1539, and in the late sixteenth century the university\nthere was a well-known centre for German humanism, 58 with an attendant\nspirit of cross-confessional tolerance - a fact demonstrated by Fersius'\nauthorship of a conciliatory tract commending the early Czech reformer Jan\nHuss. 59 Despite the fact that Maier's sympathies would undergo something of\na transformation in the antagonistic religious climate leading up to the Thirty\nYears War, and that he would one day issue sharp invectives against the\ncorrupt 'papal medicine', it seems that Fersius was an important early\ncontributor to the overwhelmingly Aristotelian-Galenic elements of his\nmedical theory.\nThe foundation of the Aristotelian-Galenic system is expressed in the first\nthesis of the Theses Summam Doctrinae, in which it is stated that the human\nbody is composed of the four elements - earth, water, air and fire - and is\nsubject to 'natural mutation'. 60 This is a reference to the fact that the human\nbody partakes in the mutability of the elements, which according to the\nAristotelian system are interchangeable by virtue of their common properties,\nearth being 'cold' and 'dry', water 'cold' and 'moist', air 'hot' and 'moist'\nand fire 'hot' and 'dry'. 61 Whilst the body is constructed 'artfully and\nmethodically' from the elements by the work of Nature, the first thesis goes\non to state that the body's gender and individuality are evidence of the\n\"judgment of a most wise Architect\" - an intimation that Nature is the\n57\n58\n59\n60\n61\ninroads made against Scholasticism by Paracelsus and his followers. For an account of\nthese developments, see Fuchs, Thomas. Die Mechanisierung des Herzens. Frankfurt am\nMain: Suhrkamp, 1992, pp. 29-39.\nJocher, Christian Gottlieb. Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon.\nVol. 2. Leipzig: Gleditsch,\n1750, p. 587.\nFigala and Neumann, \"Michael Maier,\" p. 37.\nFersius, Johannes. Commendatici Martyrii Beatorum Martyrum Ioannis Hussi et\nHieronymi Pragensis. Wittemberg: Johannes Cratonis, 1586.\nThesis I: \"Corporis humani compages mutationibus naturalibus obnoxia, naturae opificio\ne quatuor simplicissimorum corporum substantiis ea arte ac ratione constructa est, quae\net huic generi, et singulis eius individuis sapientissimi Architecti iudicio convenire visa\nest, secundum quam vires illorum primordiorum permixtas varios efficaciae suae gradus\nobtinere, partim iudicio assequimur, partim sensu ipso experimur.\"\nThe cyclical transmutation of elements is described in detail by Aristotle in his De\nGeneratione et Corruptione, which formed the foundation of medieval alchemical\nlaboratory practice: Aristotle, De Generatione et Corruptione, II 3-4. For a discussion of\nAristotle's schema as it relates to alchemy, see Holmyard, E. J. Alchemy. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1957, pp. 19-22.\n\nPages 59:\nMaier's formative years\n50\nassistant or 'handmaiden' of God, a pervasive conception in the alchemical\ncorpus which Maier was to study. The four fluids or 'humours' circulating in\nthe human body correspond to the four elements - cold and dry 'black bile',\ncold and moist phlegm, hot and moist blood, and hot, dry 'yellow bile'. 62\nAccording to the third thesis, states of health (temperance) and disease\n(intemperance) correspond to a balance and imbalance of humours in the\nhuman body; for example, the melancholic fever or quartan which would\nafflict Maier in his later life was the result of the dominance of black bile.63\nIn their turn, the four elements and their properties correspond to various\nother phenomena in the stratified cosmos, such as the seasons, geographical\nlocations and stages of life, which also hold sway on the temperance or\nintemperance of the human body. The traditional medieval system of\ncorrespondences, 64 although admitting to some variations, may be illustrated\nin the following way:\nelement\nair\nfire\nearth\nproperties\nwarm, moist\nwarm, dry\ncold, dry\ncold, moist\ncolour\nred\nyellow\nblack\nwhite\nhumour\nblood\nyellow bile\nblack bile\nphlegm\ntemperament\nsanguine\ncholeric\nmelancholic\nphlegmatic\nstage of life\nchildhood\nprime\ndecline\nold age\nseason\nspring\nsummer\nautumn\nwinter\nregion\nsouth\neast\nnorth\nwest\nwater\nFersius' work differs from these correspondences in minor respects. Thus\nthe theses suggest that childhood is dominated by the sanguine humour,\nblood, and is the 'spring' of life; youth is dominated by yellow bile, being\npredisposed to anger; middle age is a temperate or balanced time; and old\nage is cold and dry, corresponding to black bile or melancholy. 65 Although\ncertain regions of the earth may possess particular properties, the east is\ngenerally warm and dry, the west is cold and moist, the south is warm and\n62\nThe key text on this matter is Galen's De Naturalibus\nMechanisierung des Herzens, p. 217.\n63\nThesis III: \"Proinde cum excessus et defectus medii cuiusdam respectu dicantur: duae\nerunt temperamentorum species: Temperatum et Intemperatum. Temperatum quidem, in\nquo qualitatum primarum omnium par est robur, nec ulla aliam superai: Intemperatum\nvero, in quo quaedam superant, quaedam superantur.\"\n64\nFor a detailed discussion of this system of correspondences and its development in the\nclassical and medieval periods, see Klibansky, Saturn and Melancholy.\nThesis IX: \"Aetas puerorum et adolescentum calida et h\u00famida est: florida aetas, calida et\nsicca: matura, temperata: senectus, frigida et sicca.\" On this variation in the age\napportioned to melancholy, see Klibansky, ibid., p. 10.\n65\nFacultatibus;\nsee Fuchs, Die\n\nPages 60:\nMaier's studies at Frankfurt an der Oder\n51\nmoist, the north is cold and dry.66 We are told that such factors of location,\nage and season must be taken into account in the course of diagnosis, which\nis to be carried out by means of the senses through the temperate doctor's\ntouch, as well as through a more exacting judgment and reasoning. 67 The\nwording of the sixth thesis suggests that Maier was required to expound at\nlength on this use of judgment, and to supply case examples supporting his\nassertions. 68\nThere are a number of specific points in the theses that bear upon\nMaier's later alchemical practice. Most noteworthy is their mention of the\ninfluence on the human body of the fixed stars, and of the 'moving stars' or\nplanets, which by virtue of their rays and position in the Zodiac preserve\nparticular qualities in the sensitive body of the child at the moment of birth.69\nAstrology played a significant role in Maier's laboratory experiments, as he\nbelieved that certain operations must be carried out at propitious times, in\norder to utilise the influence of the planets' virtue-imparting rays on the\nalchemical subject. We may note that the theory of astral influence, although\ncommonplace in medieval and early modern natural philosophy, lay in\nopposition to the thought of Maier's teacher at Rostock - for Bruchaeus\nresolutely rejected the idea on the grounds that it negated free will, making\nhuman beings into slaves of the heavens and unanswerable for their\nconduct. 70\nAnother basic component of Maier's medical worldview mentioned in the\ntheses is the influence of food and drink on human temperament, which\ntogether with the seasons, geographical location and air temperature are the\nmajor non-constitutional factors impinging on the development of the human\nbody. According to the nineteenth thesis, the liver 'cooks' incoming\nsubstances \"in order that warm food may beget warmer blood, and cold food\n66\n67\nThesis XIII: \"Regionum autem, praeterquam quod quaelibet peculiares quasdam obtinet\nproprietates, Orientalis, calida sicca, Occidentalis frigida h\u00famida, meridionalis calida\nh\u00famida, septentrionalis frigida sicca censetur.\"\nThesis V: \"Earum vero temperatura iudicio potius, compositionem ipsarum considerante,\nquam tactu deprehenditur. E contrario autem de totius corporis temperamento tactus\nmanus hominis temperati facile decernit: iudicium vero ratiocinando non prorsus aeque\nfacile.\"\n68\nThesis VI: \"Argumenta huiusmodi ratiocinationis suppeditant caussae, effectus, et\nquaedam adiuncta.\"\n69\nThesis VIII: \"Universalis est motus coelestis, vel astrorum positus ad momentum\nnativitatis. Etenim Luminare utrumque, eorumque et Horoscopi signum, et his radio\npartili addicti Planetae qualitatum primarum virtutem obtinent, quas in tenello infantuli\ncorpusculo excitant.\"\n70\nHeidorn, G\u00fcnter. Geschichte\nF\u00fcnfhundertf\u00fcnfzig-Jahr-Feier\nWissenschaften, 1969, p. 41.\nder Universit\u00e4t\nder Universit\u00e4t.\nRostock 1419-1969: Festschrift\nzur\nVol. I. Berlin: Deutscher Verlag der\n\nPages 61:\n52\nMaier's formative years\ncolder blood.\" 71 In the Galenic system it is the calor innatus ('innate heat')\nindwelling in the body that allows first the stomach and then the liver to\n'cook' the elemental properties of food and drink in this way, so transforming\nthem into the spiritus vegetalis carried by venous blood, which then courses\nfrom the liver to the corporeal peripheries.72 In like manner the heart\nproduces the subtler spiritus Vitalis, spreading warmth and vitality to the\nbody via the arterial system; and the brain produces the most subtle spiritus\nanimalis, which streams through the nerves (considered by the Galenists to\nbe hollow) and imparts sensitivity and motion to the sense organs and\nmuscles. 73 The fundamental driving force in this vitalistic schema remains the\ncalor innatus, and its seat is the heart, which is the central organ of the\nhuman body; to the extent that it is the source of human vitality, the heart\ncorresponds to the cosmic seat of warmth and life, the sun.74 As we shall\ndiscover when considering Maier's De Circulo Physico, Quadrato (1616),\nthese ancient conceptions of innate heat and the influence of food and drink\non temperament, when coupled with the alchemical conception of the sun's\nspecial relation to gold, would form the theoretical foundations of Maier's\n'mercurial medicine' - the temperance-imparting medicine par excellence.\nIn the De Medicina Regia, Maier tells us that during the year following the\nreceipt of his Masters degree at Frankfurt an der Oder, he \"entered the royal\ncourt (aulam Caesareum),\" which appears to be a reference to the court of\nChristian IV (r.1588-1648), King of Denmark. This can be deduced from the\nfact that Maier tells us he had visited this same court at the age of seventeen,\nwhich would have been during the last years of the reign of Christian's father\nFriedrich II (r. 1559-1588) - a patron of Maier's father. 75 It also seems likely\nthat the connections Maier made during this second visit to the royal court\nbore some important fruit. 76 Following this visit he underwent practical\n71\n72\n73\n74\n75\n76\nThesis XIX: \"Etsi enim humores suam a cibo et potu sortiuntur temperaturam: tarnen\nepatis coquentis calore variantur, ita, ut ex eodem cibo calidus calidiorem sanguinem,\nfrigidus frigidiorem generet.\"\nThus the Galenic model depicted a centrifugal motion of blood; it was the discovery of\nthe circulation of blood by Harvey in 1628 which was a central factor in the downfall of\nthe Aristotelian-Galenic paradigm. Fuchs, Die Mechanisierung des Herzens, p. 37.\nIbid., p. 36.\nThe centrality of the heart as the arche of the body and its relation in the macrocosm to\nthe sun is a conception stemming from Aristotle which was later taken up by the Stoics;\nsee Pagel, William Harvey's Biological Ideas, pp. 25, 81.\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Ai verso: \"In qua cum ex amicorum suasu, Anno aetatis\n24. Magisterii gradum recepissem, publiceque aliquoties disputassem, post annum\ndomum ad officium aliquod subeundum redii: Prius tamen in aulam Caesaream, ubi tum\nante sexennium quoque fuissem, commigravi...\"\nSuch is suggested by the fact that the 'period of service' Maier undertook on his return\nfrom Frankfurt an der Oder to which he refers in his De Medicina Regia took place after\nhis 'entrance' into the aulam caesaream', see previous note.\n\nPages 62:\nMaier's studies at Fr\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 44 to page 62 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 62 to page 80 out of a total of 334:\nPages 62:\nMaier's studies at Frankfurt an der Oder\n53\nmedical training with Matthias Carnarius (7-1620), who since 1591 had been\na personal physician to Duke Johann Adolf of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf,\na son of King Friedrich II who also had connections with Maier's family. 77\nThis period of training was of three years duration, commencing when Maier\nwas twenty-three years of age. Although Figala and Neumann suggest that\nCarnarius took \"a fatherly interest\" in his trainee, 78 Maier would later\ndescribe Carnarius as his most intimate friend, being bound to him by 'soul,\nstudy, and Fatherland' : terms of endearment that suggest Carnarius, although\nsome ten years his senior, enjoyed a less formal and more confiding\nrelationship with Maier. 79 By all accounts Carnarius was a very successful\nman, who bequeathed to his heirs not only a large library of medical works\nbut also a considerable sum of money. His true family name was de\nVleeschouwer; his father Johannes was from Gent, the centre of early\nCalvinism in Europe, and had also attended the duke of Schleswig-HolsteinGottorf as personal physician after serving as a Professor of Medicine at\nPadua University. 80\nDuring this period of training under Carnarius, Maier tells us he could not\nresist carrying out certain chemical experiments, including the hardening of\nmercury with 'smoke of lead', and a failed attempt to 'yellow' silver with a\ntincture.81 At the universities of Rostock and Frankfurt an der Oder he had\nheard and read much concerning such matters. But when it came to the 'dark\nand profound' Art of chemia - i.e. the quest for the Philosophers' Stone\nrather than simple metallurgical operations or the procurement of basic\npharmaceutical remedies - he remarks that he had initially been unwilling to\nspend his money on such a dubious pursuit:\n77\n78\n79\nAchelis, Thomas Otto. Die \u00c4rzte im Herzogtum Schleswig bis zum Jahre 1804. Kiel:\nSchleswig-Holsteinische Gesellschaft f\u00fcr Familienforschung und Wappenkunde e.V.\nKiel, 1966, pp. 2 5 , 4 3 .\nFigala and Neumann, \"Michael Maier,\" p. 37.\nThe terms are used in Maier's dedication of his Basel doctoral theses to Carnarius:\n\"Clarissimo et optimo viro Dn. D. Matthiae Carnario, illustrissimi Principis Holsatiae\nArchiatro dignissimo, amico, qua animo, qua studio, qua patria, meo, ter conjunctissimo;\" a transcription of these theses is to be found in Stiehle, Hans. Michael Maierus\nHolsatus (1569-1622): Ein Beitrag zur naturphilosophischen\nMedizin in seinen Schriften\nund zu seinem wissenschaftlichen Qualiftkationsprofil. Doctoral thesis, Zentralinstitut f\u00fcr\nGeschichte der Technik der Technischen Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen, 1991.\n80\nHirsch, August (ed.). Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden \u00c4rzte aller Zeiten und\nV\u00f6lker. Vol. 5. M\u00fcnchen: Urban und Schwarzenberg, 1962, p. 779; J\u00f6cher, Allgemeines\nGelehrten-Lexicon, Vol. 1, p. 1679.\n81\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Aii recto: \"Nihilominus cum domum, ut dictum, ad\nofficium venissem, non intermitiere potui, quin unum aut alterum experimentan\ntentarem, quorum unum erat, Mercurii induratio per fiimum plumbi, quod successit;\nalterum Lunae citrinatio per aquam gradualem seu tinctoriam, quod fefellit.\"\n\nPages 63:\n54\nMaier's formative years\n...I was not willing to squander expenses set aside for more certain studies on doubtful\nmatters, particularly as I saw from the writings of a number of physicians how anxiously\nthey searched for so dark and profound a thing by way of imploring letters to their\ncolleagues. Thus, thinking about the matter myself, I concluded that if a man substantially\nlearned in philosophy and medicine is not able to obtain the chemical Art, so much the less\nam I; and if he will have obtained it, he will end the quest by writing a book, and meanwhile\nI would be making the first steps into the inquiry of this Art. Because of this syllogism, I\nabstained for a total of six years from any serious treatment of chemical matters. 8 2\nCarnarius' strong family ties with the University of Padua must have had\nsome influence on the direction of the 'more certain' studies Maier\nundertook, for in the spring of 1595 he decided to travel to that institution,\nwhich was one of the most important centres of Galenic medicine in Europe.\nIndeed, Carnarius had also attended Rostock university in 1578, moving on\nto Padua in 1586 and Basel in 1589,83 and it must have seemed quite logical\nfor the younger man to follow in his mentor's footsteps. Nevertheless, on\nCarnarius' advice Maier delayed his entrance into Padua for a semester and\nset off on a grand peregrinatio acad\u00e9mica - as Maier says, \"lest I should\nbecome weary with leisure or remaining in one place.\" 84\n5. ' F i r s t love a n d g r i e f : M a i e r ' s peregrinatio\nacad\u00e9mica\nAccording to the humanist ethos prevailing in Maier's time, travel was\nconsidered to be an indispensable means of education, and enrolment at\nforeign universities offered the possibility of a long journey - an opportunity\nthat Maier did not let pass.85 Indeed, the theme of travel was popular in the\n82\nIbid., p. Ai verso: \"Hoc toto studiorum meorum ac peregrinationis tempore in multis\nlocis multa de Chemicis experimentis audivi, legi et contuli: Verum, ut fatear, illa me\nreligio hactenus tenuit, ut extra patriam in re dubia, sumptus studiis certioribus\nmancipatos, nollem profundere, praesertim cum viderem ex scriptis nonnullorum\nmedicorum, quam anxie ili i ipsi rem adeo obscuram et profundam, emendicatis per\nEp\u00edstolas aliorum responsis, quaererent; hoc modo mecum ratiocinando concludens: Si\nille vir tam solide doctus in philosophia et medicina Chemicum artificium non\nadipiscatur, multo minus tu: Cum vero ille habuerit, scribendi finem faciet; tum tu ejus\nartis inquirendae initium statues: Hoc syllogismo me totum sexennium a seria Chemicarum rerum tractatione abstinui.\"\n83\nAchelis, Die \u00c4rzte im Herzogtum Schleswig, p. 25.\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Aii recto: \"Interim, ne otio aut situ languerem, navigio\npraecipuas Balthici littoris urbes adire constituti, ut Galeni exemplo, peregrinando\nsimplicium uberiorem noticiam haurire, nec non populorum mores et naturas cognoscere\npossem.\"\n84\n85\nTrunz, Erich. \"Der deutsche Sp\u00e4thumanismus um 1600 als Standeskultur.\" In Alewyn,\nRichard (ed.). Deutsche Barockforschung: Dokumentation einer Epoche. K\u00f6ln: Kiepen-\n\nPages 64:\n'First love and grief\n55\nhumanist literature of Maier's time; Governor Rantzau himself had composed\na work, the Methodus Apodemica, which set forth a systematic list of subjects\nto be pursued by the observant traveller.86 Whether Maier ever read this tract,\nwe cannot say. But Maier does tell us that in the course of his voyage by land\nand sea Galen himself served as his exemplar; for the young Greek physician,\nafter deciding to take up a career in medicine, had travelled widely from his\nnative Pergamom in search of medical knowledge, and had come at length to\nAlexandria, the home of the Great Library and the centre of medical learning\nin the Roman empire.87 Thus Maier imagined he was following in the\nfootsteps of a great predecessor, for his mission was not only to learn of the\npeoples and customs in the regions he visited, but above all to gain a better\nknowledge of their simples - that is to say, uncompounded medicaments\nderived directly from plants and animals. And even if Maier's was a more\nnortherly itinerary - stretching from the eastern borders of the Swedish\nempire to Rome - it would also take him to the seat of medical learning in his\nday.\nSailing through the islands of the Baltic sea, in spring of 1595 Maier\ntravelled through Swedish-controlled Kurland, Livland and Estland\n(comprising the modern states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) to the\nRussian city of Ivangorod, 88 before returning to L\u00fcbeck and heading for Italy.\nThis journey of Maier's set a precedent for a life of roaming, although in the\nfuture his unsettled existence was to be motivated as much by a search for\npatronage as by a noble desire to read the 'great book of the world'. Despite\nthe fact that Maier's last work was devoted to the figure of Ulysses as the\nembodiment of human wisdom, Figala and Neumann have argued that\nMaier's life-long travels lay \"well within the bounds of the peregrinatici\nacad\u00e9mica normal for the educated man of his time.\" 89 As Trunz states, the\nrise of humanism in Germany witnessed the first large-scale migration of the\neducated middle and upper classes beyond the borders of the Fatherland, and\nthe peregrinatio acad\u00e9mica created both an important avenue of scholarly\ncommunication and a sense of kinship amongst the learned of Europe. 90\nNevertheless, it must be said that the full significance of the peregrinatio for\n86\n87\n88\n89\n90\nheuer und Witsch, 1966, p. 162. According to Trunz, in the years between 1590 and\n1609 some 3145 German students visited Padua.\nEvans, R. J. W. \"Rantzau and Weiser: Aspects of Later German Humanism,\" History of\nEuropean Ideas, Vol. 5., No. 3, 1984, p. 259.\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Aii recto.\nIvangorod had been recaptured by Russia from the Swedes in 1592; the Peace of Teusina\nsigned between the two powers in the year of Maier's departure must have enabled this\njourney beyond the borders of Swedish territory.\nFigala and Neumann, \"Michael Maier,\" p. 48.\nTrunz, \"Der deutsche Sp\u00e4thumanismus,\" p. 162.\n\nPages 65:\n56\nMaier's formative years\nMaier's worldview seems to have been missed by Figala and Neumann; for\nMaier regarded his entire earthly existence as a spiritual journey, akin in\nsome sense to a Christian pilgrimage, and a reflected image of the alchemical\nprocess itself. Maier's clearest remarks on this matter are given in the\naforementioned Allegoria Bella, in which he makes a mythical peregrination\nthrough the four known continents (each representing a part of the human\nbody) to the 'heart' of the world, Egypt. He justifies this great journey with\nreference to a divinely instituted natural order:\nFor we are all strangers in this world, indeed even in our own native land: from which\nplace we migrate at length to those aethereal, most resplendent heavenly homes, to which\nour Saviour who has gone before invites and leads us. I might look to the swallow, the\nmessenger of spring, to the crane, the stork, and many other birds, and see how every year at\nfixed times they travel by instinct and set patterns through the air to unknown regions of\nNature; for in this way they set an example and model of peregrination through the regions\nof the world to man, lest he should grow old amidst the smoke and dung of the house altar.\nTo the birds the entire sublunary region of the air lies open, and to man it is the terrestrial\nglobe. I might look to the sky itself, and to the great wayfarer, the sun, and see how it\nrejoices in continual motion and warms, illuminates and governs all the creatures of the earth\nand heavens. Likewise I will direct my mind to the human breast, and to the heart itself, and\nsee how it is driven by this perpetual motion for as long as life remains; for life ends when\nthe motion is taken away, damaged or hindered- It is natural therefore for man to move from\nplace to place, from region to region, until he can see into himself, above himself and around\nhimself. 91\nFor Maier the peregrinatio that is our earthly existence has been prefigured\nin the life of Christ, and is the complement of the heavenly existence to\ncome; therefore we should travel onwards through the regions of the earth,\nfollowing the cyclical processes of Nature, which accomplish something of a\nspiritual transformation in the pilgrim and enable the final homeward return.\nIn his allegory Maier describes the goal of this spiritual 'pilgrimage' as the\nphoenix, the feathers of which constitute a cure for 'anger and grief; that is\n91\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 569: \"Peregrini enim nos omnes sumus in hoc\nmundo, etiam in propria, nempe terrestri patria: Unde ad aetherias illas clarissimas\ndomus, quo Salvator noster, qui praecessit, nos vocat et attrahit, migraturi tandem\nsumus: Respiciam hirundinem veris nunciam, gruem, ciconiam, multasque alias aves,\nquomodo annuatim statis temporibus peregrinentur per aera in ignotas regiones naturae\ninstinctu et documento; ut homini specimen et exemplar edant peregrinationis per mundi\npartes instituendae, ne semper fumo et fimo larium insenesceret: Avibus aer sublunaris\nuniversus patet, et homini globus terrestris: Respiciam coelum ipsum, ipsiusque magnum\nviatorem, Solem, quomodo motu continuo gaudeat et omnia soli et poli creaturas illustret\net illuminet, calefaciat et gubernet: Imo in proprium sinum pectoris, ad cor ipsum,\nmentem dirigam, quomodo hoc motu agatur perpetuo, dum vita manet, quod vitam ut\nmetitur motione illaesa, sic [sic] sublata, laesa, vel impedita, finit: Naturale itaque\nhomini est, moveri de loco ad locum, de regione in regionem, dum in se, supra se et\ncircum se respiciat.\"\n\nPages 66:\n'First love and grief\n57\nto say, the Universal Medicine, in the beginning of which lies the bitterness\nof suffering, but in its end a heavenly joy. 92 Behind these sentiments we may\ndetect a certain event in Maier's peregrinatio acad\u00e9mica, which seems to\nhave been an experiential prototype for the journey described in his Allegoria\nBella. For something of the impetus driving Maier's alchemical quest, and a\nsource of his specific reference to the problem of anger, may be found in the\ndetails of his sojourn in Padua, which he reached in the autumn of 1595.\nIn the De Medicina Regia Maier tells us very little about his time in\nPadua - only that he received the 'laurel wreath' (i.e. the prestigious title of\nPoet Laureate), which was obtained 'by custom' after his first experience\nof 'love and grief. 9 3 At this time Maier was writing Latin poetry under\nthe pseudonym Hermes Malavici, an anagram of Michael Maierus. This\nappellation not only suggests the mercurial, ambiguous nature of the Greek\ndeity, but also implies that the author had somehow \"triumphed over\nmisfortune;\" indeed, records of an intriguing episode have recently been\nuncovered by Figala and Neumann which augment the testimony of the De\nMedicina Regia, and suggest that Maier went through more than the\n'customary' grief at the University of Padua. 94 In July of 1596 the twentyseven year old academic attacked and seriously wounded a fellow scholar,\nHeino Lambechius, following a series of verbal disputes. As a result of\nthis reportedly 'savage act', Maier was put on trial before the elders of the\n'German Nation' at Padua, i.e. the administrative body for German scholars\nresiding there. The details of the quarrel that prompted Maier's outburst of\naggression are unknown, nor is it clear whether a weapon was used, such as\nthe rapier apparent in the copperplate portrait of the author (figure 1). In any\nevent, the annals of the German Nation record that Maier was adjudged the\nguilty party in the dispute, ordered to pay expenses and compelled to deliver\nthe following plea for forgiveness before the elders:\nI am most grieved by the fact that the glorious Nation was injured by me, when, although I\nhad agreed to terms of peace with Heino in the presence of the Senate, I did not observe this,\nbut dealt him an injury in his own chambers. I seek pardon for this my crime; I worship\n92\n93\n94\nIbid., p. 562.\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Aii recto: \"Ab hoc itinere sub autumnum reversus, Italiam\nrecta contendi, inibique Patavii aliquamdiu degens medicam meam rem omnibus nervis\npromovere studui: quin et Lauream frondem ibi primitus amare et mordere, ut moris,\ncepi.\"\nFavaro, A. (ed.). Atti della Nazione Germanica Artista nello Studio di Padova. Voi. 2.\nPadua: Antenore, 1967, pp. 81-82; I am indebted to Prof. Wouter Hanegraaff of the\nUniversity of Amsterdam for bringing my attention to the significance of Maier's\nanagram.\n\nPages 67:\n58\nMaier's formative years\nthe Nation, I revere it and obey it, and I will be sedulously careful that no such thing shall\nhappen again. 95\nHowever, the very next day Maier fled in secret from Padua when his\nadversary declined monetary compensation for injuries sustained in the\nattack. The response of the elders to this scandalous behaviour was emphatic:\nLet others judge how his honour and reputation stand thereon. There is no-one who can\npersuade himself that these actions will go unpunished. 96\nIn the year following this incident, Maier travelled to Bologna, Florence,\nSienna, Rome, Loreto, Ancona, and other of \"the most splendid cities of the\nworld,\" before re-crossing the Alps to Basel.97 However, when Maier entered\nBasel University to complete his doctorate, a 'warrant-like' letter was sent by\nthe German Nation to the Professor of the Faculty of Medicine there,\ndemanding that Maier not be permitted to graduate, and insisting that he be\nheld until the Nation and Lambechius had attained satisfaction. 98 For the\nyoung physician, who had once cried as a child when faced with the\npossibility of taking up an uneducated profession, and whose university\nstudies had already met once with failure, knowledge of this 'arrest warrant'\nwas probably rather disturbing. Furthermore, he must have wondered how\nthese events would appear in the eyes of his benefactor, Matthias Carnarius,\nwhose father had held an important position within the German Nation at\nPadua. 99\nHappily for Maier, the Nation's efforts to foil his escape came to nought,\nas he successfully defended his doctoral theses and graduated on November\nthe 4 th , 1596.100 As the time between his arrival in Basel and his graduation\n95\n96\n97\n98\n99\nIbid., p. 82: \"Laesam Nationem inclytam a me, dum pacem quam pactus sum cum\nHeinone coram Senatu non servavi, ipsique in aedibus suis vulnus dedi, est quod\nplurimum doleam. Hanc meam culpam nunc deprecor, Nationem colo, revereor et\nobservo, ac ne tale quid imposterum fiat sedulo caveo. Michael Meierus Cymber.\"\nIbid.: \"Quo honore nominisque existimatione iudicent alii; impune hoc ipsum habiturum\nnemo qui sibi persuadeat.\"\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Aii recto.\nFavaro, Atti della Nazione Germanica, p. 100: \"Augusti Domino Heinoni Lambachio\nHamburgensi Basileam petenti bina testimonia Nationis nomine dedimus, unum quidem\nin caussa cum Michaele Meiero Cimbro, qui dictum Heinonem illicito piane modo\nvulneraverat et contra datam fidem clam Natione aufugerat ad Magistratum quemcunque\npoliticum: alterum vero commendatitium quod professoribus Apollineis exibere posset.\nHorum exempla in Epistolarum libro reperientur...\"; Stiehle, Michael Maierus Holsatus,\np. 18.\nJ\u00f6cher, Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon, Vol. 1, p. 1679: Johannes Carnarius had held the\nposition of librarian in the German Nation concurrently with his professorship.\n100\nStiehle, Michael Maierus Holsatus, p. 19.\n\nPages 68:\nThe theses on epilepsy\n59\namounted to little more than two months, it seems the theses he presented\nthere were the fruits of his learning at the University of Padua - where as a\nProtestant he was debarred from graduating by papal decree.101 Nevertheless,\nas a result of uncontrollable anger, Maier had been forced to abandon his\nhard-won position at a prestigious university in disgrace - and quite possibly\nin fear, given that his adversary may have preferred blood to money as\ncompensation. Although student brawls and even duelling were relatively\ncommonplace in Maier's time - to the point that lecturers were sometimes\ndriven to demand that their students leave their weapons outside the\nclassroom - the annals speak of this event as 'unprecedented'. 102 When this\nmark against Maier's character and threat to his academic future is placed in\nthe context of his lifelong and sometimes inglorious struggle to attract\npatronage, the impetus behind Maier's quest for an alchemical 'medicine of\npiety' becomes more clear. These are the beginnings of the Philosophers'\nStone, which lie in 'misery and vinegar'; the collision of earthly passions\nwith the unyielding demands of socialisation and economic survival, which\nmarks the first stage of the begetting of an 'alchemical' wisdom.\n6. The theses on epilepsy\nDespite the emotional turmoil of this period Maier's academic endeavours\nhad borne fruit, a feat that he admits had required the application of all his\nenergies;103 indeed, the experience of such tribulations so far from home may\nhave overcome lesser men. The Theses de Epilepsia produced by Maier for\nhis medical doctorate at Basel, dated the 16th of October, 1596, demonstrate\nthe extensive knowledge of the Aristotelian-Galenic physiological system\ntheir author had accrued on his travels, and express above all his knowledge\nof the employment of simples and the 'composites' derived therefrom. After\ndedicating his theses to Carnarius (whose reaction to the Paduan incident\nwe cannot gauge), Maier launches into a discussion of the many names given\nto epilepsy, such as the 'divine sickness', and then goes on to deal with\nits symptomatology and the points distinguishing it from other similar\nmaladies. 104 He then discusses the aetiology of the disease, which in\naccordance with the principles laid out in the Theses Summam Doctrinae is\narranged according to internal and external sources. Thus the principal\n101\nIbid.\n102 Favaro, Atti della Nazione Germanica, p. 82.\n103\nSee \u03b7. 93 above.\n104\nUniversit\u00e4tsBibliothek Basel, Disputationum Medicarum\nStiehle, Michael Maierus Holsatus, p. 100.\nBasiliensium,\nVol. 3, No. 92;\n\nPages 69:\n60\nMaier's formative years\ninternal cause of epilepsy is the sudden permeation of the brain ventricle by\neither thick phlegm, black bile, or poisoned blood, which makes the way too\nnarrow for the spiritus animalis to flow on its proper course through the\nnerves into the sense organs. In this way the facultas animalis governing\nsense and motion is disrupted, causing the dramatic seizures to be observed in\nsufferers. 105 Amongst the external causes are the intake of cold and moist\nfoods, or an over-indulgence in lettuce, cabbage and beetroot. Maier advises\nepileptics to avoid the cooked liver of a he-goat, 106 and the smell of bitumen\nor jet; moonshine, the south wind and strolling without a hat in cold, moist\nweather are also proscribed. 107\nWith regard to treatment, Maier mentions trepanning with a drill via the\nsutura coronalis, but he follows Galen in reminding the reader of the\nconsiderable dangers of this operation, which is only to be carried out by the\nmost experienced surgeons.108 Indeed, his recommendations are directed on\nthe whole towards diet and herbal remedies rather than surgery; for example,\nin order to dilute the cold, thick phlegm that inhibits the flow of the spiritus\nanimalis, Maier would prescribe a warm infusion of hissop, marjoram,\nbetony, melissa leaves, sage, primrose, peony roots and cat's paw. 109\nOver the years, a great number of writers on Maier have described him as\nan ardent follower of Paracelsus, the man whose emphasis on experimental\nobservation and whose vehement opposition to the Galenic medicine of the\nScholastics laid the foundations for modern pharmacology. 110 However, in\nhis study of Maier's theses on epilepsy, Hans Stiehle has recently offered an\nimportant corrective to this notion, and has demonstrated in detail the\noverwhelmingly Galenic orientation of Maier's medical practice. Indeed,\nMaier's teacher at Rostock, Bruchaeus, was a prominent critic of Paracelsus,\nwhom he regarded as an empiricist, i.e. one who relies on experimental\nobservation and sense data to the exclusion of the wisdom of the traditional\n105\nThesis 23: \"Humor a. crassus et lentus, pituitosus, b. melancholicus c. aut sanguis, vel\nvapor copiosus ac venenatus, repente d. in cerebri ventr\u00edculos illabens, ac animali spiritui\nin sensuum organa influenti vias angustiores reddens;\" Stiehle, Michael\nMaierus\nHolsatus, p. 106: these notions are taken directly from Galen's De Locis Affectis and De\nDifferenti\u00ecs\nSymptomatum.\n106\nIt seems this remark is related to Bonatti's association of the melancholic humour with\nthe smell of the goat; see Klibansky, Saturn and Melancholy, p. 147.\n107\nTheses 75, 76, 77; Stiehle, Michael Maierus Holsatus, p. 118.\n108\nAlso mentioned amongst invasive procedures is blood-letting via the vena basilica or\nvena saphena.\n109\nThesis 130; Stiehle, Michael Maierus Holsatus, p. 136: \"Deinde, si frigidus, lentus ac\ncrassus peccat humor, concoquatur decoctis calidis, incidentibus et attenuantibus ex\nhyssopo, sampsucho, betonica, melyssophillo, salvia, primula veris, rad. poeoniae,\nstoechade et similibus partem affectam respicentibus...\"\n110\nFor example, Evans, Rudolf II and his World, p. 205; Hubicki, \"Maier, Michael,\" p. 23.\n\nPages 70:\nContact with the arcana\n61\nmedical corpus.111 Maier's works also contain numerous polemics against\nempiricists, whom he criticises above all for their lack of a university\neducation. Nevertheless, in his Themis Aurea (1617) he would describe\nParacelsus as a man who, although vain in character and irreverent in\npolemic, possessed \"an eminent and admirable knowledge of medicine;\" in\nthat work Maier also states that both the chemical remedies of Paracelsus and\nthe simples of Galen have their appropriate applications.112 Likewise, in the\nSymbola Aureae Mensae Maier states that Paracelsus often accomplished\nalchemical projection before his apprentice, and although he led the life of\na libertine he cured illnesses that were previously incurable.113 Contrary\nto Stiehle, this syncretic attitude is not merely an opportunistic concession\nto potential patrons. In certain places Maier lauds Paracelsus as the\nequivalent of Luther in the field of iatrochemistry, and the defender of an\nindigenous German medicine against the corrupt Italian or 'papal medicine';\nsuch diatribes of Maier's are overtly political in character, and reflect the\nincreasing interdependence of his religious, political and medical sympathies\nthat developed during the course of his life. They are also, no doubt, the\nsource of the depiction of Maier as an avid Paracelsian.\n7. Contact with the arcana\nFollowing the completion of his university studies it seems that Maier revised\nhis earlier opinions on alchemy and undertook an investigation into that 'dark\nand profound' subject. His first significant contact with alchemical arcana\nappears to have taken place in K\u00f6nigsberg in Lutheran East Prussia, where he\nset up a medical practice in 1599.114 The landlord of his dwelling in that city\n111\nKrabbe, Die Universit\u00e4t Rostock, p. 709; Heidorn, Geschichte der Universit\u00e4t Rostock,\np.41.\n112\nMaier, Michael. Themis Aurea, hoc est, de Legibus Fraternitatis R. C. Tractatus.\nFrankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1624, p. 168: \"Quod ad medicamenta mere Chymica\nvel Paracelsica attinet, ea quatenus bona sunt, laudamus, sed ita, ne Galenica et\ndogmatica vituperemus: His et illis alternatim utendum erit, innullius praeiudicium at\ncontemptum.\" Similar calls to reconcile Paracelsian and Galenic medicine were made by\nother physicians who would join Maier at the court of Moritz the Learned, namely\nHeinrich Noll and Joseph Duchesne; Moran, Alchemical World of the German Court, p.\n122.\n113\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 284, 286. The reference is probably to Paracelsus'\nsuccessful use of mercury in the cure of dropsy; it seems he also had some success with\nthe treatment of gout; Pagel, Paracelsus, p. 201.\n114\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Aii verso: \"Verum ad meos poste rediens, fortunam non\nminus variam nusquam non offendi: Post duos deinde annos ad celebre illud Emporium,\nlittori Balthico adjacens, ubi ante biennium fueram, iterum me contuli, multis aegris\n\nPages 71:\n62\nMaier's formative years\nwas skilled in the art of assaying by cupellation,115 and earned a livelihood by\ndetermining the proportion of precious metals to base metals in alloys.\nAlthough Maier tells us he learnt much concerning metallurgy from this man,\nhe was not versed in the 'universal work'; that is to say, the production of the\nPhilosophers' Stone according to universal chemical laws.116 Nevertheless,\nwhilst amongst friends of his landlord who were more closely acquainted\nwith the alchemical Art, Maier's medical curiosity was aroused by the\nmiraculous healing of a chronically ill man through the application of a bright\nyellow powder that had been obtained in England. 117 The origins of this\nmedicine may well have inspired Maier's later travels to England, where he\nwould immerse himself in the works of the English alchemists.\nAfter witnessing the remarkable results of the English iatrochemical cure,\nMaier began to seek out alchemical literature. Good luck - or destiny - was\nto provide some assistance in his endeavour. At some time in 1601 he took\nup a patient who had been dismissed by other doctors as a hypochondriac, but\nwho happened to be well-educated and most sympathetic towards 'matters\nchemical'. Impressed by Maier's caring manner, the patient paid him a\ncertain sum of money in order that they should travel together to his country\nestate outside of K\u00f6nigsberg - a fortunate turn of events, as the city was\ngripped by a serious outbreak of the bubonic plague at that time. 118 What is\nibidem medicam meam opellam per aliquot annos navans.\" Maier tells us that he had\nvisited this \"famous trading centre at the Baltic Sea\" during his peregrinano\nacad\u00e9mica,\nwhich would suggest that it was Danzig, the free city in Polish-controlled Royal Prussia.\nNevertheless, in their work Neumann and Figala give K\u00f6nigsberg as the likely identity\nof the city, although Maier does not mention it as a destination on his peregrinatici; but\nby the testimony of Hubicki Maier was in Danzig in December of 1601, a fact which\ntallies with the suggestion of the De Medicina Regia that he returned to Holstein at\naround this time - i.e. in all likelihood he returned via Danzig, some 120 kilometres to\nthe west of K\u00f6nigsberg.\n115\n116\n117\n118\nThat is to say, the application of heat to alloys placed in a small porous cupel, by which\nmeans metals such as lead, copper and tin are oxidized and separated from gold or silver.\nIbid:. \"Interea temporis hospitem nactus sum, qui artificium probandi et examinandi\nmetalla per cupellam profitebatur: Inde cum multis chemiae deditis familiaritatem inii:\nVerum nullus ex iis universale opus seu Lapidem, caliere visus est. Quidam adtulit\nargenti massas cupro permixtas, aliquot vicibus, menstruo spacio interposito, easque per\ncineritium testae depurari voluit: Alius mixturam, quam habuit, aliquot drachmis auri\npuri cum mercurio loto amalgamatis conjungi et quasi incorporari, deinde mense abacto,\nper testam examinari, postulavit: Unde ex tribus drachmis auri Mercurio impositis, octo\nhabere se jactavit, idque aliquoties repetiit.\"\nIbid., Hii verso.\nIbid., Aiii recto- Aiii verso\u00b7. \"Interim quidam gravi per multos annos vexatus morbo,\nquem medici hypochondriacum indigetant, cum ab aliis plus damni, quam levaminis,\nsensisset, meae diligentiae exempla passim obvia cernens, certa me pecuniae summa\nconduxit, ut relicta urbe secum, praesertim peste jam graviter in vulgum saeviente, in\nsuburbanum praedium migrarem, ibique apud se per aestatem manerem.\"\n\nPages 72:\nContact with the arcana\n63\nmore, at his patient's house Maier found an excellent library of alchemical\nworks, which he was able to peruse at his leisure.\nMaier's reading list included works by the medieval European authors\nGeber (pseudo-Jabir or Geber Latinus), pseudo-Arnoldus de Villanova\nand Hortulanus Anglicus, as well as the influential Arabic text, the Turba\nPh\u00eclosophorum- a fictional dialogue in which nine pre-Socratic philosophers\nengage in thoughtful discussion on the paths to perfecting the Philosophers'\nStone. These are the only details given in Maier's De Medicina Regia of\nthe thirty or so writers represented in the library. However, in the course of\nhis reading Maier would have found corrupted pre-Socratic notions\nconcerning the prima materia or first matter underlying all elements, and\nprotracted conjectures stemming from Galenic medicine and the Aristotelian\nsulphur-mercury theory of metallic generation, according to which metals\ngrow in the womb of the earth through the warmth of the sun and\nthe interacting principles of dry sulphur and moist mercury. 119 Medieval\nalchemical literature is distinguished above all by its vitalism, a doctrine\nadvocating the existence of a living spirit in Nature in which animals, plants\nand metals alike are thought to possess the power of increase.120 But the path\nto the discovery of the 'living' Stone of the Philosophers, which brings\ntemperance to the human body just as it imparts to metals their perfect\nproportion, is veiled under a thousand words, as pseudo-Arnoldus warns:\nOur Stone is cold, moist, dry and hot; it is a Stone and no Stone, and is found by everybody\nin the air, fields, on the mountains, and in the water; and it is called Albida, herein all\nphysicians agree, for they say that Albida is called Rebio. Thus they name it in hidden and\nsecret words, because they perfectly understand the materia\u00b7, some say it is blood, others say\nit is a man's hair, others say it is an egg, which has made many fools - who understand no\nmore than the letter, and the mere sound of words - seek this Art in blood, in eggs, and in\nhair... they have found nothing, for they did not rightly understand the sayings of the natural\nmasters, who spake their words in hidden language. Should they have spoken out plainly,\n119\nThe Latin text of the Turba Ph\u00eclosophorum gives the participants of the discussion as\nIximidrus, Exumdrus, Anaxagoras, Pandulfus, Arisleus, Lucas, Locustor, Pitagoras and\nEximenes; in 1931 Julius Ruska established the text was of Arabic origin, and in 1954\nMartin Plessner transcribed the rather confusing names back into Arabic characters,\nrevealing the participants as Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles,\nArchelaus, Leucippus, Ecphantus, Pythagoras and Xenophanes. The work also features\nguest appearances from Moses (Musa) and the Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos\n(Zimus). See Holmyard, Alchemy, pp. 80-84; on the pre-Socratics' relation to alchemy,\nsee Sheppard, H. J. \"The Ouroboros and the Unity of Matter in Alchemy: A Study in\nOrigins,\" Ambix, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1962, pp. 94-95.\n120\nAlthough recent studies by Newman have identified a corpuscularian tradition within\nmedieval alchemy (see chapter I, n. 35 above), my own wide-ranging survey of medieval\ntexts suggest vitalistic conceptions were of paramount importance, and corpuscularianism remained the exception to the rule, or was integrated into a broad vitalistic\nschema.\n\nPages 73:\n64\nMaier's formative years\nthey would have done very ill, for all men would have used this Art and the whole world\nwould have been spoiled. 121\nHaving noted the confusing diversity of Decknamen employed by the\ndifferent authors in his patient's library, Maier went about comparing and\ncollating them with the aim of creating a concordance; and in so doing he\nmust surely have been aware of the warning, repeated often enough in\nthe alchemical corpus, that by seeking to uncover the true significance of\nalchemical symbolism \"a man may lose his time, goods and substance, and at\nlast his health, and miserably rob himself of life.\" 122 Nevertheless, Maier tells\nus that he had never read anything of such subtlety, and he studied his\npatient's books with such zeal and ardour that he found it difficult to sleep at\nnight:\nIndeed, if I am able to understand the circles of Mercury and the motions, distances and\nmagnitudes of the planets and fixed stars, or indeed master music as much in theory as in\npractice, or the entire art of poetry, and the rest of the most subtle theorems of mathematics,\nwhy should I not grasp this chemistry? For if the alchemists use the figures of words or the\nsimilitudes of things, the stories of poets or the memorials of history, the axioms of physics,\nastronomy, medicine and metaphysics, then they do not deceive me, but somehow I may be\nable to see the truth shining in the light. 123\nThese words indicate that Maier's approach to alchemical symbolism from\nthe earliest stage was directed towards the unveiling of universal processes:\nhence his suggestion that chemistry might be akin to astronomy, music and\npoetry, and that all are governed by 'mathematical' theorems - a sentiment\ndating to the time of Pythagoras, for whom 'all things' were number. For\nMaier laboratory experiment promised much more than the simple operations\nperformed by his landlord in K\u00f6nigsberg: in the young man's eyes, it was a\nmeans of discovering the harmony of the spheres and laying bare the\nmicrocosm which is the human individual.\n121\n\"A Chymicall treatise of the Ancient and highly illuminated Philosopher, Devine and\nPhysitian, Arnoldus de Nova Villa.\" Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1415, p. 130; c.f.\nthe words of Morienus in Stavenhagen, Lee (ed., trans.). A Testament of Alchemy.\nHanover: University Press of New England, 1974, p. 45.\n122\nIbid., p. 137.\n123\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Aiii verso: \"Quippe, inquam, si Mercurii orbes, motus,\ndistantias et magnitudines planetarum et stellarum fixarum, imo Musicam tam\ntheoricam, quam practicam, poeticam omnem et reliqua subtilissima mathematicorum\ntheoremata capere potero, quid ni haec chemica? Nam si figuris verborum vel\nsimilitudinibus rerum, si fabulis poetarum, aut monumentis hystoriarum, si axiomatibus\nphysicae, astronomiae, medicinae, aut metaphysicae utentur Chemici, non subterfugient,\nquin aliquam veritatis luce scintillare visuras sim.\"\n\nPages 74:\nMaier's first alchemical experiment\n65\n8. Maier's first alchemical experiment\nHaving spent his time in relative peace whilst the bubonic plague \"ravaged\nthe masses\" in K\u00f6nigsberg, it seems that Maier may have been inspired\nto take up a more salubrious career with which to pursue his intellectual\ninterests. A few short months after his sojourn in the countryside, he entered\nhis name on the rolls of the University of K\u00f6nigsberg, an act which Figala\nand Neumann, following Hubicki, interpret as an attempt to start a university\ncareer.124 Nevertheless, he evidently failed to obtain the status of professor or\nextraneus at the university, and in late 1601 he returned to Holstein by way of\nDanzig - where, according to the testimony of Hubicki, he was to be found in\nDecember of that year prescribing dried frogs in vinegar to patients at the\nWhite Horse Inn. 125 The employment of such remedies was certainly a part\nof Maier's medical repertoire - thus in his Civitas Corporis Humani (1621)\nhe recommends frogs' legs wrapped in deer or vulture skin for the cure of\ngout.126 But if Hubicki's report is correct, it indicates that the fortunes of\nMaier, who was now in his 32nd year, were far removed from those he once\nenvisaged.\nMaier had nevertheless been inspired by his studies in K\u00f6nigsberg, and he\nwent in search of certain minerals necessary to begin his own laboratory\nexperiments; we are told he visited Hungary, where the minerals were\nparticularly potent due to the superior influence of solar radiation there. 127\nWhen all the requisite materials had been brought together and the furnace\nprepared in his hometown in Holstein, he tells us he began work in 1604 at\nthe time of Epiphany, i.e. the celebration of the coming of the Magi to\nChrist's birthplace. 128 In medieval alchemy astrological influences were often\ntaken into account in the timing of the various operations of the Hermetic\nArt; in Maier's work these astrological factors are combined with a\nconsideration of the dates in the calendar associated with the life of Christ.\nAfter months of often dangerous procedures, the work was completed at\nEaster, by which time Maier had observed the crucial sequence of phases in\nthe alchemical process - the raven, or black phase; the peacock, or multi-\n124\nFigala and Neumann, \"Ein Fr\u00fcher Brief,\" pp. 307-308; Hubicki, \"Maier, Michael,\" p. 23.\nHubicki, \"Maier, Michael,\" p. 23.\n126\nTortoise feet are also useful in this regard, the left one being bound to the patient's left\nleg, the right one to the right. Maier, Michael. Civitas Corporis Humani, a Tyrannide\narthritica vindicata. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1621, p. 158: \"Podagram sanant\npedes ranae ligati in [1] corio cervi, et super podagrici pedes positi. [2] Ad idem crus et\ncorium cavillae vulturis pedibus aegris adalligantur. [3] Pes item testudinis dexter supra\naegri pedem dextrum, et sinister super sinistrum applicate.\"\n125\n127\n128\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Ci recto.\nIbid.\n\nPages 75:\nMaier's formative years\n66\ncoloured phase; the dove, or white phase; the phoenix, or yellow phase; and\nthe pelican, or red phase. 129\nSince the medieval period the basic colours of the alchemical process\nwere conceived as black, white, yellow and red; they correspond to the four\nelements earth, water, fire and air, and to the melancholic, phlegmatic,\ncholeric and sanguine temperaments of the Galenic system we have\ndiscussed. A progression through black, white, yellow and red forms can be\nobserved during the heating of an amalgam of copper and mercury, which\nprocess may first have inspired the alchemists' reliance on this sequence.130\nMaier's schema of black, multi-coloured, white, yellow, red is a typical\nvariation, the multi-coloured peacock phase serving as a transition between\nblack and white. Whilst it is difficult to translate the processes of Maier's\nexperiment into the terminology of modern chemistry due to his silence on\nthe matter of input materials, the black phase traditionally involved\n'calcination' (oxidisation) or pulverisation by fire of the alchemical subject in\nthe vessel, followed by solution in caustic fluids and 'putrefaction' in warm\ndung or water; this was carried out in order to reduce the subject to the\nchaotic prima materia, or alternatively to the mercurial and sulphuric\nprinciples that underlie all metals in varying proportions. The white phase\nindicated the freeing of the mercurial principle - or the 'spirit' contained in\nmatter - through this process, and was often represented in the medieval texts\nby the upward flight of doves. The subsequent yellow phase marked the\nreturn of the volatile mercurial spirit to its 'nest'; that is to say, to the subject\nat the bottom of the vessel through a process of 'reduction'. Redness typically\nappeared during 'sublimation', as the alchemical subject was raised to a\nhigher, more sublime level of composition through the re-entry of the\nmercurial principle. 131 Both the yellow and the red phases of the work point\ntowards a subsequent 'fixation': the containment of the volatile, feminine\nmercurial spirit in a fixed and useful form through the operation of the stable,\nmasculine sulphuric principle (this process being the marriage of contraries\nor coniunctio oppositorum).\nThe phoenix and pelican which Maier uses to represent the yellow and red\nphases were drawn by the alchemists from medieval Christian iconology, in\n129\nIbid., p. Ci verso: \"Aves deinde quinqu\u00e9 vidi, quarum quaedam volatiles, quaedam\nexplumes sunt, ut Corvus, Pavo, Columba, Phasnix et Pelicanus, hoc est, colores omnes\nordine, a philosophis tradito, notavi...\"; Basil Valentine, a sixteenth century author from\nwhom Maier quotes approvingly, gives a similar enumeration of the colours with\nreference to birds: the black crow, the white swan, the multi-coloured peacock and the\nred Phoenix; Read, John. Prelude to Chemistry. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1936, p. 146.\n130\nHaage, Alchemie im Mittelalter, pp. 15-16; the sulphur-mercury theory itself seems to be\nderived from the properties of cinnabar (mercuric sulphide), which separates into its\ncomponent elements through heating.\n131\nIbid., pp. 16-17.\n\nPages 76:\nMaier's first alchemical experiment\n67\nwhich they served as symbols for Christ - the former on account of its\nmiraculous powers of self-renewal through a fiery death, the latter because of\nits reputed habit of feeding its young with its own blood. Indeed, alchemical\nallegory since the medieval period had linked the black phase of the\nalchemical process to the passion of Christ on the cross, the white phase to\nthe release of his spirit at death, and the perfection of the red phase to the\nspirit's re-incorporation into a pure and sinless body at resurrection. Thus the\nearly sixteenth century Rosarium Philosophorum, a favourite text of Maier's,\ndepicts the completion of the alchemical work with an emblem showing the\nemergence of Christ from his tomb, and a caption that reads: \"after my many\nsufferings and great martyrdom, I rise again transfigured, free of all blemish.\"\nWith the advent of the Reformation the synthesis of Christian mythology\nand alchemical lore became a prominent component of Protestant alchemy;\nthus Maier speaks in his Cantilenae Intellectuals (1622) of the manner in\nwhich the Creator planned by means of 'a great mystery' to free humankind\nfrom the death proceeding from original sin:\nThus Omnipotent God became man, and crushed the head of the cunning serpent, and took\nfrom him all his power; He was born of a Virgin free from sin, and underwent a terrible\ndeath by the cross, shedding His blood. And so these sacred mysteries are also to be found in\nthis mystical Art, having been hidden under obscure images... He who understands the\nmanner in which Christ has saved us from everlasting death, is also able to understand the\ngoal of this arcane Art, and the manner in which worthless and impure metals are\nperfected. 132\nHere Maier refers to a life-imparting power of transformation and renewal,\nmanifested not only in the Passion, death and resurrection of Christ, but also\nin the lives of those saved by Christ. Intimations of a parallel between Christ\nand the Philosophers' Stone stretch back to the earliest Greco-Egyptian texts,\nin which the Stone is linked with the divine spark in matter and the anthropos\nmyth of the Gnostics. 133 The relation of Christ to the Philosophers' Stone in\nMaier's work is one of sympathetic correspondence rather than identity, and\nis not dissimilar to the conception of his older contemporary, the Lutheran\nalchemist Heinrich Khunrath, although that writer utilises the Paracelsian\ntripartite elemental division of sulphur, mercury and salt rather than the\n132\nMaier, Michael. Cantilenae Intellectuales, in Triadas 9. distinctae, De Phoenice\nRedivivo. Rostock: Mauritii Saxonis, 1622, verse 7 media: \"Sic Deus potens homo/\nFactus est qui subdolo/ Daemoni caput terit,/ Omne robur et rapit:/ Nascitur dum\nVirgine/ Labis expers et cruce/ Horridam mortem subit,/ Et cruentus interit./ Sic in arte\nmystica/ Sunt et haec umbris sacra/ Tecta... Qui modum perceperit/ CHRISTUS ut\nsalvaverit/ Nos ab aeterna nece,/ Hic potest et noscere/ Artis arcanae scopum,/ Quoque\ntingantur, modum,/ Quae metalla vilibus/ Sunt repleta faecibus.\"\n133\nE.g. Taylor, \"The Visions of Zosimos.\"\n\nPages 77:\n68\nMaier's formative years\nAristotelian schema we have discussed. Furthermore, gnostic Paracelsian\nelements are to the fore in the work of Khunrath, who thought of the\nPhilosophers' Stone as a \"universal spark of the world soul.\" 134 Nevertheless,\nMaier's attitude towards salvation could be described as being broadly\ngnostic in character, as the sufferings of the world mirror the black phase of\nthe alchemical process as a necessary, cathartic means of the spirit's release\nfrom bondage. 135\nHaving beheld the correct colour sequence in his experiment, and having\nwitnessed the appearance of the 'pelican' at Easter, Maier deemed that the\nwritings of the medieval alchemical masters he had consulted at K\u00f6nigsberg\nwere fully in accord with the laws of Nature. Significantly, he also felt that\nthe experiment had clarified the meaning of his mother's strange experience\nof augury prior to his birth 136 - another avowal that the alchemical processes\nhe observed in the laboratory were inextricably linked with his own destiny\non earth. As we read the closing section of the autobiographical portion of\nMaier's De Medicina Regia, we may begin to gather what that destiny would\nbe. For although we are told by Maier that his experiment had produced a\npowerful medicament - indeed, a substance he could confidently name the\nMercury of the Philosophers, containing sulphuric and mercuric principles in\nequal part 137 - he had nevertheless failed to complete his experiment due to\ncertain adversities.138 The promise of future success would form the basis of\nhis supplication to the Emperor, as well as to later patrons, for continued\nfinance of a work that could never be completed.\n134\nKhunrath, Heinrich. \"A Naturall Chymicall Symbolum, or a Short Confession of Henry\nKunwrath of Lipsicke, Doctor of Phisick.\" Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1459, II, p.\n100.\n135\nAlthough the gnostic attitude is marked by a world-denying anti-materialism, as Quispel\nremarks, corporeal existence often plays an indispensable role as a catharsis for the spirit\nin gnostic traditions. See Quispel, Gilles. \"Gnosis and Culture.\" In Barnaby, Karin and\nPellegrino D'Acierno (eds.). C. G. Jung and the Humanities. Princeton: Princeton\nUniversity Press, 1990, p. 27.\n136\nSee above, n. 21.\n137\nOn the theory of a twofold mercury, see below, chapter V, n. 28.\n138\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Ci verso.\n\nPages 78:\nIII. Bohemia and England\n1. Maier at the court of Emperor Rudolf II\nAt some point in 1608 Maier moved to Prague, the capital of Bohemia and\nthe empire, which had become a centre of research for alchemy and the\noccult sciences under the reign of Rudolf II (figure 4). The reasons for this\nmove were not only financial, as we are told in the De Medicina Regia that\nMaier had suffered from the negative attentions of locals in his hometown in\nHolstein.1 Persecution by locals was an endemic problem for practising\nalchemists, and not only on account of charges of diabolic activity; indeed,\nthe Englishman George Ripley (?-c.l490) was once hounded by villagers\nbecause of the foul and poisonous fumes emanating from his laboratory.2\nMaier does not elaborate on the content of the \"jibes and wicked accusations\"\ndirected towards him, beyond stating that some of his persecutors wished that\nhe would surrender the precious fruits of his labours. He goes on to add that\nwinter, spring and summer are finished for him, and that he has reached a\nmelancholic 'autumn' on account of the calumny and injuries which he has\nendured on a daily basis from his neighbours. But in a defiant aside, he then\nstates that it is just these 'four seasons' which constitute the alchemical\nwork. 3\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Ci verso.\nHolmyard, Alchemy, p. 183.\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, pp. Ci verso- Cii recto: \"...verum eo usque me hominum\nmalevolorum dicteria et calumniae redegerunt, ut operi omnino supersedere, prosterisque\nmeis reliquam absolvendam portionem una cum fructibus, qui sperandi sint, relinquere\nconstituerim: Testor igitur hoc meo libro, hactenus omnia quae legi, quae vidi, cum\nauthoribus omnibus et singulis (de veris, non ficticiis loquor) si non verbis, at rebus\noptime convenire, et a me hyemem, ver et aestatem, anni tempora absoluta, autumnum\nvero propter calumnias vicinorum et injurias, quas quotidie passus sum, non attigisse:\nQuamvis autem haec quarta pars sit opus mulierum et ludus puerorum, ac merito requies\na philosophis dicatur, respectu praecedentium laborum, in quibus manibus et oculis,\nGebro teste, opus est.\" The reference to \"women's work and child's play\" is a standard\nmedieval alchemical allusion to the processes of 'cooking' and 'washing' by which the\nalchemical subject is purified. The phrase is attributed to Geber in the Rosarium\nPhilosophorum, but appears in the seventeenth dictum of the Turba Philosophorum from\nthe mouth of 'Socrates'; see also the third and twenty-second emblems of Maier's\nAtalanta Fiigiens.\n\nPages 79:\n70\nBohemia and England\nAlthough we might have expected a winter to have followed his autumn,\nin Prague Maier's fortune was to take a positive turn. Having read the De\nMedicina Regia (as it seems) the Emperor was duly impressed not only by\nMaier's command of alchemical theory, but also by his tale of hardship. For\nsome two months following its publication, as we have noted, Maier was\nadmitted into the imperial court as a personal physician to the Emperor and,\nshortly thereafter, raised to the rank of Imperial Count Palatine. Rudolf has\nbeen characterised as a 'wizard Emperor', who \"trod the paths of secret\nknowledge with an obsession bordering on madness,\" and who ended his\nreign as a self-imposed prisoner in his own castle.4 He surrounded himself\nwith a host of physicians, who tended to both his melancholic illness and his\nfascination with alchemy; yet it was the belief of many observers that the\nlatter was the cause of the former, for such was Rudolfs fascination with the\noccult sciences - from astrology and Kabbalah to necromancy - that he felt\nhimself to be 'bewitched'. 5 Be this as it may, his sickness was certainly\nassociated with an apocalyptically-tinged paranoia, and saw his gradual\nwithdrawal from the practical affairs of State into a magical, narcissistic\nrealm of his own creation.6 This was a happy circumstance for occultists such\nas Maier, as the Emperor delighted \"in hearing secrets about things both\nnatural and artificial;\" according to one observer, \"whoever is able to deal in\nsuch matters will always find the ear of the Emperor ready.\" 7\nIn pursuit of his obsession, Rudolf assembled at his court a remarkable\ngroup of alchemists, Kabbalists, magicians and astronomers, as well as poets\nand artists from across Europe; amongst his entourage at various times were\nto be counted the astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, and the\nalchemists Oswald Croll and Martin Ruland, whilst occasional visitors\nincluded such luminaries of occult science as John Dee and Giordano Bruno.\nRudolf himself had a good humanist education, and he welcomed learned\nCatholics, Lutherans and Calvinists alike to his court, where a spirit of crossconfessional tolerance reigned. 8 His goal was to encourage the pursuit of a\ngreat synthesis of the various spheres of knowledge, a pansophia or science\nof the universe. Central to this pursuit was the investigation of the links\nconnecting the microcosm with the macrocosm through the deciphering of\ndivine 'signatures' or 'hieroglyphs' imprinted in Nature.\nInterestingly, Will-Erich Peuckert, an important writer on the subject of\npansophia in the esoteric traditions, once argued that Maier did not share in\nthe pansophic spirit that reigned at the court of Rudolf II; rather, he stated\n4\n5\n6\n7\n8\nEvans, Rudolf II and his World, p. 2.\nIbid., pp. 89, 198.\nIbid., p. 90.\nIbid., p. 196.\nIbid., p. 85.\n\nPages 80:\nThe\nHymnosophia\n71\nthat Maier espoused \"a philosophy of the laboratory\" that leads away from\npansophic approaches to Nature and towards the experimental tradition\nexemplified by Newton. 9 Unfortunately, Peuckert's views on this matter\nseem to have been based on the testimony of Maier's Rosicrucian writings\nalone, which on first inspection seem to depict the Rosicrucian brethren as\nnothing more than hard-working researchers into a Nature divested of divine\naspect. Although Maier's pansophic sentiments are not always made explicit,\nPeuckert was unaware of the scope of the alchemical Art in Maier's eyes.\n2. The Hymnosophia\nThat scope is well illustrated in the little-known Hymnosophia ('Hymn to\nWisdom'), a work written by Maier whilst in Prague.10 Although there is no\ndate given on the title page (suggesting it underwent a limited print run in the\nsame manner as the De Medicina Reg\u00eca), after Maier's name we find the title\n'P. C. Caesar', i.e. Comes Palatinus or Count Palatine - from which fact we\nmay understand that the work was composed after the 29th of September,\n1609, the date of the conferral of Maier's peerage. Under the author's name\non the title page stands the verse, \"I have nothing to say against worldly\nthings, when they concern the heavenly; the heavens shine, my matter is\ngranted to me by light.\"11 The last phrase of the verse, res mea luce mihi, is\nan anagram of the author's name, and appears to refer to the Light of\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 62 to page 80 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=45\nPages: 45\nof metals (the debasement of coinage through alloying practices caused\nsevere inflation in Hessen-Kassel prior to the war), and the procurement\nof new medicines by courtiers such as Maier might bolster the health of\nthe aristocracy, if not the state as a whole. Furthermore, within the\nCalvinist aegis in Germany the Hermetic arts formed something of an\nintellectual counterculture to the Scholasticism propagated by the Jesuits - a\ncounterculture focussed on an ostensible secret society, the Brotherhood of\nthe Rosy Cross, and the literature of its supporters, amongst whom Maier\nfigured prominently. Whilst orthodox Lutheran and Calvinist theologians\nrailed against the occult sciences, which had as their goal the harnessing of\nsecret and divine powers in Nature, early Rosicrucianism offered a potent\nmixture of heterodox Protestantism, Paracelsianism, and the millennialist\ndream of a new age in which the sciences would be perfected and 'papism'\nwould be banished from the empire.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=127\nPages: 127\ninhabitants\" of Fez.15\nFor all their mythic dimensions, the Rosicrucian manifestos presented to\nMaier and like-minded Protestants a comprehensive and provocative intellectual agenda, giving expression to a Paracelsian-inspired Hermeticism and\na heterodox, humanist Lutheranism with strong millennialist overtones.\nNevertheless, they were advertised in the catalogues of the Leipzig and\nFrankfurt book fairs as \"Teutsche Theologische B\u00fccher der Calvinisten,\" 16 a\nclassification followed by the chief English Rosicrucian apologist, Robert\nFludd. 17 This classification reflects the fact that the first printing of the Fama\nFraternitatis was made at Kassel with the express consent of Moritz of\nHessen-Kassel; 18 despite being far removed from Calvinist theological\ncurrents, Rosicrucianism was nurtured above all by Calvinist Germany, that\nunlikely inheritor of the Renaissance Hermetic tradition, which provided a\nsafe haven for modes of thought inimical to the Counter-Reformation.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=158\nPages: 158,159\nArgumentum Adversarii contra Chemiam...\"\n150\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nwrath, as the Symbola Aureae Mensae was banned by papal decree on\nDecember the 12th, 1624.129\n6. Uncovering the true Brethren\nMaier's was only one amongst a number of possible interpretations of the\nmanifestos, each of which gave their own emphasis to the broad Protestant\nand Hermetic contours portrayed there, be it theological, theosophical,\nalchemical, astrological or chiliastic. Indeed, in the decade following the\nfirst publication of the Fama Fraternitatis in 1614 over four hundred\n'Rosicrucian' apologies and opposing Kampfschriften appeared, and many of\nthe former were composed under the name of the Fraternity itself.130 In the\nSymbola Aureae Mensae Maier gives us some intriguing clues concerning the\nRosicrucian literature he had encountered by 1617, and the form of\nRosicrucianism he found most pleasing. At the end of his discourse on the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=281\nPages: 281,282\nMcLean, Adam. \"A Rosicrucian Manuscript of Michael Maier,\" The Hermetic Journal,\n1979, pp. 5-7.\nMenk, Gerhard. \"Die 'Zweite Reformation' in Hessen-Kassel: Landgraf Moritz und die\nEinf\u00fchrung der Verbesserungspunkte.\" In Schilling, Heinz (ed.). Die reformierte Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland - Das Problem der \"Zweiten Reformation\". G\u00fctersloh:\nGerd Mohn, 1986, pp. 154-183.\nMerkur, Dan. \"The Study of Spiritual Alchemy: Mysticism, Gold-Making, and Esoteric\nHermeneutics,\" Ambix, Vol. 37, No. 1, March 1990, pp. 35-45.\nBibliography\n273\nMertens, Mich\u00e8le. \"Sur la Trace des Anges Rebelles dans les Traditions \u00c9sot\u00e9riques du\nD\u00e9but de notre \u00c8re jusqu'au XVIIe Si\u00e8cle.\" In Ries, Julien and Henri Limet (eds.). Anges\net D\u00e9mons: Actes du Colloque de Li\u00e8ge et de Louvain-la-Neuve,\n25-26 Novembre\n1987.\nLouvain-la-Neuve: Centre D'Histoire des Religions, 1989, pp. 383-389.\nMetzger, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne. \"L'\u00e9volution du r\u00e8gne m\u00e9tallique d'apr\u00e8s les alchimistes du XVIIe si\u00e8cle,\"\nIsis, Vol. 4, 1922, pp. 466-482.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=281\nPages: 281\nNew Haven: Yale University Press, 1968.\nMartin, Luther H. \"A History of the Psychological Interpretation of Alchemy,\" Ambix, Vol.\n22, No. 1, 1975, pp. 10-20.\nMatton, Sylvain. \"Le Ph\u00e9nix dans l'Oeuvre de Michel Maier et la Litt\u00e9rature Alchimique.\"\nIn Bailly, J. C. (ed.). Chansons Intellectuelles sur la R\u00e9surr\u00e9ction du Ph\u00e9nix par Michel\nMaier. Paris: Gutenberg Reprints, 1984.\nMcintosh, Christopher. \"Alchemy and the Gold- und Rosenkreutz.\" In Martels, \u0396. R. W. M.\nvon. Alchemy Revisited: Proceedings of the International Conference on the History of\nAlchemy at the University of Groningen, 17-19 April 1989. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990, pp.\n239-244.\n\u2014 The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason: Eighteenth-Century Rosicrucianism in Central\nEurope and its Relation to the Enlightenment. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992.\n\u2014 The Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology and Rituals of an Occult Order.\nWellingborough: Crucible, 1987.\nMcLean, Adam. \"A Rosicrucian Manuscript of Michael Maier,\" The Hermetic Journal,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=134\nPages: 134\nThe origins of Rosicrucianism\n125\ngolden cross\" made in the Aureum Seculum Redivivum (1625) of Adrian von\nMynsicht suggest the existence of \"a two-tiered Hermetic society\" known as\nthe Gold- und Rosenkreutz\u00b7, whilst the term was probably suggested to\nMynsicht by the Rosicrucian Order's appellation, he utilises fratres aureae\ncrucis as an ornate but general means of addressing those amongst his readers\nwho are affiliated with him by virtue of their alchemical proclivities. 44 Given\nthis fact, the mention made by a certain mid-seventeenth century writer in\nItaly of \"a company entitled the rosy cross, or as others say the golden cross\"\ndemonstrates the logic by which the ' Gold- und Rosenkreutz' term first arose,\ni.e. from the conflation of tracts written under the aureae crucis and roseae\ncrucis appellations 45\nIn short, it appears that the 'inextricable reverie' that has grown up around\nthe De Theosophia Aegyptiorum is extricated thus: Maier's 'Rosicrucian']","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=130\nPages: 130,131\nvariously put to work by writers in support of this agenda. Thus Akerman\nspeaks of Maier's manuscript as evidence for the emergence of the Goldund Rosenkreutz as a \"two-tiered Hermetic society\" embroiled in sixteenth\ncentury French inter-confessional disputes.30 Likewise, the 'Rosicrucian'\nLeipzig manuscript myth has taken root in Freemasonic lore - in his Les\nOrigines de la Franc-Ma\u00e7onnerie: Le M\u00e9tier et le Sacr\u00e9 (1991) Naudon\nquotes Bricaud verbatim as proof of the anteriority of Rosicrucianism (as a\nforerunner of Freemasonry) to the Rosicrucian manifestos. 31\n28\nBricaud, Joanny. \"Historique du Mouvement Rosicrucien,\" Le Voile d'Isis, Vol. 91 July\n1927, pp. 559-574.\n29\nIbid., p. 561.\n\u00c2kerman, Rose Cross over the Baltic, p. 181.\nNaudon, Les Origines de la Franc-Ma\u00e7onnerie,\npp. 269-270: \"...Une autre soci\u00e9t\u00e9\nimportante dont l'action sur la Ma\u00e7onnerie, du moins indirectement, est probable, est la\n30\n31\n122\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture']","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=45\nPages: 45\nwould be banished from the empire.\nThe rise of Rosicrucianism in Protestant Germany reflected a nascent\nGerman nationalism and indigenous 'German' preoccupations in culture; thus\nwe find the oft-repeated parallel drawn in the Rosicrucian literature between\nLuther, the reformer of theology, and Paracelsus, the liberator of medicine\nfrom its corrupted Scholastic or 'papal' state. From the twin sources of\nProtestantism and Paracelsianism there emerged in sixteenth century\nGermany a striving for a new synthesis in science and religion, a wisdom\nderived from both divine revelation and the Light of Nature. 4 This synthesis\nwas expressed on the one hand by early theosophers such as Valentin Weigel\n(1533-1588) and Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), and on the other by laboratorybound alchemists such as Heinrich Khunrath (c.1560-1605) and Oswald Croll\n(c. 1560-1608, a man who considered Weigel to be \"the true successor of\nParacelsus\"); as the first Rosicrucian manifesto, the Fama Fraternitatis]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=139\nPages: 139\na Hermetic Protestant ideology. In light of this fact, Waite's misleading\nalternatives of a 'mythic' or a 'real' Fraternity do not hold. This Rosicrucian\n'Brotherhood' was not merely a ludibrium, i.e. a 'jest' or 'game', as Andreae\nwas later to describe it; to borrow the title of Michael Maier's first\n'Rosicrucian' work, the Jocus Severus, it was a very 'serious jest'.\nThat the tale of the opening of the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz draws\nfrom alchemical allegory should have been clear enough to anyone as well\nversed in the alchemical literature as Maier.62 We need only mention the\nfact that the discovery of the sepulchre and the Book I. held to the chest of\nChristian Rosenkreutz bears a close resemblance to the tale given in the\nTabula Smaragdina, in which the Emerald Tablet is said to have been found\nclasped in the hands of Hermes as he lay in state in his tomb. 63 Furthermore,\nMaier followed the lead of Andreae when composing his Allegoria Bella, in]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=149\nPages: 149\nphoenix,\" and was moreover the first to perfect the Art after the Arabs. 96 In\nthe course of this chapter Maier launches into a nineteen-page discourse on\nthe subject of the Brethren, which is placed within the wider context of the\ntransmission of the alchemical Art from the Arabs to the Germans. In so\ndoing he establishes not only alchemy but Rosicrucianism itself as the heir of\nthe wisdom of the great Egyptian sage, Hermes Trismegistus.\nWhilst discussing Paracelsus as a compatriot of Albertus, Maier states\nthat the \"hitherto unknown\" Brethren have given favourable testimony\nconcerning this man - a reference to the Fama Fraternitatis, in which it is\nstated that although he led a free and careless life and preferred to mock\nrather than peaceably confer with his peers, Paracelsus had nevertheless\ndiligently read the Fraternity's treasured work, the Liber M..91 Using this\nreference as a bridge to the topic of Rosicrucianism, Maier describes how the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=205\nPages: 205\nMaier's work, particularly in relation to the 'Rosicrucian brotherhood' and\nits role in the re-establishment of the Golden Age. 60 In Rosicrucian circles\nthese elements emanated above all from the Paracelsian prophecy of the\ndestruction of a third part of the world and the appearance of 'Elias Artista' a great artist and scientist identified in certain texts as the chemical agent of\ntransmutation itself.61 Maier's fellow alchemist and Rosicrucian at the court\nof Moritz, Raphael Eglinus (1559-1622), believed this apocalyptic event\nwould mark the overthrow of a 'bestial estate', i.e. the rule of humans as\nunenlightened beings driven by animal desire and lust.62 Whilst there is\nnothing of the Elias myth to be found in Maier's work, given his own\nproclamations concerning the coming Hermetic Golden Age it is possible that\nhe envisaged the divine virtues of his own medicine playing a role in the\nconstruction of just such a pious new world.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=135\nPages: 135\nto demonstrate its anteriority to the widely discredited Rosicrucianism of\nthe manifestos (although Arnold himself speaks of a \"lost Leipzig manuscript\"). 47\nThe history of Rosicrucianism is littered with such spurious traditions,\nmany of which stem from the nineteenth century German occultist Carl\nKiesewetter, whom Waite amusingly but accurately describes as Rosicrucianism's fabulator magnus. Kiesewetter claimed to be a direct descendant of\nthe last 'Imperator' of the Brethren, and declared himself to be in the\npossession of priceless manuscripts of the Order dating to the sixteenth\ncentury and earlier.48 He also promulgated a component of the 'Rosicrucian'\nLeipzig manuscript myth, claiming that Agrippa von Nettesheim had\nspecifically been named as an 'Imperator' of the Order by the seventeenth\ncentury English Rosicrucian Thomas Vaughan (who in fact only speaks of\nAgrippa as \"the oracle of Magick\" and \"the master\" of his secretary]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=38\nPages: 38\nthe continent in the later eighteenth century and directly inspired the\nalchemical conceptions of the higher Freemasonic grades. The central work\nappearing from the circle of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz was Jolyfief s Der\nCompa\u00df der Weisen (1779), which placed Rosicrucian alchemical conceptions in the context of the Freemasonic doctrine of personal moral\nadvancement. 117 We may note that the nineteenth century Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia was grafted onto regular Freemasonry in a similar fashion\nto its predecessor and included higher degrees inspired by those of the Goldund Rosenkreutz\\ and we may also remark in passing that the Gold- und\nRosenkreutz grades and laws formed the basis for Waite's quasi-Masonic\nHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 118 In any event, it seems that Silberer\nwrote his Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik in his capacity as a\nFreemason as much as that of a psychoanalyst, as he devotes an entire]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=126\nPages: 126,127\nyears; neither were as bright as the famous supernova of 1572 analysed by Tycho Brahe.\n12\nPeuckert attributes astrological significance to the date of birth of Christian Rosenkreutz;\nPeuckert, Will-Erich. Pansophie. Vol. 3. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1973, p. 74.\nKooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, p. 88.\n13\n118\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nappended by Thomas Vaughan to the first English edition, takes away all\ndisease, fear, distress and troubles of the soul, just as it transmutes imperfect\nmetals into the finest gold.14 Clasped within Father C. R.'s hands was the\n'Book I.', the most treasured of the Fraternity's texts after the Bible, in which\nis depicted \"a microcosm corresponding in all motions to the macrocosm\" the intellectual fruits of the Father's pilgrimage to Arabia and Africa, where\nhe studied under the wise men of the city of Damcar and the \"elemental\ninhabitants\" of Fez.15\nFor all their mythic dimensions, the Rosicrucian manifestos presented to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=168\nPages: 168,169\ntheileten sie sich in alle Land, damit nicht allein ihre axiomata in geheimb von den\nGelehrten sch\u00e4rffer examiniret w\u00fcrden, sondern auch sie selbst, da in einem oder anderm\nLand einige observation ein Irrung br\u00e4chte, sie einander m\u00f6chten berichten.\"\n160\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\napproved as factual - is entered into a special book for the sake of future\ngenerations. Every philosopher, physician and professor of the Holy Scripture\nacquainted with the powers of alchemy is being watched by the Fraternity;\nand \u0392. M. I. states that if he would make the names of those men known, the\nbook would become monstrously large.173 We are also told that the ranks of\nthe Fraternity have recently been increased with ten \"great men skilled in the\nArt\" 174 - a fact that roused Pyrgopolynices' ire at the Golden Table of the\nSymbola Aureae Mensae.175\n7. Defining Rosicrucianism: the Silentium post Clamores and\nthe Themis Aurea\nThe two tracts that Maier devotes exclusively to the defence of the Order, the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=177\nPages: 177,178\nseculo eius farinae inveniuntur libri, ex quibus si calumniae et canina eloquentia, in\nmedicos exercita, tollantur, quod reliquum est, tantum doctrinae, quantum inania\nstramina frugis, continebunt... Personae maneant intactae, communis hostis est morbus,\neiusque causa et effectus seu symptoma.\"\nIbid:. \"Quod ad medicamenta mere Chymica vel Paracelsica attinet, ea quatenus bona\nsunt, laudamus, sed ita, ne Galenica et dogmatica vituperemus: His et illis alternatim\nutendum erit, innullius praeiudicium aut contemptum;\" ibid., pp. 132-133, 184-185.\nDefining Rosicrucianism\n169\nWith regard to the second law of the Fraternity, Maier states that the\nBrethren are merely following the admirable example set by Nature in\nchanging their attire to suit the country of their dwelling; for just as the\nchameleon changes it colour to suit its surrounds, or the fur of certain hares\nbecomes white in winter (a fact Maier himself observed in Lithuania), so]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=37\nPages: 37\nto certain motifs in Maier's Septimana Philosophica as evidence of\nFreemasonry's true doctrinal heritage. 110 Later in the nineteenth century\nSandys further emphasised the role of Elias Ashmole (1617-1692), the noted\nEnglish enthusiast of Rosicrucian and alchemical lore and one of the earliest\nknown Freemasons, as the chief conduit of Rosicrucian influence on\nFreemasonry. 111 In this century the Maier-Fludd-Ashmole lineage has been\npromoted by Masonic writers, notably Lennhof and Naudon. 112 Amongst\nacademic writers Frances Yates advanced a similar theory, postulating both\nRosicrucian and courtly Hermetic influences on the rise of Freemasonry\nin seventeenth century England; 113 Schick argued for the existence of\nembryonic traces of the Freemasonic grade system in the work of Maier; 114\nwhilst Stevenson has recently argued for an early and definitive Rosicrucian\ninfluence on Freemasonry in Scotland - the land which produced the first]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=8\nPages: 8,9\n69\n71\n77\n80\n87\n91\nVili\n7. A journey to England\n8. Francis Anthony and the 'drinkable gold'\n9. The Golden Tripod: \"Truth is concealed under the cover of\nshadows\"\n99\n102\n107\nIV. The Rosicrucian 'Imposture'\n1. Illness and a chance encounter\n2. The origins of Rosicrucianism and the Leipzig Manuscript of\nMichael Maier\n3. Johann Valentin Andreae and the nature of the Order\n4. The serious jest\n5. An invitation to Rosicrucians, wherever they may lie hidden\n6. Uncovering the true Brethren\n7. Defining Rosicrucianism: Silentium post Clamores and the\nThemis Aurea\n8. Regni Christi frater. Maier's 'entrance into the Order'\n113\n116\n127\n131\n139\n150\n160\n173\nV. The Completion of the Work\n1. The squaring of the natural circle\n2. Maier and the Calvinist court of Moritz of Hessen-Kassel\n3. Millennialism, nationalism and the descent into war\n4. The Civitas Corporis Humani - procuring a medicine of piety\n5. Ulysses and the death of Maier\n6. The phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n181\n189\n192]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=292\nPages: 292\nfig- 31\nMagi, biblical, 65, 124\nmagic, natural, 5, 19, 33, 34, 37-38, 120,\n124n, 141, 153-154, 158-159, 163164, 165; diabolic, 38, 158-159, 163\nmagic squares, 98\nMagister Pianco, see Ecker und\nEckhoffen, Hans Heinrich von\nMagnus, Olaus, 197\nMaier, Michael\nLife: childhood, 38ff.; parentage, see\nMeier, Peter and Meier, Anna; Masters\ndegree, 48ff; peregrinano acad\u00e9mica,\n54ff; Poet Laureate, 57; doctoral\ndegree, 58-59; as 'Hermes Malavici',\n57, 104; appointment as Pfalzgraf\n(Count Palatine), 77, 99; journey to\nEngland, 87ff.; involvement with\nRosicrucianism, 87ff., 131ff.;\nmarriage, 181-182; appointment as\nMedicus und Chymicus von Hau\u00df aus,\n189; illness, 113-114, 143,208;\n'entrance' into the Rosicrucian\nFraternity, 161, 173ff., 210; death,\n178-179, 208ff.\nWorks: Allegoria Bella, 31, 32, 41, 43,\n56, 57, 130, 215, 216, 217, 225, 230,\n231,232,253; Aquila Germanica,\n200-201; Arcana Arcanissima, 47, 8086, 102, 103, 122, 141, 168, 170, 172,\n197, 211, 212, 243, 245, 246, 251;]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=128\nPages: 128,127\nStimme au\u00dfruffen/ und vor jederman bekennen werden/...\"\nThe origins of Rosicrucianism\n119\nmythic manifestos and the literary storm they provoked (a question we shall\nsoon explore in detail), the danger posed to sympathisers of the Rosicrucian\nprogramme was very tangible - a fact demonstrated by the fate of Adam\nHaslmayr, a Catholic Paracelsian from the Tyrol and a distributor of the\nmanuscript Fama Fraternitatis from 1610, whose outspoken advocacy of the\nFraternity earned him four and a half years in irons on a galley.20\nThe virulent anti-Catholicism of the manifestos went hand-in-hand with\ntheir scientific predilections, as those Scholastics who follow \"Popery, Galen\nand Aristotle\" are condemned for imagining an \"old manuscript\" would\nbe equivalent to the \"bright, manifest light\" of truth.21 Whilst orthodox\ntheologians of all confessions insisted on the separation of things divine and\nhuman in the sciences, the Fama Fraternitatis gave expression to the]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=243\nPages: 243\nachieve something of a moral transformation in his patients through the\napplication of his cathartic, purgative medicine; more importantly, however,\nit was precisely the hopeless quest for the Philosophers' Stone that formed\nthe black phase of the work that was Maier's life, a peregrination in search of\nthe arcana in which a finer spirit was distilled through the trials and\nseductions of earthly existence. In this sense Maier's thought conforms to the\nethos of the later German Romantics, who utilised the alchemical symbol of\nthe blue flower to signify an elusive wisdom that withers away before it can\nbe grasped. Herein lies the most profound expression of the alchemical\n3\n4\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 572: \"Cur vero hune ordinem suscipiendi itineris de\nuna parte in aliam transeundi, animo praeconceperim, haec causa sufficiens mihi visa est,\nquod naturalem elementorum seriem, qua ilia ex crassis in subtilia, ex ponderosis in levia\nmigrant, imitari debeam.\"]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=258\nPages: 258\npractical laboratory quest for the Philosophers' Stone survived until at least\nthe end of the eighteenth century in Germany - chiefly amongst the inheritors\nof the Rosicrucian mantle, the members of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz. This\nsurvival forms a bridge between early modern and nineteenth century\nconceptions of alchemy - a critical link missing from Principe and Newmans'\nhistoriography.\nThe first sign of the emergence of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz is the\nWarhaffte und vollkommene Bereitung des Philosophischen Steins der\nBr\u00fcder schafft aus dem Orden des G\u00fclden- und Rosen-Creutzes ('The True\nand Complete Preparation of the Philosophers' Stone of the Brotherhood,\nfrom the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross,' 1710), a tract that appeared\nunder the pseudonym of 'Sinceras Renatus' ('genuine rebirth'). 56 The author\nis generally held to be a Protestant pastor from Hartmannsdorf in Silesia by\nthe name of Samuel Richter. True to the example set by seventeenth century]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=222\nPages: 222\nof a comedy. 1 1 8\nNaturally Maier does not mention the fact that, in Homer's tale, Ulysses\nproceeds to the bed of Circe once she releases his men from the bondage of\ntheir swinish forms. Nevertheless, Maier's purpose here is to demonstrate the\nintegral relation of piety to his alchemy, and its relation to the coniunctio\noppositorum. The 'noble body' mentioned in the Rosarium Philosophorum is\nnot only manifested in the preparation of the cathartic iatrochemical cure and\nits operation, but in a life of travelling and hardship, by which the corporeal\nrealm is superseded and we approach divinity. On both cosmic levels the\nPhilosophers' Stone stands in a paradoxical relationship with its opposite,\n\"the abyss of wickedness,\" for as in the black phase of the alchemical\nprocess, so in the seductions and anguish of the body new life and wisdom\nare found.\nEven if Maier found wisdom in the Great Work that was his life, it would]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=196\nPages: 196\nMonad.\" 26 In the De Circulo Physico, Quadrato Maier employs the symbols\nof the trinity and quaternity within the unity to represent gold rather than the\nPhilosophers' Stone, but in both cases he is using an occult geometry to\ndescribe a 'spiritual' body that is the image of divine perfection, uniting\nopposites within itself.\nFor all Maier's paeans to gold as \"the measure of measures\" and \"the\nphysical image of eternity,\" was he looking for gold or the Philosophers'\nStone as the end-product of his laboratory work, the lapis coagulatus of the\n'ultimate goldenness'? As we have discovered in our earlier consideration of\nthe Hymnosophia, in accordance with Maier's medieval sources the virtue or\n'seed' of the sun imparts 'vital sensations' to animals, plants and the metals\n'submersed in the caverns of the earth'; by nurturing this solar seed in the\n24\n25\n26\nDe Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, p. 169.\nMaier, Septimana Philosophica, p. 74: \"Saba: 'Sed alii tria huius subjecti statuunt]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=76\nPages: 76,77\nFactus est qui subdolo/ Daemoni caput terit,/ Omne robur et rapit:/ Nascitur dum\nVirgine/ Labis expers et cruce/ Horridam mortem subit,/ Et cruentus interit./ Sic in arte\nmystica/ Sunt et haec umbris sacra/ Tecta... Qui modum perceperit/ CHRISTUS ut\nsalvaverit/ Nos ab aeterna nece,/ Hic potest et noscere/ Artis arcanae scopum,/ Quoque\ntingantur, modum,/ Quae metalla vilibus/ Sunt repleta faecibus.\"\n133\nE.g. Taylor, \"The Visions of Zosimos.\"\n68\nMaier's formative years\nAristotelian schema we have discussed. Furthermore, gnostic Paracelsian\nelements are to the fore in the work of Khunrath, who thought of the\nPhilosophers' Stone as a \"universal spark of the world soul.\" 134 Nevertheless,\nMaier's attitude towards salvation could be described as being broadly\ngnostic in character, as the sufferings of the world mirror the black phase of\nthe alchemical process as a necessary, cathartic means of the spirit's release\nfrom bondage. 135]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=76\nPages: 76\nmanifested not only in the Passion, death and resurrection of Christ, but also\nin the lives of those saved by Christ. Intimations of a parallel between Christ\nand the Philosophers' Stone stretch back to the earliest Greco-Egyptian texts,\nin which the Stone is linked with the divine spark in matter and the anthropos\nmyth of the Gnostics. 133 The relation of Christ to the Philosophers' Stone in\nMaier's work is one of sympathetic correspondence rather than identity, and\nis not dissimilar to the conception of his older contemporary, the Lutheran\nalchemist Heinrich Khunrath, although that writer utilises the Paracelsian\ntripartite elemental division of sulphur, mercury and salt rather than the\n132\nMaier, Michael. Cantilenae Intellectuales, in Triadas 9. distinctae, De Phoenice\nRedivivo. Rostock: Mauritii Saxonis, 1622, verse 7 media: \"Sic Deus potens homo/\nFactus est qui subdolo/ Daemoni caput terit,/ Omne robur et rapit:/ Nascitur dum]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=35\nPages: 35\nthen we must recognise Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik as Jung's\nfirst documented and most formative encounter with alchemy, and it behoves\nus to examine more closely the origins of the ideas advanced by Silberer.\nBoth Silberer and his predecessor Hitchcock drew their spiritual alchemy in\nlarge part from conceptions expressed in the higher degrees of Freemasonry,\nwhich have as their goal the progressive transformation of the human\npersonality from a state of primitivity and darkness to a higher level of\nhuman consciousness. Indeed, since the late eighteenth century various\nFreemasonic Lodges have incorporated spiritual alchemical conceptions into\ntheir higher degrees, a fact which has led many authors in the last two\ncenturies to trace the origins of modern Freemasonry to Rosicrucian\nthe Lily', which claimed its descent from Rosicrucianism by charter of the Supreme\nGrand Lodge of France; Hitchcock supposedly took his place in this 'Council' alongside]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=196\nPages: 196\nspirit and body.\" Although de Jong takes this to be a reference to the\nParacelsian tria prima, there is no mention in Maier's discourse of salt, the\nthird element Paracelsus added to the traditional sulphur-mercury dyad.24\nIndeed, elsewhere Maier clearly states that there are in reality only two\nprimary elements, sulphur and mercury. 25 Rather, this mention of 'soul,\nspirit and body' is another reference to Aristotle's theory of elemental\ntransmutation: thus according to the Atalanta Fugiens the 'body' is the\nblackness of Saturn or lead, corresponding to earth; the 'spirit' is the white\nphase of the work corresponding to water; and the 'soul' is the 'yellowness of\nthe air'. The final 'redness' of fire is the \"unity and eternal peace\" of the\nPhilosophers' Stone (represented in Maier's emblem by the union of man and\nwoman), which marks the perfection of the work through \"the return to the\nMonad.\" 26 In the De Circulo Physico, Quadrato Maier employs the symbols]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=259\nPages: 259\nPhilosophers' Stone, which imparts sixty years to the lifespan of those who\n57\n58\n59\n60\n61\n62\nC.f. chapter I, n. 125 above.\nWaite, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, p. 403.\nIbid.\nRichter, Die Warhaffte und vollkommene Bereitung des Philosophischen Steins, p. 57:\n\"Diese Materie der andern Ordnung/ wird auf eine andere Art projectiret/ als wie oben\ngesagt/ dreymahl rectificiret/ und reincrudiret worden/ alsdenn sie von vielen gr\u00f6ssern\nKr\u00e4fften zusammen gesetzet. Nimm also I. Theil dieses rectificirten Steines/ und trage\nihn auf 100. Theil geflossen Metall/ diese 100. auf 1000./ diese 1000. auf 10000,/und\ndiese 10000 auf 1000000. Und also procedire bi\u00df auf die 10. Projection, so wird 1. Theil\nauf hundert fallen/ und ein perfectes Metall von allen Proben seyn.\"\nIbid., pp. 99-100: \"Diese unsre Congregation war vor diesem von unsern alten Helden\nmit sehr strengen Clausuln und Gesetzen auffgerichtet worden/ durch welche unsere neue]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=195\nPages: 195\nPhilosophorum, in which 'Aristotle' declares:\nMake a circle out of a man and a woman, derive from it a square, and from the square a\ntriangle: make a circle [again] and you will have the Philosophers' Stone. 23\nsed igneae naturae, calidos et siccos, motu contractionis et dilatationis, quos deinde\nmittit per arterias car\u00f3tidas in cerebrum, ut ibi frigiditate et humiditate cerebrim retiformi\ncomplexu temperentur et fiant spiritus animales sensibus omnibus et motibus causandis\nin corpore aptis: ita Sol sive ex puriore aere, sive alias, fabricat essentias subtilissimas,\nquibus insunt Lumen, Calor, et Virtus, antea dicta, easque transmittit ad stellas omnes\ncircumcirca in coelo sitas, hoc est, errantes et fixas.\"\n21\nMaier, De Circulo Physico, Quadrato, p. 6: \"Mobiiis hic orbis punctus, stipante corona/\nErrantum incedit Duxque caputque Facum./ Sic COR et humani dominatur corporis\nAula/ Proque suo nutu subdita membra trahit./ Illud spiritibus venas, vegetoque tepore,/]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=243\nPages: 243\ncult of emblems\" adhered to by Maier encouraged the trend of employing\n'verbal conceits' and 'tropes' current in medieval European alchemy!4 In\nthe pansophist imagination, the relation of the processes in the alembic to\nsoteriological and spiritual matters was one of correspondence, and not\nmerely didactically employed analogy. Indeed, when reading Maier's works\none has the sense that the underlying reality of the cosmos is 'chemical' in\nhis eyes, and that 'chemical' research was concerned with uncovering laws\nwhich govern all aspects of the macrocosm and the microcosm \u2014 including\nthe life of the soul.\nWhilst Jung's ahistorical methodology failed to expose the integral\nrelation of laboratory practice with 'spiritual' alchemical notions of the transformation of the psyche or soul, we have seen that in Maier's work the one\nemerges from and complements the other. On the one hand, Maier hoped to\nachieve something of a moral transformation in his patients through the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=83\nPages: 83\nBohemia and England\nreturns to that unity. 20 Yet the medicine is simultaneously threefold in its\nnature, a fact to which Hermes Trismegistus has testified. 21 This is a\nreference to the fifth chapter of the medieval Tractatus Aureus Hermetis\nTrismegisti, in which Hermes asserts that in all Nature there exists three\nthings, a beginning, a middle, and an end - a statement Maier repeats in his\nthirteenth hymn. 22 These three things are encompassed by God just as the\nmedicine contains the chaotic prima materia, the process of purification, and\nthe final perfection within itself. The conception of the Philosophers' Stone\nas an all-encompassing entity is pervasive in the literature, stretching back\nto the early Greco-Egyptian texts; witness, for example, the tail-eating\nouroboros (figure 6), or the \"temple of one stone\" having \"neither beginning\nnor end in its building\" mentioned by Zosimos. 23 Maier's specific references]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=241\nPages: 241,242\nCreation - for just as the spiritus descended as a dove at Maier's birth, so it\nascended at death as Maier returned to his true heavenly home. All things\nstem from God, and all return to God; the spiritus moves through the sun to\ngold and the human heart, and then returns again to its source. Alternatively,\nit is the 'return to the Monad' of the Atalanta Fugiens, the 'unity and eternal\npeace' following the purification of the matter in the vessel - \"make a circle\nout of a man and a woman, derive from it a square, and from the square a\ntriangle: make a circle again and you will have the Philosophers' Stone.\"\n184\n185\n186\nCook, Albert Stanburrough. The Old English Elene, Ph\u0153nix and Physiologus. New\nHaven: Yale University Press, 1919, pp. xxxviii ff.\nIbid., p. xxxix; according to Cook, the etymological origin of bennu lies in a root verb\nmeaning 'to turn'.\nSee above, p. 56.\nVI. Conclusion: Maier and the historiography of alchemy\n1. Piety and the coniunctio\noppositorum]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=264\nPages: 264,263\nPietist Moravian Brotherhood - the origins of a fascination with alchemy that was to play\na central role in German culture, particularly through his Faust.\nThe historiography of alchemy\n255\nbranded as revivers of Gnostic heresy by their contemporaries, 84 a survey of\nthe medieval sources utilised by Maier confirms Obrist's view that the\nsoteriological and Christological motifs therein serve a primarily rhetorical\npurpose, and that Jung's views have their origins in the alchemy of the postReformation era. Certainly, a great deal of medieval texts speak of the\nnecessity of divine inspiration in the Art, and the importance of leading a\nmoral life if one wishes to be granted the divine secrets of the Philosophers'\nStone. There are also widespread conjectures concerning the nature of the\nprima materia and the cyclical transmutation of the four elements, which in\ntheir original antique philosophical context were inseparable from religious]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=68\nPages: 68\nclassroom - the annals speak of this event as 'unprecedented'. 102 When this\nmark against Maier's character and threat to his academic future is placed in\nthe context of his lifelong and sometimes inglorious struggle to attract\npatronage, the impetus behind Maier's quest for an alchemical 'medicine of\npiety' becomes more clear. These are the beginnings of the Philosophers'\nStone, which lie in 'misery and vinegar'; the collision of earthly passions\nwith the unyielding demands of socialisation and economic survival, which\nmarks the first stage of the begetting of an 'alchemical' wisdom.\n6. The theses on epilepsy\nDespite the emotional turmoil of this period Maier's academic endeavours\nhad borne fruit, a feat that he admits had required the application of all his\nenergies;103 indeed, the experience of such tribulations so far from home may\nhave overcome lesser men. The Theses de Epilepsia produced by Maier for\nhis medical doctorate at Basel, dated the 16th of October, 1596, demonstrate]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=264\nPages: 264,265\nWhilst Merkur has recently argued for a medieval origin to 'spiritual alchemy' with\nreference to the theoretical relation of the quintessence to the soul, his terms are not well\ndefined, and an explicit medieval work on alchemy as a process of spiritual transmutation\nwithin the adept is yet to be uncovered. See Merkur, Dan. \"The Study of Spiritual\nAlchemy: Mysticism, Gold-Making, and Esoteric Hermeneutics,\" Ambix, Vol. 37, No. 1,\nMarch 1990, pp. 35-45.\nHolmyard, Alchemy, p. 160.\nIbid., p. 159.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 414.\n256\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nWhilst it is true that the pursuit which we have defined as 'spiritual\nalchemy' remains a subset of the whole that is early modern alchemy, it is by\nno means an insignificant element in the history of ideas, nor was it limited to\nnon-laboratory practitioners such as Boehme or Weigel. Furthermore, there]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=256\nPages: 256\nAn expos\u00e9 of the falsely celebrated art known as Alchemy, wherein the inanity of this art is\nclearly proven, the principles of the alchemists scrutinised and refuted, their beguiling\nexposed, and the likelihood of the impossibility of metallic transmutation is set forth... 46\nIn the course of his polemic Wegner does not distinguish between chrysopoeia and the quest for the Universal Medicine, which he also impugns as a\ndelusion. His definition of alchemy runs as follows:\nBy alchemy I understand that art which teaches the means of transmuting metals, and of\nbringing imperfect metals to their maturity, or making Gold or Silver from imperfect metals.\nOr it is the art of preparing the Philosophers' Stone, which not only makes imperfect metals\ninto Gold and Silver, but also works in the human body as a general medicament for the\npreservation of health and life. I speak therefore not of Chimia, which is the art of opening]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27\nEnglish occultist Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942); the rather insubstantial\nbasis for their assertion is Noll's observation that Waite's works were\ncirculating amongst members of Jung's Zurich Psychological Club in the\n1910's. 75 Principe and Newman point to the supposed influence of Waite in\norder to support their central historiographie thesis that the conception of\nalchemy as a process of personal transmutation from a base, earthly state into\n\"a more noble, more spiritual, more moral, or more divine state\"- a\nconception which we shall follow Principe and Newman 76 in describing as\n'spiritual alchemy' - has its origins in the nineteenth century:\nAlthough it was in fact a commonplace of the early modern period to build extended\nreligious conceits on alchemical processes and to draw theological parallels therefrom - an\naspect of alchemical writing Luther praised in passing - the occultists of the nineteenth]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=94\nPages: 94\n'natural meaning': no longer does the Stone symbolise Christ, but the Christ becomes,\nlike the Phoenix, a simple allegory of the Stone. Thus certain alchemists, vehemently\nopposed by Maier, did not hesitate to subject Biblical and Christian 'myth' to the same\nfate as those of Greece and Egypt, propounding, as it were, a sort of 'alchemie libertine'\nparallel to 'spiritual alchemy'\": Matton, Sylvain. \"Le Ph\u00e9nix dans l'Oeuvre de Michel\nMaier et la Litt\u00e9rature Alchimique.\" In Bailly, J. C. (ed.). Chansons Intellectuelles sur la\nR\u00e9surrection du Ph\u00e9nix par Michel Maier. Paris: Gutenberg Reprints, 1984; an English\ntranslation of this text was kindly provided to me by Mike Dickman. For Maier's\ninvective against this alchemie libertine, see the Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 24: \"Quid\niam dicemus de iis, qui hoc nostro tempore Creationem mundi, nativitatem, passionem,\nmortem, resurrectionem et ascensionem Christi, imo fere omnes art\u00edculos fide, sacrilege]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=294\nPages: 294,295\npanacea, 198; see also Universal\nMedicine; nepenthe\npansophia, 70-71, 80, 119, 138, 234, 240,\n254\nParacelsianism, 3, 4, 16, 23, 36, 60-61,\n67-68, 73n., 98, 118, 119, 135, 164,\n168, 175, 187, 196, 202, 239, 241,\n243, 245, 252\nParacelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von\nHohenheim), 3, 13, 16n., 36, 49, 6061, 73n., 98, 118n., 126n., 127, 140,\n141, 145, 149, 159, 168, 187, 196-197,\n198,246, 250, 252,254\npareidolia, 15\nPauli, Wolfgang, 4\nPeace of Augsburg, 35, 181\nPeace of Teusina, 55n.\npeacock, as alchemical symbol, 65-66\nPegasus, 170, 172\npelican, as alchemical symbol, 66-67, 68\nPenot, George, 107\nPeople's Temple, 20\nperegrination, 16, 54-57, 62n., 89n., 156,\n169,221,225,232,234\nPergamom, 55\nPern\u00e9ty, Antoine Joseph, 251-252\nPeuckert, 70, 71, 117n., 124n., 127, 146,\n156, 236,254\nPhillip von Hessen-Butzbach, 174\nPhilosophers' Stone, 31, 41, 53, 59, 62,\n63, 67-68, 74, 86, 93, 96, 175, 176n.,\n177, 186-189, 196n., 212-213, 216n.,\n286\n221, 232, 233, 234, 235, 245-246, 247,\n249, 250-251,252, 255]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 80 to page 97 out of a total of 334:\nPages 80:\nThe\nHymnosophia\n71\nthat Maier espoused \"a philosophy of the laboratory\" that leads away from\npansophic approaches to Nature and towards the experimental tradition\nexemplified by Newton. 9 Unfortunately, Peuckert's views on this matter\nseem to have been based on the testimony of Maier's Rosicrucian writings\nalone, which on first inspection seem to depict the Rosicrucian brethren as\nnothing more than hard-working researchers into a Nature divested of divine\naspect. Although Maier's pansophic sentiments are not always made explicit,\nPeuckert was unaware of the scope of the alchemical Art in Maier's eyes.\n2. The Hymnosophia\nThat scope is well illustrated in the little-known Hymnosophia ('Hymn to\nWisdom'), a work written by Maier whilst in Prague.10 Although there is no\ndate given on the title page (suggesting it underwent a limited print run in the\nsame manner as the De Medicina Reg\u00eca), after Maier's name we find the title\n'P. C. Caesar', i.e. Comes Palatinus or Count Palatine - from which fact we\nmay understand that the work was composed after the 29th of September,\n1609, the date of the conferral of Maier's peerage. Under the author's name\non the title page stands the verse, \"I have nothing to say against worldly\nthings, when they concern the heavenly; the heavens shine, my matter is\ngranted to me by light.\"11 The last phrase of the verse, res mea luce mihi, is\nan anagram of the author's name, and appears to refer to the Light of Nature.\nThe Hymnosophia presents forty hymns praising God, who exists in a coeternal Trinity, for the 'mystical medicine' that is His gift; their central theme\nis the correspondence of things heavenly to earthly, and the divine chain\nlinking the two. In form this work could be said to prefigure the Cantilenae\nIntellectuales written in the last year of Maier's life, a more polished tract in\nwhich we again find the macrocosmic mysteries of God's Creation and the\nmicrocosmic Universal Medicine paralleled in alternating verses. Thus in the\ntwelfth hymn of the Hymnosophia Maier writes of the macrocosm as a war of\nthe four opposing elements, by which heavier bodies become lighter and\nlighter bodies heavier; likewise, the human being is a \"smaller copy of the\nuniverse,\" being composed of the four contrary humours, from the interaction\n9\n10\n11\nPeuckert, Will-Erich. Pansophie. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1936, pp. 105-107.\nMaier, Michael. Hymnosophia, seu Meditatio Laudis Divinae, pro Coelidonia,\nMedicina\nmystica, voarchadumica etc. Prague: n.p., n.d. I am indebted to Dr. Ulrich Neumann for\nsharing his copy of this work with me.\nlbid.\\ \"Nil Mundana moror, cum sint coelestia curae, fulgeat Aetheria res mea luce\nmihi.\"\n\nPages 81:\nBohemia and England\n72\nof which are produced the various spiritus.n This correspondence is based on\na view of both body and universe as the sites of a process of distillation,13 and\nis explicated in greater detail in Maier's Septimana Philosophica (1620),\nwhere we are told that the heart produces the spiritus Vitalis from the blood\nby its 'natural fire' or calor innatus, which travels to the brain and is there\ntransformed into the spiritus animalis. Likewise, the sun as the homologue of\nthe heart constructs 'subtle essences' from the purest air (the homologue of\nblood), and these essences inhere in the light, heat and 'virtue' that are\ntransmitted to the wandering and fixed stars, thus imparting motion to the\nuniverse. 14 The twelfth hymn of the Hymnosophia goes on to explain that the\nuniverse and the human being are mirrored in their turn by the Hermetic\nmedicine, as it is composed in the alchemical vessel through the alternating\nmotions of rarefaction and condensation - activities which proceed \"in one\nmarvellously interconnected chain.\" 15 In this way Maier offers us a picture of\nthe universe, the body and the alchemical vessel as inter-related networks of\ncosmic sympathy and antipathy, in which ever-finer and subtler spiritus are\ndistilled.\nCorrelations between laboratory process and cosmos are found throughout\nMaier's work. Thus the six days of God's Creation are suggestively portrayed\nin the preface of the Hymnosophia as a process of separation and refinement\nin which darkness is separated from light, earth from water, and the stars are\ngathered together as fires in the heavenly palace. 16 This is the septimana\nphilosophica, the 'philosophical week' in which the universe is the Hermetic\n12\nIbid., p. Cii recto- Cii verso: \"Sic compegit opus c\u00e1elo septemplice cinctum/ Mundanas\nDeus arte plagas, contraria ut omni/ Corpora parte sibi discordia bella moverent;/ Hac\nElementa vocant, quorum calet ignis, at unda/ Friget, humus siccat, mollit penetrabilis\naer:/ Quae tarnen unanimi miscentur foedere, ne quid/ Ante diem fugiat, gravibus leviora\ntenentur/ Fixa solo, levibus gravioraque pondere certant./ Mundus in exemplo minor est,\nHomo, possidet ille/ Terreno hospitio flammas statusque tenellos/ Cum variis mixtos\nhumoribus, hos regit una/ Mens animae sedes, et motibus incit\u00e2t artus.\"\n13\nThe conception of the universe as a site of distillation dates to the pre-Socratic\nphilosophers, and in particular to the theory of condensation and rarefaction proposed by\nAnaximenes.\nMaier, Septimana Philosophica, p. 7: \"Et si bene rem introspiciamus, penitiusque\nconsideremus, Sol in coelo, ut cor in humano corpore procedit in suis operationibus. Cor\nex sanguine puriore fabricat spiritus tenues, aerios, sed igneae naturae, calidos et siccos,\nmotu contractionis et dilatationis, quos deinde mittit per arterias car\u00f3tidas in cerebrum,\nut ibi frigiditate et humiditate cerebrim retiformi complexu temperentur et fiant spiritus\nanimales sensibus omnibus et motibus causandis in corpore aptis: ita Sol sive ex puriore\naere, sive alias, fabricat essentias subtilissimas, quibus insunt Lumen, Calor, et Virtus,\nantea dicta, easque transmittit ad stellas omnes circumcirca in coelo sitas, hoc est,\nerrantes et fixas.\"\n14\n15\n16\nMaier, Hymnosophia,\nIbid., p. Aii verso.\np. Cii verso.\n\nPages 82:\nThe Hymnosophia\n73\nvessel writ large, and God - that most \"admirable Artificer\" - appears as the\nsupreme alchemist (figure 5).17 For the alchemists of the medieval and early\nmodern periods, the most important source of this conception was the\nenigmatic Tabula Smaragdina of Hermes Trismegistus: and although this\ntext has been described as \"cryptic\" and \"virtually incomprehensible,\" 18 we\ncan see that it makes a great deal of sense when understood in terms of the\nvitalistic Hermetic cosmology held by an alchemist such as Maier:\nThat which is beneath is like that which is above: and that which is above, is like that which\nis beneath, to worke the miracles of one thing. And as all things have proceeded from one, by\nthe meditation of one, so all things have sprung from this one thing by adaptation. His father\nis the sun, his mother is the moone, the wind bore it in her belly. The earth is his nurse. The\nfather of all the perfection of this world is here. His force and power is perfect, if it be turned\ninto earth. Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the thinne from the thicke, and\nthat gently with great discretion, ft ascendeth from the Earth into Heaven: and againe it\ndescendeth into the earth, and receiveth the power of the superiours and inferiours: so shalt\nthou have the glorie of the whole worlde. All obscuritie therefore shall flie away from thee.\nThis is the mightie power of all power, for it shall overcome every subtile thing, and pearce\nthrough every solide thing. So was the worlde created. 19\nThere exists in the alchemical corpus no more succinct expression of the\ncorrespondence of the alchemical work to the cosmogony, or of the place of\nthe divine life force in both. That the wind should bear this power 'in her\nbelly' is an allusion to the Stoic notion of the logos spermatikos borne by the\nair or ether; that it should be 'turned into earth' is a clear reference to the\n'fixation' of the volatile mercurial spirit, the coniunctio oppositorum which\nconstitutes an act of creation.\nIn accordance with the unity of the divine power expressed by the Tabula\nSmaragdina, in the thirteenth hymn of his Hymnosophia Maier tells us that\nthe Triune God has established \"a venerable pattern\" on earth, as the\nUniversal Medicine has emerged from a unity, and after many changes\n17\nThe parallels of the alchemical opus with God's work of Creation were elaborated upon\nat length by the followers of Paracelsus; see, for example, Gerhard Dorn's commentary\non the 'Physica' of 'Abbot Trithemius' in Theatrum Chemicum, Vol. 1. Strasbourg:\nZetzner, 1656, pp. 388-399; an English manuscript translation resides at the British\nLibrary: \"A Treatise of John Tritheme concerning the Spagirick Artifice exposed &\ninterpreted by Gerhard Dorn.\" British Library, MS Sloane 632, pp. 6-10. On the subject\nof the Paracelsian appropriation of the Christian creation myth, see Debus, Allen G. The\nEnglish Paracelsians. London: Oldbourne, 1965, pp. 24-26.\n18\nDobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. \"Newton's Commentary on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes\nTrismegistus: its Scientific and Theological Significance.\" In Merkel, tngrid and Allen\nG. Debus (eds.). Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult\nin Early Modern Europe. Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1988, p. 184.\nCited in Roger Bacon's The Mirror ofAlchimy. London: Richard Olive, 1597, pp. 15-16;\nMaier, Hymnosophia, p. Ciii recto.\n19\n\nPages 83:\n74\nBohemia and England\nreturns to that unity. 20 Yet the medicine is simultaneously threefold in its\nnature, a fact to which Hermes Trismegistus has testified. 21 This is a\nreference to the fifth chapter of the medieval Tractatus Aureus Hermetis\nTrismegisti, in which Hermes asserts that in all Nature there exists three\nthings, a beginning, a middle, and an end - a statement Maier repeats in his\nthirteenth hymn. 22 These three things are encompassed by God just as the\nmedicine contains the chaotic prima materia, the process of purification, and\nthe final perfection within itself. The conception of the Philosophers' Stone\nas an all-encompassing entity is pervasive in the literature, stretching back\nto the early Greco-Egyptian texts; witness, for example, the tail-eating\nouroboros (figure 6), or the \"temple of one stone\" having \"neither beginning\nnor end in its building\" mentioned by Zosimos. 23 Maier's specific references\nto the Trinity in his thirteenth hymn may also be an allusion to the traditional\nChristian division of Creation into three eras: the beginning under God, the\nmiddle under Christ, and the end under the Holy Spirit (a theme taken up by\nthe Joachimite heretics). Furthermore, in the same passage of the Tractatus\nAureus to which Maier refers, Hermes asserts that between Heaven and Earth\nthere must be a third, that is to say, a Mediator.24 Thus Maier again draws a\nparallel between the Philosophers' Stone and Christ as the incarnate God and\nredeemer of matter, which he explores further in the thirtieth hymn of the\nHymnosophia.25\nThe sixteenth hymn - entitled \"The sun of the heavens, the sun of the\nearth: the locus of the medicine\" - confirms the many planes of alchemy's\nsignificance in its suggestion that the earth, in which metals grow and are\nperfected through the power of the sun, is also the homologue of the\nalchemist's vessel:\nThere is a cave stretching to the centre of the earth, surrounded on all sides by mountains,\nwhich holds the hidden seeds of the sun, and which imparts the gift of divine power, and\nconceals the most golden of treasures. If there are lovers of piety, God the Almighty will\nmake them heirs to the richest gifts. O Lord, if only You would graciously choose me, one in\na thousand men, to be a guest at Your banquet. Alas! how am I to repay so great a present\n20\n21\n22\nIbid., pp. Cii verso- Ciii recto.\nIbid., p. Ciii recto.\nHermes Trismegistus. \"Tractatus Aureus de Lapidis physici secreto.\" In Theatrum\nChemicum. Vol. 4. Stra\u00dfburg: Zetzner, 1613, pp. 672-797; an English translation is to be\nfound in Salmon, William. Medicina Practica. London: J. Harris at the Harrow in the\nPoultrey, 1692, pp. 178-258.\n23\nBerthelot, Marcellin Pierre Eugene (ed., trans.). Collection des Anciens\nAlchimistes\nGrecs. London: Holland Press, 1963, p. 120: \"...un temple monolithe, semblable \u00e0 la\nc\u00e9ruse, a l'alb\u00e2tre, n'ayant ni commencement ni fin dans sa construction.\"\n24\nSalmon, Medicina Practica, verse 5.vii.\nMaier, Hymnosophia, pp. Fiv verso- Gi verso.\n25\n\nPages 84:\nThe\nHymnosophia\n75\nwith my heart? I possess nothing without You, I am indebted to You for this body and soul,\nand all the good which You have given to me; these things shall be Yours when I leave [my\nearthly existence] and are but a ransom to Your kingdom, in order that I may attend You as a\nservile slave close-at-hand to the celebrated Master and Father. 2 6\nIt must be said that the devotional language utilised in this and other passages\nof the Hymnosophia are unusually florid, and constitute an exception in the\ncorpus of Maier's work; and we might also surmise that the indebtedness\nMaier felt at this time was as much to his benefactor the Emperor, whom he\nno doubt attended diligently, if not as a 'servile slave'. Nevertheless, this\npassage demonstrates well the solar mysticism that is a dominating theme of\nMaier's work, and the Tractatus Aureus may again have been an important\nsource for Maier when formulating these ideas.27 The central conception here\nis the 'seed of the sun', by which plants and the \"mass submersed in the\ncaverns\" are animated. 28 Likewise, we are told that the stars too receive the\n\"pleasing warmth\" of this \"divine power,\" which is at its height when they\nchange their aspect to face the radiance of the sun. Although there is nothing\nof theological speculation in the Hymnosophia, Maier strays far enough from\nan orthodox Lutheran position to represent the sun and God in a language that\nblurs their distinction.29\n26\nIbid., p. Di verso: \"Proximus a centro terrarum tractus habetur/ Undique vallatis\nconclusum montibus antrum,/ Semina quod Solis tenet abdita, quodque favorem/\nNuminis insinu\u00e2t, thesaurorumque recondit/ Flavissas, si qui fuerint pietatis amantes,/\nHis beat, haeredesque facit tam divitis arrae/ Largitor Omnipotens: o si me ex millibus\nunum/ Gratuito talis convivam ad fercula mensae/ Legeris, heu quantas expendam\npectore grates,/ Aut referam tanto munuscula mu\u00f1ere digna?/ Nil ego possideo sine te,\ntibi debeo corpus/ Hancque animam, bonaque omnia, quae mihi tute dedisti,/ Haec\nhabeas, mihi me rapiens lytron ad tua regna,/ Ut tibi mancipii servilis sedulus instar/\nCominus assistam, Dominumque Patremque celebrem.\"\n27\nAlthough these conceptions are common in the medieval alchemical literature, we\ncannot fail to notice the close resemblance of Maier's sixteenth hymn to the words of\nHermes in the Tractatus Aureus\u00b7. \"This hidden Secret which is the Venerable Stone,\nsplendid in Color, a Sublime Spirit, an Open Sea, is hid in the Caverns of the Metals:\nBehold I have exposed it to you; and give thanks to the Almighty God, who teaches you\nthis knowledge: If you be grateful, he will return you the Tribute of your Love\"; \"...such\nGold in Bodies is like the Sun among the Stars, most Light and Splendid. And as by the\nPower of God, every Vegetable, and all the Fruits of the Earth are perfected; so by the\nsame Power, the Gold, and the Seed thereof which contains all these seven Bodies,\nmakes them to spring to be ripened, and brought to perfection, and without which this\nWork can in no wise be performed.\" Salmon, Medicina Practica, verses 2.vi, 12.ii.\nMaier, Hymnosophia, p. Di recto: \"Sic et humo plantas, nec non submersa cavernis/\nPondera saepe decet vigilante reponere sensu,/ Omnipotensque rudi sub mole requirere\nNumen.\"\n28\n29\nIbid:. \"Sol oculus caeli dum circum voluitur axe/ Fert gyrante diem, radiisque nitentibus\numbras/ Discutit, astra super Clarissime justicia SOL/ Tu Deus effulges, solemque\nsolumque refraenas/ Imperio, stet ut hoc perpes, moveatur ut ille.\"\n\nPages 85:\n76\nBohemia and England\nDid Maier believe at this time that he possessed the 'coelidonia' or 'gift of\nheaven' containing the power of the sun? Despite his supplications to God in\nthe Hymnosophia to bestow this gift upon him, the evidence of Maier's\nfirst experiments described above suggests that he already possessed an\niatrochemical remedy that, if not the Universal Medicine itself, was at least\nsomething approaching it in virtue and efficacy. Furthermore, according to a\nletter from Maier to Prince August of Anhalt-Pl\u00f6tzkau cited by Figala and\nNeumann, the Emperor \"graciously condescended to accept a portion of\nMaier's Universal Medicine.\" 30 Whether or not the Emperor bravely\ncondescended to ingest this substance, the nature of Maier's principal cure is\nconfirmed in the Hymnosophia by the hymn concerning \"the resurrection of\nthe dead.\" 31 In this place, and in the Civitas Corporis Humani to be discussed\nin our fifth chapter, we may gather that Maier's iatrochemical physic was\nconcerned first and foremost with the employment of drastic purgatives.\nHaving told us that the phoenix is not only to be found in Egypt but also in\nEurope, provided that we \"look around with the little eye of the soul,\" Maier\ngoes on in his hymn to liken that bird's recovery of youth with the treatment\nof dropsy (oedema).32 Although this parallel may appear incongruous - as do\nmany of the parallels Maier draws - his reference here is to a process of\nrejuvenation through catharsis. Thus dropsical limbs are drained of their\nexcess fluid by 'perforation', and the patient is \"three times washed by water,\nthree times purged by the flames given by God.\" The standard treatment for\ndropsy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the administration of\npurgatives, though it seems that Maier may have had some special remedy\nawaiting his patients beyond the mercuric oxide or sulphur commonly\napplied.33\nDespite the successes Maier may have had with this remedy, in the\nHymnosophia he discusses the four seasons and their parallels to the Great\nWork, and in the course of the twenty-sixth hymn on autumn we are told that\n\"the ripe fruit does not yet adhere to the tree.\" This is because such fruit\ncannot be had \"by force of ploughing,\" i.e. the cycle of Nature must be\nallowed to take its course, and no premature stoking of the furnace fires will\nhasten the ripening of the solar seed. This having been said, Maier again\n30\nFigala and Neumann, \"Author cui Nomen Hermes Malavici,\" p. 130.\n31\nMaier, Hymnosophia, pp. Civ recto- Civ verso.\nIbid:. \"Hoc etenim purae Medicamen amabile Glaurae,/ Innuitur, cui dirus hydrops\ninflaverat artus:/ Traditur hinc lentae per multa pericula curae,/ Omnis aquae ri vis qua\nper paracenthesin haustis/ Gurgitis a nimio fuit exanimata dolore:/ Tum lymphis ter lota,\nter expurgataque flammis,/ Dante Deo, Coelis animam, velut ante recepit,/ Purior et nulla\njuvenis jam labe perennis.\"\n32\n33\nKiple, K. F. (ed.). The Cambridge\nUniversity Press, 1993, p. 212.\nWorld History of Disease.\nCambridge: Cambridge\n\nPages 86:\nThe reversal of fortune\n77\nadopts his melancholic tone when he says that \"the hope of succeeding\nconsoles the heart,\" and he offers up a prayer to God for his future success.\nInterestingly, this prayer refers to his acquisition of the poet's laurels in\nPadua: it simply states, \"I am he, who was crowned with the laurel wreath in\nthe city of Padua; not because I speak in verses of the frivolous things of this\nworld, but because I speak of the great things of God.\" 34\n3. The reversal of fortune\nMaier was 40 years old when he gained his place in the hereditary peerage\non the 29th of September, 1609. The record of the emperor's bestowal of the\ntitle of Pfalzgraf or Imperial Count Palatine residing in the Allgemeines\nVerwaltungsarchiv in Vienna lists the privileges associated with Maier's new\nposition; amongst them are the power to grant the right to bear arms,35 and\nthe power to bestow the title of Doctor, Magister, Baccalaureate and Poet\nLaureate at the universities of the empire and the Venetian Republic. 36 The\nuniversity of Padua is mentioned by name, which must have seemed a\npleasant reversal of fortune for Maier considering his violent history at that\ninstitution, and the efforts of the German Nation there to deny him his own\ndoctoral degree.\nIn the Deutsches Reich the bestowal of a hereditary peerage was accompanied by the ceremonial receipt of heraldic insignia from the Emperor; and\nin an official manuscript reply to his appointment as Imperial Count Palatine\n(figure 7), Maier makes a request to the Emperor for a particular symbol to\nadorn his coat of arms:\nMost Merciful Emperor, that true Hermetic Philosopher Avicenna once said in his Porta\nElementorum, \"the magistery is an eagle which flies through the air, and a toad which creeps\non the earth.\" Thereby he understood the eagle to be the volatile part of Mercury, and by the\ncreeping toad he understood the fixed part of the earth, from both of which together arises\n34\n35\n36\nMaier, Hymnosophia, p. Fi verso: \"Arbore fructus adhuc nondum maturas inhaeret,/\nCaerea nulla fluunt nec citria, Arantia ve hortis/ Sponte cadunt, nam causa subest, quod\nfrigore duro/ Haec loca pressa diu lento sua semina fotu/ Produxere, calor Solis dum\njustus abesset:/ Spes sed enim bona successu solatur amico/ Pectora passa graves jam\nlongo tempore curas./ O si detur et hos animo superare labores,/ Et bene speratis in rebus\ncernere finem,/ Vota tibi Supreme Deus solennibus aris/ Mente lubens faciam, sitque\nhaec inscriptio VOTI:/ ILLE EGO, QUEM PATAVA LAURUS CIRCUMDEDIT\nURBE/ IAMPRIDEM, STATUO, QUOD NON HAEC FRIVOLA MUNDI/ CARMINIBUS, SED MIRA DEI MAGNALIA DICAM.\"\nVienna, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv: Palatinat, Prag 29. IX. 1609, (R) u. (WB II,\n114), p. 11 verso.\nIbid.., pp. 10 verso-11 recto.\n\nPages 87:\n78\nBohemia and England\nthe Hermetic Medicine and Tincture of the Wise, as I will hereafter explain to Your Majesty\nat length with the greatest pleasure... it is my most humble wish that Your Majesty would\nrecognise me and give me a hereditary double helmet for such a philosophical symbol, like\nthe double helmet that is often to be found on the shields borne by the nobility in Austria... 37\nEvidently the Emperor obliged, as this is a reference to Maier's heraldic insignia (see figure 1), which show a toad and an eagle linked by a golden\nchain - a representation of the alchemical coniunctio oppositorum. The\ngolden chain (aurea catena) is a medieval alchemical symbol, mentioned by\npseudo-Jean de Meung in the Remonstrance of Nature as the means of\n\"reconciling opposites and calming their discord.\" 38 Just why it should be a\ngolden chain that binds the opposing mercuric and sulphuric principles in the\nalchemical work may be gleaned from the ultimate source of the aurea\ncatena motif in alchemy, Homer's Iliad. There Zeus issues a challenge to\nthose who would oppose his will:\n...come, try it, gods - then all of you will know. Hang a golden chain down from heaven, and\nall you gods and goddesses take hold of it: but you could not pull Zeus, the counsellor most\nhigh, down from heaven to the ground, however long and hard you laboured... By so much\nam I above gods and above men. 3 9\nClearly, then, the aurea catena forms a link between the supreme power\nof heaven and the mass of the world below; it is the 'marvellously\ninterconnected chain' that Maier speaks of in the Hymnosophia, linking the\nheart with gold, gold with the sun, and the sun with God.40 From the time of\n37\nIbid. p. 24r: \"Allergn\u00e4digster Kayser, Es sagt Avicenna der/ warhafte Hermetisch\nPhilosophus in seiner Porta Elementorum,/ Ein Adler, welcher fleucht durch die Luft,\nund eine Kr\u00f6te,/ welcher krigt auf der erde, sey die Meisterschafft; da vorsthet er durch\nden adtler das fluchtige theil des/ gemeinen Argenti vivi, durch die erdische krichende\nKr\u00f6te,/ das fixe theil der erden, von diessen beiten ist zusamen gefuget die Hermetisch\nMedicin und Tinctur/ der weissen, wie ich hernach Eur. May: mit grossem Lust\nweitleuftig zu erkleren habe... so ist mein untert\u00e4nigste bitte, Ihr May: wolle mir beuelen,\nsolchem philosophischem symbolo einen geduppelten heim erblichen verleihen und mit\ntheilen; wie dan dergeleichen / zwei helme auf einem Schilde die vom adel/ meistes\ntheiles zu \u00d6sterreich...\"\n38\nSee the Musaeum Hermeticum Reformatum et Amplificatimi. Frankfurt am Main: Sande,\n1678, p. 165.\nHomer. The Iliad. Trans. Martin Hammond. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987, p.\n118.\n39\n40\nIn his Atalanta Fugiens Maier mentions a contemporary English report that a toad with a\ngolden chain was found inside a quarry stone: \"William of Newberry, an English writer,\nsaith (how truly let others judge) that in a certain quarry in the diocese of Vintonia, a\ngreat stone being split, there was a living Toad found in it, with a golden chain, and it\nwas by the Bishop's command, hidden in the same place and buried in perpetual\ndarkness, lest it might bear an ill omen with it.\" Maier goes on to jestingly question why\na toad should require golden jewellery, \"lest by chance he should meet the beetle in the\n\nPages 88:\nThe reversal of fortune\n79\nthe earliest extant alchemical literature, alchemy was concerned with the\npowers that link heaven and earth; following the apocryphal Book of Enoch,\nthe Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis claimed that the\nalchemical secrets were taught to humanity by fallen angels, who wrote the\nprimeval books of alchemy.41 In accordance with that first encounter,\nalchemists through the millennia toiled to manifest divine power in the world.\nMaier's request for the 'symbol of Avicenna' is testament to the great\ncurrency held by Hermetic and emblematic symbolism in Rudolfine Prague.\nThrough his archivist, Octavio de Strada, Rudolf had commissioned the\ncollection of a vast registry of symbols and heraldic insignia; these were\nbrought together in a tome known as the Symbola Divina et Humana, in\nwhich each symbol was illustrated with a copperplate emblem and set\ntogether with a motto and short discourse - in similar style to Maier's\nexclusively alchemical emblem book, the Atalanta Fugiens.42 The emblem\ngained popularity in the sixteenth century as a pictorial allegory, often\naccompanied by a short motto, designed to intuitively convey a message of\nmoral significance to the reader.43 Its origin can be traced largely to the\nRenaissance understanding of hieroglyphs, and in particular to the discovery\nin 1419 of the Hieroglyphics of Horapollo, a Hellenistic-Egyptian work of\nthe fourth century CE in which the original significance of the priestly script\nhad already been obscured by the Neoplatonic understanding of hieroglyphs\nas intuitive representations of archetypal truths.44 Following its reappearance\n41\ntwilight;\" and he explains that \"it is in the Stone of the subterranean caverns that the\nPhilosophical Toad is really found, not in the quarry (as that fabulous author asserts).\"\nMaier, Michael. \"The Flying Atalanta, Or Philosophical Emblems of the Secrets of\nNature.\" British Library, MS Sloane 3645, 17th century, discourse 4.\nThe Book of Enoch, 8.1-2: \"And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and\nshields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art\nof working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the\nbeautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. And\nthere arose much godlessness...\"; on this subject, see Mertens, Mich\u00e8le. \"Sur la Trace\ndes Anges Rebelles dans les Traditions \u00c9sot\u00e9riques du D\u00e9but de notre \u00c8re jusqu'au\nXVIIe Si\u00e8cle.\" In Ries, Julien and Henri Limet (eds.). Anges et D\u00e9mons: Actes du\nColloque de Li\u00e8ge et de Louvain-la-Neuve,\n25-26 Novembre 1987. Louvain-la-Neuve:\nCentre D'Histoire des Religions, 1989, pp. 383-389.\n42\nTrunz, Erich. \"Sp\u00e4thumanismus und Manierismus im Kreise Kaiser Rudolfs II.\" In Prag\num 1600: Kunst und Kultur am Hofe Rudolfs II. Freren: Luca-Verlag, 1988, p. 58; on de\nStrada's collection, see Volkmann, Ludwig. Bilder-Schriften\nder\nRenaissance:\nHieroglyphik und Emblematik in ihren Beziehungen und Fortwirkungen. Leipzig: Karl\nW. Hiersemann, 1923, pp. 58-59.\n43\nPraz, Mario. Studies in Seventeenth-Century\nInstitute, 1939, pp. 12, 19 ff.\n44\nIversen, The Myth of Egypt, pp. 40 ff., 65: \"In the Platonic and postsocratic philosophies\nthe Egyptian myths were always considered in the way in which the Greeks had become\naccustomed to consider their own, which means that the relationship between myth and\nImagery.\nVol. 1. London: The Warburg\n\nPages 89:\n80\nBohemia and England\nin the Renaissance, Horapollo's work gave rise to the idea that hieroglyphs\ncould constitute a universal language without letters, a purely pictorial means\nof representation embodying the pristine power of words granted to Adam. 45\n4. The most secret of secrets\nIt is in the context of the search at the imperial court for the prisca sapientia,\nand the pansophic concern with divine signatures in Nature, that we should\nunderstand Maier's Arcana Arcanissima ('The Most Secret of Secrets,' 1614;\nsee figure 8).46 In this work the hieroglyphs and myths of ancient Egypt and\nGreece are interpreted as representations of universal alchemical processes,\nand constitute the 'pristine language' gleaned directly from the Creator. The\nArcana Arcanissima was composed during Maier's time at the court of\nRudolf, or at least shortly thereafter, as we may gather from the manuscript\nof Maier's residing at the library of the university of Leipzig entitled\nDe Theosophia Aegyptiorum ('On the Theosophy of the Egyptians'). 47\nAlthough Christoph Gottlieb von Murr, following Morhof, described the De\nTheosophia Aegyptiorum as a \"thorough revision of the Arcana Arcanissima\"\nwhich was never published, 48 there are three facts mitigating against\nthis assertion. Firstly, the contents are largely identical with the Arcana\nArcanissima, and therefore contain very little to justify a reprint.49\nreality was considered as being of a symbolic and allegorical nature. But the establishment of this symbolic relationship was a fundamental misinterpretation of the very basis\nof Egyptian thought, and substituted the mythical truth of the Egyptians, with its\nindissoluble magical identification of myth and matter, by an utterly un-Egyptian\ninterpretation created by Greek philosophy and poetry.\"\n45\nOn this subject see Coudert, Allison P. (ed.). The Language\nAdams. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1999.\n46\nMaier, Michael. Arcana Arcanissima, hoc est, Hieroglyphica Aegyptio-Graeca.\nLondon:\nCreede, c. 1614.\nMaier, Michael. De Theosophia Aegyptiorum. Leipzig, Universit\u00e4tsbibliothek, MS 0396.\nvon Murr, Uber den Wahren Ursprung der Rosenkreuzer, p. 45; Morhof, Daniel Georg.\nPolyhistor Literarius Philosophicus et Practicus. L\u00fcbeck: Peter Bochmann, 1714, p.\n169, n. 1: \"Qui et idem Argumentum, diversa licet Methodo, denuo pertractavit, in Tr. de\nTheosophia Aegyptiorum ut antiquissima, sie abdita et Sacra, cuius MStum \u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u03bf\u03c7\u03b1\u03c6\u03bf\u03c5\nin Bibliothec. Acad. Lips. Paulina superesse, Actorum Orbis Eruditi Lipsiensium\nCollectores, plura de eodem referentes, M. Jul. \u0391. 1687 p.393, 394 nos edocuerunt,\nEditionem etiam, Morhofii hortatu, uti ipsemet mihi retulit, moliti.\"\n47\n48\n49\nof Adam/ Die\nSprache\nThus chapter 1 of the Arcana Arcanissima on Egyptian gods and hieroglyphics = De\nTheosophia Aegyptiorum, pp. 8 recto ff.; chapter 2 on Jason and Atalanta = pp. 36 verso\nff.; chapter 3 on the genealogies of the gods = pp. 59 recto ff.; chapter 4 on the ancient\nfestivals = pp. 21 verso ff.; chapter 5 on the labours of Hercules = pp. 24 verso ff.;\nchapter 6 on the Trojan expedition = pp. 49 recto ff.\n\nPages 90:\nThe most secret of secrets\n81\nSecondly, there appear to be certain references in note form to the De\nTheosophia Aegyptiorum on the back page of a manuscript of Maier's dating\nfrom early in 1611.50 Thirdly, on the title page of the De Theosophia\nAegyptiorum Maier writes \"authore Michaele Meyero,\" an earlier variation\nof his family name that does not occur in Maier's printed or manuscript\nworks after 1610. This surname is struck out by the same hand (that of the\nauthor), and replaced first with 'Maiero', which is struck out again and\nreplaced with 'Mayero' - the variation Maier decided upon when publishing\nhis Hymnosophia, which as we have seen dates from after September 1609\nbut before Maier's departure from the court of Rudolf II some time prior to\nthe 4th of August 1610.51 It is not clear whether these revisions indicate some\nindecision on Maier's behalf concerning the best way to present his name in a\nprinted work; in any case, the Arcana Arcanissima appeared under the name\n'Maier', as did all his subsequent publications. It is also pertinent to note\nthat after leaving the imperial court Maier spent a period of months in the\nSaxon town of Torgau, which may explain why the manuscript of the\nDe Theosophia Aegyptiorum was to be found at the Paulaner Bibliothek\nin neighbouring Leipzig as early as 1687, according to the testimony of\nMorhof. 52 In any case, it would seem that the work is in fact a rough draft for\nthe Arcana Arcanissima rather than a 'thorough revision' of that work.\nThe principal variation in the arguments presented by the Theosophia\nAegyptiorum and the Arcana Arcanissima lies in the question of origins; for\naccording to Maier's draft work, it was Adam himself who was granted\nknowledge of the Art of alchemy, which was passed on to Egypt by the\nJewish patriarchs - in accordance with Ficino's belief - and then on to\nGreece via the travels of Pythagoras in Egypt. 53 In the Arcana Arcanissima\nMaier only gives Egypt as his starting point, the country from which all art,\nreligion and science are derived.54 Nevertheless, in his major work on the\nlineage of alchemical wisdom, the Symbola Aureae Mensae (1616), Maier\nwould reiterate his belief that Hermes Trismegistus - the most ancient of\nEgyptian philosophers - had derived his knowledge from the patriarch\nAbraham, who had received the prisca sapientia in turn from Seth, the son\nof Adam. 55 Despite the omission of this lineage in the Arcana Arcanissima,\n50\n51\n52\n53\n54\n55\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 11, 1, p. 64 verso.\nWe may also mention the consonance of the subtitle of the De Theosophia\nAegyptiorum\n- De Circulo Artium, Coelidonia, Medicina mystica, etc. - with Maier's other two works\nof this period: De Medicina Regia et vere Heroica, Coelidonia, and the Hymnosophia,\nseu Meditatio Laudis Divinae, pro Coelidonia, Medicina mystica, voarchadumica etc.\nMorhof, Polyhistor, p. 169.\nMaier, De Theosophia Aegyptiorum, pp. 4-5.\nMaier, Arcana Arcanissima, pp. 47-48.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 6-8.\n\nPages 91:\nBohemia and England\n82\nboth the De Theosophia Aegyptiorum and the Arcana Arcanissima are\nin agreement on the nature of that pristine wisdom, which concerned a\nmiraculous medicine for both body and soul:\nIn order that I might establish the foundation of Egyptian doctrine, I have explored innumerable pieces of evidence showing that there was practised in Egypt - particularly amongst the\nphilosophers, priests and most ancient kings - a certain science, teaching the most secret\nwork of Nature, or a golden medicine, not produced from gold, but a thousand times more\nprecious than gold. In order that this science could be passed on to the wise for posterity, and\nremain unknown to the common people, certain occult signs drawn from animals were used\ninstead of writing, later called by the Greeks hieroglyphs. 56\nOne of the \"innumerable pieces of evidence\" Maier perused before coming to\nhis conclusions may have been the Thesaurus Hieroglyphicorum (c.1607) of\nHerwarth von Hohenburg, a contemporary collection of hieroglyphic\ninscriptions (figure 9); another source was certainly the Hieroglyphics of\nHorapollo, who is named as an authority on the first page of the Arcana\nArcanissima. Maier's theme of secrecy and ciphers is reflected in a verse\noffered to the reader in the introduction of the Arcana Arcanissima, the first\nand last lines of which are anagrams of his own name:\n(Michael Maierus Doctor, Comes Palatinus.)\nIn Christo spes illa deo mea, amo cruciatum.\nAuri ne teneat me malesuadus amor.\nAurea dos placeat reliquis et lumina pascat.\nLaurus, amo omen sic, dos mihi recta placet.\nThe middle two lines of the verse also appear to be anagrams, although their\nsolution evades the present author. The whole translates roughly as:\nMy hope lies in Christ the God, I love the crucified one.\nLest the seductive love of gold possess me.\nThe golden gift may satisfy others and it does nourish the lights.\nI love and pride myself on the laurel wreath, a just gift and an omen. 5 7\nIn the course of his introduction Maier understandably tackles the question\nmost pressing to his readers: why should a good Christian follow the\n56\nMaier, Arcana Arcanissima, p. 2: \"Nos ut fundamentum Aegyptiae doctrinae statuamus,\nex irtnumeris indiciis exploratum habemus, in Aegypto scientiam quandam arcanissima\nnaturae opera docentem, sive MEDICINAM AUREAM, non ex auro, sed auro millies\npreciosiorem, in usu extitisse, praesertim apud Philosophos, Sacerdotes, et Reges\nantiquissimos; quae ut posteris sapientioribus tradi posset, vulgo autem ignota maneret,\npro scriptione occultas ab animalibus desumptas notas a Graecis postea Hieroglyphicas\ndictas...\"\n57\nMaier, Arcana Arcanissima,\np. Aiv recto.\n\nPages 92:\nThe most secret of secrets\n83\nteachings of the pagans? What is there amongst this multitude of gods that\nconcerns those instructed by the true Word of God? In Maier's view, the true\nsignificance of myth and hieroglyph were stored beyond writing in the\nmemory of the philosophers, for which reason very few signs still exist\nconcerning their true origin, and the stories of the ancients now appear before\nus like a treasure lying in \"the most secret chest\" for over three thousand\nyears.58 Nevertheless, there still exist works from which their true meaning\ncan be gleaned. On this count Maier names Iamblichus (c.250-c.330 CE), the\nSyrian Neoplatonist whose De Mysteriis Aegyptiorum ( O n the Mysteries of\nthe Egyptians') was influential for the Hermeticists of the Italian Renaissance\nthrough Ficino's translation of 1497. Unfortunately, Neoplatonists such as\nIamblichus had already perpetrated \"a fundamental misinterpretation of the\nvery basis of Egyptian thought.\" 59 Although Maier does not mention the De\nMysteriis Aegyptiorum by name, it seems likely that this is the work he is\nreferring to, as its ninth chapter deals with the significance of the hieroglyphs\n- a fact all the more surprising given that Iamblichus' chief concern therein is\ntheurgy, i.e. the magical invocation of the deities.60 However, Iamblichus\nfollowed Plotinus and Plato in stating that all the gods are in reality only One\n- and it is to this belief that Maier refers when arguing for the compatibility\nof the ancient writers with Christian teaching:\n...it is not likely that the ancient poets attributed so much adultery, homicide, incest and\ncrimes to their gods out of some innate wickedness or gratuitous mockery, nor that they\nmight make sport with gods or men, nor indeed that they might themselves propagate\nenormous crimes of that kind by the example of the gods (for in that case everyone would\nhave been licentious); but rather in order that they might show these gods to be fictitious and\nimaginary, and symbols and emblems of an occult Art, hidden to the common people but\nknown to themselves; the one referring to the eye, the other to the mind. Lest moreover they\nmight appear to publicly produce empty names for worthless riddles, each fictitious god was\ngiven a quasi-divine function and power of Nature. They ascribed diverse parents to these\ngods, but notwithstanding they professed One God in all of them. 6 1\n58\n59\n60\n61\nIbid., p. Ai verso.\nC.f. n. 44 above.\nSee Iamblichus. Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldaeans,\nand\nAssyrians. London: Stuart and Watkins, 1968.\nMaier, Arcana Arcanissima, p. 59: \"...non est verisimile, antiquos illos Poetas ex innata\nmalitia, aut irrisionis gratia tot adulteria, homicidia, incaestus et scelera suis Diis\nattribuisse, ut vel Deos, vel homines luderent, aut vitia ejusmodi enormia Deorum\nexemplis propagarent, (tum enim omnium bipedum nequissimi fuissent) sed potius ut\ndemonstrarent Deos illos non esse nisi ficticios, imaginarios et artis occultae vulgo, sed\nsibi notae, symbola et Emblemata aliud ad oculum, aliud ad mentem referentia: Ne\nautem inania nomina rebus cassa in medium producere viderentur, singulis illis Diis\nfictitiis singula officia quasi divinia et vires Naturae: genitricis diversas asscripserunt, ac\nnihilominus Unum Deum in omnibus istis professi sunt.\" On the following page Maier\nalso cites O r p h e u s ' : \"Omnia sunt unam, sint plurimina nomina quamvis./ Pluto,\n\nPages 93:\n84\nBohemia and England\nHere Maier gives voice to the contemporary conception of emblems, which\nspeak not to the corporeal eye but to the mind, or to the intellect and its\ndivine nature. In order to demonstrate that the 'hieroglyphic emblems' of the\nEgyptians were indeed 'chemical' Decknamen, and did not refer either to\ngods or to historical personages, Maier devotes some space in his Arcana\nArcanissima to refuting the claim of Diodorus (fl. first century BCE) in his\nBibliotheca Hist\u00f3rica that Isis and Osiris had lived some ten thousand years\nbefore Alexander the Great. According to Maier, any Christian with faith in\nScripture can see that this is false, for the age of the world itself cannot\nexceed 5575 years.62 The genealogies of the gods known to the Egyptians\nand the Greeks were neither historical nor mythic, but representations of the\naurea catena - thus Maier explains the birth of the gods from Saturn, the\n\"father of the Golden Age,\" as ciphers for the processes to be observed in the\nalchemical vessel. 63\nThroughout his work Maier follows his ancient sources in correlating the\nGreek gods with those of the Egyptians; so it is that Thoth became known as\nHermes, whom Maier seems to distinguish from Hermes Trismegistus, the\n'ancient philosopher'. Egyptian Osiris is correlated with Greek Dionysus; and\nthe story of his murder at the hands of his brother Set, who scattered the\ndismembered parts of his body across Egypt, is related in detail by Maier.\nOsiris is the materia artis from which the golden medicine is composed, or\nthe philosophical sulphur residing in that materia\u00b7, having been placed in his\nsepulchre - that is to say, the vessel - he is rent to pieces by his brother, Set\nor Greek Typhon, who represents the \"fiery and furious spirit\" of the caustic\nsolution preceding putrefaction. His consort Isis is mercury, the feminine\nprinciple, who collects the pieces of Osiris and re-unites them - a reference to\nthe portion of the Egyptian myth in which Isis magically re-animates her\nhusband with the help of Thoth and, mounting the body, sires Horns, the\navenger of his father's death (figure 10). Whilst Maier does not mention these\nfacts explicitly, he only reminds us that the \"growth-imparting pudenda\" of\nOsiris are those \"black and useless dregs\" which at first are dissolved and\nconsumed by fire, but thereafter are separated from the body and purified into\nthe most fine and virtuous substance.64\nPersephone, Ceres et Venus alma, et Amores,/ Tritones, Nereus, Tethys, Neptunus et\nipse/ Mercurius, Iuno, Vulcanus, Iupiter et Pan,/ Diana et Phoebus jaculator, sunt Deus\nunus.\"\n62\n63\n64\nIbid., p. 11. Here Maier refers to a Christian cosmogonie tradition slightly pre-dating the\nfamous declaration of John Lightfoot in 1642 that the world was created on September\nthe 17th, 3928 BCE at 9 o'clock in the morning.\nIbid., pp. 95 ff.\nIbid., pp. 12-13: \"Osiris, ut dictum, pro materia artis, ex qua Medicina aurea\ncomponatur, absque omni circuitione habetur; Haec suo sepulchre, hoc est, vasi,\nimposita a Typhone fratre, in multas partes discerpitur; quas post operis absolutionem\n\nPages 94:\nThe most secret of secrets\n85\nThis short account should serve as an example of the method Maier\napplies to a myriad of myths in the course of the Arcana Arcanissima, from\nthe labours of Herakles to the perennial favourite of alchemists in the\nseventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the quest for the Golden Fleece. The\nfact that Maier speaks of Osiris and Isis as sun and moon deities65 serves as a\nreminder to us that the pre-Hellenistic form of Egyptian mythology and\nmagical ritual was almost entirely unknown to Maier's time - as does one of\nthe more peculiar examples of Maier's rationalising approach to myth and\nhieroglyph given in the Septimana Philosophica, in which he does not speak\nof the ibis as the bird sacred to Thoth, but rather claims it was used by the\nEgyptians for the procurement of enemas on account of its long hollow\nbeak. 66 Not surprisingly, Maier's faith never allows him to allegorise\nChristian mythology in a similar fashion; rather, the truths revealed by the\nBible are the referent to which pagan teachings ultimately point.67 Thus\nMaier refers in the concluding remarks of the Arcana Arcanissima to Christ\nIsis colligit et unit, sulfure combustibili segregato; Atque sic collectio partium Osiridis\nab Iside institu\u00eda, est eiusdem operis reiteratio, quae eo usque contingit, donec Typhonis\nvirtus extincta sit, et in eius locum Anima Osiridis sat ardens successerit adeo, ut matrem\nIsidem, seu coniugem, seu sororem amantissimam facilime ad se convertat; quae est\nultima perfectio: Typhon quid sit iam ante diximus, nempe spiritus igneus et furiosus,\nqui mox Osiridem nostrum penetret, et in suum colorem rapiat, instar veneni; quod non\nin prima, sed ultima coctione fiaeri debet... Pudendum Osiridis membrum est faex illa\nnigra et inutilis, qua primo quidem incrementum sumpsit, at post solutionem separanda a\ncorpore reliquo mundo et puro.\"\n65\n66\n67\nIbid., p. 2.\nMaier, Septimana Philosophica, p. 173: \"Ibis in Aegypto frequentissima est, forma fere\nciconiae, quae serpentes et venenosos vermes ibidem absumit, ideoque inquilinis ut sacra\nhabetur, et honore colitur: Praeterquam enim quod innoxia fit avis, utilitatem quoque\nhanc mortalibus praestat, ut damna eorum propulset et avertat: Adiectamentum quoque\nMedicinae contulisse aiunt, dum usum Enematum introduxerit, obstructionem alui seu\nintestinorum, aqua, rostro posticae inserto, iniecta eluendo tollens.\"\nAs Matton states, \"Maier was not unaware of the danger to which one might subject faith\nby trying, to quote the words of Mersenne, to 'prove or confirm the mysteries of the\nChristian religion by the operations of Alchemy'. For the reading may become reversed,\nin just the same way, leading to an alchemical interpretation of Holy Writ and giving it a\n'natural meaning': no longer does the Stone symbolise Christ, but the Christ becomes,\nlike the Phoenix, a simple allegory of the Stone. Thus certain alchemists, vehemently\nopposed by Maier, did not hesitate to subject Biblical and Christian 'myth' to the same\nfate as those of Greece and Egypt, propounding, as it were, a sort of 'alchemie libertine'\nparallel to 'spiritual alchemy'\": Matton, Sylvain. \"Le Ph\u00e9nix dans l'Oeuvre de Michel\nMaier et la Litt\u00e9rature Alchimique.\" In Bailly, J. C. (ed.). Chansons Intellectuelles sur la\nR\u00e9surrection du Ph\u00e9nix par Michel Maier. Paris: Gutenberg Reprints, 1984; an English\ntranslation of this text was kindly provided to me by Mike Dickman. For Maier's\ninvective against this alchemie libertine, see the Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 24: \"Quid\niam dicemus de iis, qui hoc nostro tempore Creationem mundi, nativitatem, passionem,\nmortem, resurrectionem et ascensionem Christi, imo fere omnes art\u00edculos fide, sacrilege\net impiissime ad Chymicam artem transferre conantur?\", etc.\n\nPages 95:\n86\nBohemia and England\nas the \"doctor of the body and soul\" and as \"Trismegistus\" - an intimation\nthat the Greco-Egyptian title given to Hermes prefigured the doctrine of the\nTrinity.68 Christ is the greatest physician, or the transmuting lapis which\npromises eternal life and forms the foundation of the true Church, but which\nnevertheless was rejected by the vulgar.69 As such He is the paragon of the\ntrue alchemist, who does not seek worldly wealth in the manner of the\ncommon Goldmacher but devotes his labours to the healing of the sick.\nDuring his time at the imperial court, Maier would have pursued this noble\nChristian ideal not only by attending his patients, but also through\niatrochemical experimentation; for it is likely that he had access to the\nEmperor's laboratories, which were housed in a building close to the royal\ncastle (Hradschin) and contained a large furnace for smelting ores, a bain\nmarie used for maintaining steady low temperatures, and a furnace used in\ndistillation.70 Nevertheless, Maier's elevated position at the imperial court\nwas to be relatively short-lived, as he had left Prague less than a year\nfollowing his entrance into the Emperor's service. It is not clear whether this\nwas on account of some failing on Maier's part - the 'Universal Medicine'\nnot being to the Emperor's taste, for example - or whether he saw the writing\non the wall for his embattled patron. In any case, by 1610 Rudolf was\ndescending deeper into melancholy; according to Evans, his sickness had\nbeen exacerbated by a prophecy - attributed to Tycho Brahe - that he would\nbe intrigued against by members of his own family. 71 Rudolf ended his days\nas emperor cowering in his palace during the coronation of his usurping\nbrother Matthias, who was to move the imperial capital back to Vienna and\nreverse the erosion of imperial authority that Rudolfs extravagant narcissism\nhad created.\n68\nMaier, Arcana Arcanissima,\np. 285: \"Quae omnia cum in nulla alia re, quam\nMEDICINA ANIMI ET CORPORIS dicta vere aurea conveniant, hanc Summus OPT.\nMAX: et unice TRISMEGISTUS ille animae et corporis Medicus IHESUS CHRISTUS\nnobis ad sui nominis gloriam, nostram et proximi utilitatem usurpandam diutissime, et\npost hanc, Vitam aeternam conc\u00e9d\u00e2t, qui ut LAPIS ex alto MONTE sine manibus\nrevulsus, et lapis angularis a potiori mundi parte seu gentibus rejectus nobis appropriates, sit benedictus in s\u00e9cula: AMEN.\"\n69\nSee previous note; the reference to the rejected stone is to Psalm 118.22: \"The stone\nwhich the builders rejected has become the head of the corner;\" Matthew 21.42: \"Jesus\nsaid to them, \"Have you never read in the scriptures: 'The very stone which the builders\nrejected has become the head of the corner; this was the Lord's doing, and it is\nmarvellous in our eyes'?\"; I Peter 2.4: \"Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by\nmen but in God's sight chosen and precious.\"\nPowell, Neil. Alchemy: the Ancient Science. London: Aldus Books, 1976, p. 90.\nEvans, Rudolf II and his World, p. 279.\n70\n71\n\nPages 96:\nA 'Rosicrucian mission' to England?\n87\n5. A 'Rosicrucian mission' to England?\nFollowing his departure from Prague Maier gravitated towards the patronage\nof the Calvinist princes of Germany, and in particular to the court of Moritz\nthe Learned of Hessen-Kassel (figure 11), a close ally of the Calvinist\npretender to the imperial throne, the Elector Palatine Prince Friedrich V\n(figure 12).72 The court of Moritz was the foremost centre of patronage for\nthe occult sciences in Germany prior to the Thirty Years War, and has been\ndescribed by Moran as exceeding the court of Rudolf II in regard to \"the\nstrength of its focus on the occult arts and the extent of its prince's personal involvement in occult projects.\" 73 However, the unwavering westward\ndirection of Maier's movements in the year following his departure from\nPrague - from Leipzig and Torgau in Saxony to M\u00fchlhausen, some 40 miles\nfrom Kassel, then on to B\u00fcckeburg in Lower Saxony - also seems to indicate\na personal ambition to travel to England, the land which was the source of the\nremarkable medicine that first inspired him to take up alchemical practice.\nWhilst in England, Maier not only spent his time studying and translating\ncertain English alchemical texts, but he also delivered letters of Christmas\ngreeting to King James I of England and his son Henry, and made the\nacquaintance of powerful figures at the English court. In light of these facts,\nFrances Yates propagated the notion amongst many writers that the aim of\nMaier's journey to England was not only personal, but should be seen in the\ncontext of German Calvinist efforts to secure the instalment on the imperial\nthrone of James' son-in-law - Prince Friedrich V. It is in this context that\nYates understands Maier's relation to the Rosicrucian phenomenon, and her\nemphasis on Calvinist intrigue in the empire leads her to cast those writing\nunder the name of the 'Rosicrucians' as the 'true Jesuits' - in accordance\nwith the description given by the early Rosicrucian apologist Adam Haslmayr\n- playing a role equal and opposite to that of the Society of Jesus in the\nreligious and political affairs of the day.74\nAn analysis of early Rosicrucianism will follow; to determine the truth of\nYates' specific conjecture concerning Maier, we must first examine his\nrelation to Moritz the Learned prior to his departure for England late in 1611.\nFrom Torgau in March and April of 1611 Maier sent at least two letters and\nthree manuscript treatises demonstrating his alchemical knowledge to Moritz,\n72\nElectors within the Deutsches Reich were powerful princes with the right to cast a vote\nin the election of the Emperor - Friedrich being the Elector of the lands of the\nRheinland-Pfalz or Rhineland Palatinate.\n73\nMoran, The Alchemical World of the German Court, p. 8.\nYates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 42 et passim.\n74\n\nPages 97:\n88\nBohemia and England\nin a bid to meet the prince and secure his patronage. Figala and Neumann\nsuggest this gesture bore no fruit due to Moritz' focus on the deteriorating\npolitical situation in the Empire - which, as we may recall, had recently\noccasioned the division of the German states into the rival camps of the\nCatholic League and Protestant Union. 75 There is in fact no evidence of the\npersonal meeting with Moritz Maier hoped for, and as we shall see in our\nfourth chapter, Maier was not invested with an official position at the court\nof Moritz until well after his return from England - and that was a relatively\nminor post outside the inner circle of alchemists at Kassel.\nNevertheless, it seems that Maier had at least established his presence\nwithin the courtly circles of Moritz prior to his departure for England, as\nrecords exist of a letter sent from Marburg on the 1st of July, 1612 to Maier's\nfriend and former fellow alchemist in Prague, Matthias Borbonius, from\nJohannes Hartmann (1568-1631) - the iatrochemist appointed by Moritz of\nHessen-Kassel to the first professorship for chemical medicine at Marburg,\nwho was an early distributor of the Rosicrucian Fama Fraternitatis in\nmanuscript form. 76 In his letter Hartmann states that Maier is already in\nLondon with a congratulatory poem for the wedding of Friedrich V and\nPrincess Elizabeth, daughter of James I.77 However, with regard to the ties\nMaier made with the court of Friedrich V, it seems likely that these were\nestablished after his departure for England. On the 6th of November, 1612\nMaier was to be found amongst the 'Elector Palatine's gentlemen' who\nattended the funeral of Prince Henry of Wales in London. 78 There is also the\nevidence of the preface to the Lusus Serius (1616), a baroque fable of the\nsame order as the Jocus Severus (1617) which, in tandem with that tract, was\n75\n76\n77\n78\nFigala and Neumann, \"Michael Maier,\" p. 42.\nGilly, Cimelio Rhodostaurotica, p. 29.\nGellner, G. Zivotopis L\u00e9kare Borbonici a Vyklad Jeho Denik\u00f9. Prague: N\u00e1kladem Cesk\u00eb\nAkademie V\u00ebd a Um\u00ebni, 1938, pp. 96-97: \"V psan\u00ed III, dan\u00e9m \u03bd Marburku 1/7 (11/7)\n1612, oznamuje Hartmann Borboniovi po nov\u00e9 pripomince, ze pose\u00ed porad jest\u00eb neni\nzp\u00ebt a ze nedo\u00e4la z\u00e1dan\u00e1 zlut\u00e1 antimonov\u00e1 ruda ani n\u00e1vod, jak se \u03b6 ni extrahuje rtuf, ze\nMichal Meyer je ted' \u03bd Londyn\u00eb a ze vid\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 80 to page 97 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 97 to page 114 out of a total of 334:\nPages 97:\n88\nBohemia and England\nin a bid to meet the prince and secure his patronage. Figala and Neumann\nsuggest this gesture bore no fruit due to Moritz' focus on the deteriorating\npolitical situation in the Empire - which, as we may recall, had recently\noccasioned the division of the German states into the rival camps of the\nCatholic League and Protestant Union. 75 There is in fact no evidence of the\npersonal meeting with Moritz Maier hoped for, and as we shall see in our\nfourth chapter, Maier was not invested with an official position at the court\nof Moritz until well after his return from England - and that was a relatively\nminor post outside the inner circle of alchemists at Kassel.\nNevertheless, it seems that Maier had at least established his presence\nwithin the courtly circles of Moritz prior to his departure for England, as\nrecords exist of a letter sent from Marburg on the 1st of July, 1612 to Maier's\nfriend and former fellow alchemist in Prague, Matthias Borbonius, from\nJohannes Hartmann (1568-1631) - the iatrochemist appointed by Moritz of\nHessen-Kassel to the first professorship for chemical medicine at Marburg,\nwho was an early distributor of the Rosicrucian Fama Fraternitatis in\nmanuscript form. 76 In his letter Hartmann states that Maier is already in\nLondon with a congratulatory poem for the wedding of Friedrich V and\nPrincess Elizabeth, daughter of James I.77 However, with regard to the ties\nMaier made with the court of Friedrich V, it seems likely that these were\nestablished after his departure for England. On the 6th of November, 1612\nMaier was to be found amongst the 'Elector Palatine's gentlemen' who\nattended the funeral of Prince Henry of Wales in London. 78 There is also the\nevidence of the preface to the Lusus Serius (1616), a baroque fable of the\nsame order as the Jocus Severus (1617) which, in tandem with that tract, was\n75\n76\n77\n78\nFigala and Neumann, \"Michael Maier,\" p. 42.\nGilly, Cimelio Rhodostaurotica, p. 29.\nGellner, G. Zivotopis L\u00e9kare Borbonici a Vyklad Jeho Denik\u00f9. Prague: N\u00e1kladem Cesk\u00eb\nAkademie V\u00ebd a Um\u00ebni, 1938, pp. 96-97: \"V psan\u00ed III, dan\u00e9m \u03bd Marburku 1/7 (11/7)\n1612, oznamuje Hartmann Borboniovi po nov\u00e9 pripomince, ze pose\u00ed porad jest\u00eb neni\nzp\u00ebt a ze nedo\u00e4la z\u00e1dan\u00e1 zlut\u00e1 antimonov\u00e1 ruda ani n\u00e1vod, jak se \u03b6 ni extrahuje rtuf, ze\nMichal Meyer je ted' \u03bd Londyn\u00eb a ze vid\u00ebl u hrab\u00ebte hanavsk\u00e9ho jeho Carmen\ngratulatorium, pripsan\u00e9 kr\u00e1li Velk\u00e9 Britanie Jakubovi I. k chystan\u00e9mu zasnouben\u00ed\nkurfirta falck\u00e9ho Fridricha V. s Alzb\u00ebtou Stuartovnou (zasnouben\u00ed se slavilo 27/12\n1612).\" Evans {Rudolf II and his World, pp. 206-207) states that \"Borbonius seems never\nto have been a Leibarzt [personal physician], though he earned the early favour of\nRudolf by producing a poetic-emblematic volume calculated to appeal to his taste for\nCaesarism mixed with antiquarianism, while he enjoyed the friendship of Maier and a\nnumber of the court poets. Borbonius was probably the most sought-after physician in\nPrague during the first years of the new century... and his alchemical interests emerge\nfrom a correspondence with the adept Johann Hartmann.\"\nNichols, J. The Progresses, Processions and Magnificent Festivities of King James the\nFirst. Vol. II. London: Nichols, 1828, p. 485.\n\nPages 98:\nA 'Rosicrucian mission' to England?\n89\nrapidly composed on Maier's return to Germany in the summer of 1616.79\nThere we find a dedication to Christian Rumphius, physician to the Elector\nPalatine, and Jacob Mosanus, physician to Moritz the Learned, who are\ndescribed as \"the most sage doctors, expert chemists and my most jocund\nfriends,\" being bound to Maier by charity, learning and humanity. 80 Although\nMosanus was not in England during Maier's sojourn, Rumphius marched\nwith Maier in the funeral procession for Prince Henry in November of\n1612; and Maier's description of Rumphius and Mosanus as his 'most jocund\nfriends' suggests that the acquaintance was already of some years' duration\nat the time of the dedication's composition in September of 1616, rather\nthan the few short months that had elapsed following Maier's return\nfrom England. There is also a possibility that Maier walked in the famed\ngarden of the royal palace at Heidelberg, constructed in accordance with\nFriedrich's penchant for ostentatious displays of his early baroque and occult\nsensibilities. In the Jocus Severus Maier tells us that 'hydraulic organs'\nsimply do not compare with the voice of the nightingale - an indication that\nhe may have heard the rare water-powered instrument erected by Salomon de\nCaus in the royal garden, and perhaps that he had not been duly impressed by\nits tone.81 But the lack of any other evidence for a visit by Maier to\nHeidelberg suggests he opportunistically attached himself to Friedrich's\nretinue upon his arrival in England, and not before.\n79\nMaier, Michael. Lusus Serius, quo Hermes sive Mercurius rex mundanorum omnium sub\nhom\u00ecne existentium post longam disceptationem,\nin Consilio octovirali habitant,\nhomine\nrationali arbitro, judicatus et constitutus est. Oppenheim: Lucas Jennis, 1616.\n80\nIbid., p. 3: \"Dn. Jacobo Mosano Illustriss. Mauritii Hassiae Landgravii, Archiatro\ndigniori. Dn. Christiano Rumphio Electorali Palatino ad Rhenum Med. ordinario\ncircumspecto. Singulis Medicinae Doctoribus sagacissimis, Chymicis expertissimis et\namicis meis jucundissimis, tanquam trino Charitum vinculo, doctrinae rarioris scrinio et\nhumanitatis singularis sacello, D. D. D. Michael Majerus Med. D. C. Pal.\"\n81\nMaier, Michael. Jocus Severus, hoc est, Tribunal aequum, quo noctua regina avium,\nPhoenice arbitro, post varias disceptationes\net querelas volucrum earn\ninfestantium\npronunciatur.\nFrankfurt am Main: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1617, p. 29: \"Nunc altam\nmodulata, imam nunc murmure vocem/ Edit, ut haud aequent Organa hydraula modos./\nUt REsonet Miro FAcilis SOluit LAbra cantu?/ Vox abit ad coelos et nemus omne\nreplet;\" which may be roughly translated, without Maier's integration of the solfege\nsyllables: \" N o w he gives forth a high modulation,/ now the lowest voice with a murmur,/\nhydraulic organs simply do not compare./ The lips easily open to give out a marvellous\nsong?/ His voice carries to heaven and every grove is filled.\" Yates (The Rosicrucian\nEnlightenment,\np. 12) gives a vivid description of the wondrous garden at Heidelberg;\nthere is also the possibility that this reference to a 'hydraulic organ' refers to the device\nmentioned in the Symbola Aureae Mensae (p. 593), which Maier saw near Florence\nduring his peregrinatio acad\u00e9mica - although that 'organ' was driven by wind as well as\nwater, and is not referred to as a hydraulic organ. The water organ or hydraulicus was\nfirst described by Vitruvius in his De Architectura (c.20 CE).\n\nPages 99:\n90\nBohemia and England\nFurthermore, if we allow for the possibility that Maier visited the court of\nMoritz prior to his departure for England in 1611, or even that Maier made\nthe personal meeting he desired with Moritz at that time, there is no evidence\nof any intelligence role played by Maier whilst in England. And the surviving\nintelligence report written in Maier's post-1618 capacity as Chymicus und\nMedicus von Haus au\u00df for Moritz - whilst evidence for the polarisation of\nMaier's own religious and political proclivities - reveals he held no central\nrole in the affairs of his day, let alone that he played a part in a 'Rosicrucian'\nconspiracy to establish a Calvinist empire or \"a state ruled by esoteric\nwisdom.\" 82 The existence of a 'Rosicrucian' conspiracy has been proposed\nnot only by Yates but also by Adam McLean, who initially presented his\ndiscovery of Maier's Christmas greetings to James I in the Scottish Record\nOffice in Edinburgh as evidence that Maier was \"trying to establish links\nwith the highest political authority in Britain\" using the symbols of the Rose\nand Cross.83 According to McLean and Srigleys' detailed description of the\nmanuscript in question, it presents an eight-petaled rose constructed with\nletters in red and gold ink, the petals being divided by eight radiating lines of\ngold letters which read \"Long live James, King of Great Britain, hail, may the\nRose be joyful under thy protection.\" 84 McLean interpreted these radiating\nlines as a 'cross', and argued that the document as a whole indicates Maier\nwas 'an ambassador' for the Elector Palatine on a 'Rosicrucian' mission to\nBritain to prepare the ground for a political alliance between England and\nProtestant Germany. 85 However, it is highly unlikely that this document\ndepicts the Rose Cross of the Brethren, not only on the grounds given by\nSrigley that the lines emanating from the rose are described in the manuscript\nitself as interstitia foliorum Rosae, but also on the grounds of Maier's own\nadmission that he gave scant regard to rumours of a 'Fraternity of the Rose\nCross' when he first heard them in England, and only involved himself in the\n82\n83\n84\n85\nMcLean, Adam. \"A Rosicrucian Manuscript of Michael Maier,\" The Hermetic Journal,\n1979, p. 7; Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, pp. 81-82, 89.\nMcLean, \"A Rosicrucian Manuscript,\" pp. 5-6; McLean later revised his position on the\n'Rosicrucian' nature of Maier's greetings.\n\"VIVE JACOBE DIU REX MAGNE BRITANNICE SALVE TEGMINE QUO VERE\nSIT ROSA LAETA SUO;\" cited in Srigley, Michael. Images of Regeneration: A Study\nof Shakespeare 's The Tempest and its Cultural Background. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis\nUpsaliensis, 1985, p. 100. Accompanying the rose motif is a fugue in four voices\nrepresenting the archangels Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and Uriel, to be sung over a\nrepeated cantus firmus ascribed to the shepherds Menaleas and Thirsis; a transcription of\nthis example of Maier's musical acumen (or lack thereof) is to be found in Godwin,\nJoscelyn (ed.). Atalanta Fugiens: An Edition of the Fugues, Emblems and Epigrams.\nGrand Rapids, Mi.: Phanes Press, 1989, pp. 207-208.\nMcLean, \"A Rosicrucian Manuscript,\" p. 7; Godwin also follows the thesis of Yates in\n\"A Context for Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617),\" The Hermetic Journal, 1985,\np. 5.\n\nPages 100:\nThe seventeenth rung of the alchemical ladder\n91\naffair when he returned to Germany in 1616.86 Yet Srigley himself describes\nthe rose of Maier's manuscript as the \"millenarian Rose of the Protestant\nFraternity that Maier wishes James to take under his protection,\" whilst\n\u00c1kerman agrees that the rose \"certainly indicates a political manoeuvre.\" 87\nAlthough the marriage of Friedrich V to Princess Elizabeth may certainly be\ndescribed as such a 'manoeuvre', designed as it was to draw James into\nalliance with a vulnerable Protestant Union in Germany, 88 a more reasonable\nassumption is that Maier's manuscript depicts the red rose of England (with\nthe secondary, implied significance of the alchemical rose) and that it is\nEngland (and her alchemy) which \"may be joyful\" under the protection of\nJames I.\n6. The seventeenth rung of the alchemical ladder\nand the art of gold-making\nWe will return to the question of Maier's relationship with nascent Rosicrucianism in due course; for now let us examine the readily verifiable reasons\nfor his journey to England, rather than supposing that Maier was awarded an\nofficial and sensitive diplomatic function on the basis of a single visit to a\nroyal court. Indeed, the evidence of Maier's correspondence with Moritz the\nLearned in 1611 suggests he had difficulties enough garnering support for the\nwork that was his true passion - the quest for the Universal Medicine.\nIn the two letters sent by Maier to Moritz from Torgau in March and April\nof 1611, the recurrent theme is a plea for continued patronage because the\nperfection of the alchemical Art is within his grasp - a ploy familiar to us\nfrom the Medicina Regia.*9 Since at least the 4th of August, 1610, Maier had\nbeen residing in neighbouring Leipzig, where, according to Figala and\nNeumann, he had made an unsuccessful bid for a contract with August of\nAnhalt-Pl\u00f6tzkau, half-brother of the prominent Calvinist intellectual and\ngeneral, Prince Christian of Anhalt-Bernburg (15 6 8-163 0).90 Having heard\nthat Moritz would be attending a meeting of princes in Torgau, Maier moved\nto that town on the 10th of March, 1611, in the hope that he might join the\n86\n87\n88\n89\n90\nOn this point see below, chapter IV, p. 114.\nSrigley, Images of Regeneration, p. 101; \u00c2kerman, Rose Cross over the Baltic, p. 133.\nHence the words of a contemporary commentator: \"All well-affected people take great\npleasure and contentment in this Match, as being a firm foundation and stablishing of\nreligion, which, upon what ground I know not, was before suspected to be in transitu:\nand the Roman Catholics malign it as much, as being the ruin of their hopes.\" Nichols,\nProgresses, Processions and Magnificent Festivities, pp. 601-602.\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Ci verso.\nFigala and Neumann, \"Author cui Nomen Hermes Malavici,\" pp. 130-131.\n\nPages 101:\n92\nBohemia and England\nprince in the 'resting hours' of the meeting and speak in detail concerning his\nArt.91 Apparently Maier had already been in contact with Moritz by this\ntime, as he makes reference to a letter he received from Moritz' secretary\n(presumably after his arrival in Torgau) requesting that he make his way\nquickly to Kassel before the prince's departure for the meeting. 92 On the 16th\nof March Maier wrote a letter to Moritz from Torgau explaining his dilemma\n- i.e. whether he should wait in Torgau or make his way to Kassel - and\nsetting forth his plea for the opportunity to demonstrate his knowledge\nin person. 93 There are many vulgar writers and practitioners, Maier writes,\nwho lie as far from the truth as the earth does from the sky; but if his\ndemonstration to the prince is not in accord with the testimony of Nature and\nreason, and agreeable with \"the hidden nature of mineral essences,\" then he\nwill demand no remuneration. His only wish is to experience the mercy and\nliberal grace of His Highness, which he is confident he will receive if he is\nheard without prejudice. 94 There follows a description of an alchemical\n'ladder' with eighteen steps, which Maier is now climbing:\nI confess that there are eighteen steps of the ladder to the gold-bearing peak, or to the final\nperfection of the Art; and the greatest effort is required to move step by step from the lowest\nto the highest rung. And in truth that ladder has been placed beyond the view of the vulgar\nwriters and practitioners, and thus almost none of them will have reached the first step, much\nless the second or the third, and still less the higher, since the subsequent steps cannot be\novercome without the preceding steps, and the preceding steps without the last of all are of\nlittle benefit. Ascending these steps from the lowest to the highest, I have overcome sixteen\n(God be praised), and standing before the seventeenth or penultimate step I persevere further;\nnot without considerable expense, as Geber testifies, which I have been lacking for two years\non account of other misfortunes. And nothing is more difficult than the final or eighteenth\nstep. 95\n91\n92\n93\n94\n95\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 19, 1, p. 283 recto.\nIbid.: \"Utrum igitur mihi agendum, an hie expectandum, an vero ad Celsim. Vam.\nproperandum sit, ut per Secretary Schedulam Significetur, submisse oro.\"\nIbid.\nIbid., p. 283 verso: \"Si non vera sint ilia sola et maneant, quae demonstraturus sum, nihil\nposeo aut peto praemii: si autem sint, atque ex bis vel decies mille argumentis aut\ncircumstantiis, acclamante rerum mineralium occulta natura, artisque ipsius usu et\nauthorum authenticorum in omnibus reali consensu, pateant, clementiam gratiamque\nliberalem Cels:is Vae ut experiar, unice exopto.\"\nIbid.\\ \"Octodecim, ut fatear, sunt gradus scalae ad aurificam arcem seu artis summam\nperfectionem; per quos pedetentim ab imo ad supremum contendendum erit; Estque ista\nscala revera posita extra conspectum vulgarium scribentium aut practiantium; Unde\ncontigit, ut fere nullus eorum primum huius gradum attigerit, nedum secundum, aut\ntertium; multo minus superiorem; cum posterior absque praecedente superari nequeat, ac\npraecedentes absque omnium ultimo parvae sint utilitatis. Horum ego graduum (Deo sit\nlaus) ab inferioribus ad superiores ascendendo, sedecim superavi, ac ante decimum\nseptimum seu penultimum, non absque sensibilibus sumptibus, Gebro teste, qui mihi iam\n\nPages 102:\nThe seventeenth rung of the alchemical ladder\n93\nWhy Maier should have been lacking the means for alchemical experimentation whilst at the court of Rudolf II is not clear, although certainly his\nsubsequent unsettled existence and his failures to secure patronage would\nhave mitigated against further work. In any case, Maier appended a table to\nhis letter illustrating the eighteen steps of the ladder of which he spoke:\nLapis coagulatus\n18. T h e final operation reaching the ultimate goidenness.\n17. T h e final operation reaching the ultimate whiteness.\nLapis solutus\n16. O f w h a t nature the fire of the solution o u g h t to be.\n15. H o w the m o s t yellow stone and medicine m a y be made.\n14. H o w the stone of moderate yellowness m a y be m a d e .\nLapis citrinus\n13. By which fire the stone tending to yellowness m a y be made.\n12. H o w the gold coloured stone, having been perfectly fixed, m a y be m a d e .\n11. H o w the stone of moderate goidenness m a y be made.\nLapis\nflavus\n10. By which fire the stone tending to goidenness m a y be made.\n9. By w h i c h degree of fire the white stone m a y be made.\n8. B y w h i c h degree of fire the stone tending to whiteness m a y be m a d e .\nLapis albus\n7. H o w the black stone - the material to be g r o u n d - m a y be m a d e by a light fire.\n6. T h e nature of Tusalmat, the material of the Art.\n5. W h a t the material of the Art, Tusalmat, is.\nMateria\nartis\n4. W h a t the material of the Art is, f r o m w h i c h gold is born.\n3. O f w h a t nature the true aim of the Art is, h a v i n g been hidden by the philosophers.\n2. T h a t the aim of the Art is agreeable with the nature of gold.\nScopus\nartis\n1. T h a t the aim of the Art is not vulgar.\nThe second grouping of steps concerning the materia artis refers to the nature\nof Tusalmat, the material from which gold is born, which as we have seen is a\ncode-name for 'Saturnus' or lead.96 Thereafter the colour series to be\nobserved in the alchemical vessel is black (perhaps a lead oxide), white, gold,\nyellow, white and gold. This appears to be a slight variation on the first\nalchemical procedure Maier accomplished in 1604, when he observed the\n96\nintegram biennium, ob alia infortunia, defecerunt, incipiendum et pertexendum, adhuc\npersisto: ultimus seu decimus octavus, nullius est difficultatis.\"\nIn his Bibliotheca Chimica (1656) Borelli gives the aenigma on p. 213 of Maier's\nThemis Aurea and its solution under the heading of Aenigma\nMajerianum:\n\"Clode No Marri in ium dicsit udaoltan plesaritto, Jeait os uperrimit cegmusiemon tus\npolcopitto, im oc igmon cemslu musalun, im hec musalurou os immusaluron.\nCredo me nulli in iam dictis adversum protulisse, Jovis et Apollinis cognationem sat\npercepisse, in eo ignem contra naturam, in hoc naturalem, et innaturalem.\"\nThe simple cryptographic substitutions are revealed as: a = u, b = ?, c = c, d = d, e = o,\nf = ?, g = g, h = ?, i = i, j = j, k = ?, 1 = r, m = \u03b7, \u03b7 = m, o = e, \u03c1 = \u03c1, q = ?, r = 1,\ns = t, t = s, u = a; hence Tusalmat = Saturnus, as Newton surmised. Borelli, Bibliotheca\nChimica, p. 254.\n\nPages 103:\n94\nBohemia and England\nsequence black, multi-coloured, white, yellow and red. Nevertheless, the\ncolour of gold was traditionally distinguished from yellow by the reddish\nlustre it possesses, and Maier himself speaks of gold as the 'red-yellow\nmetal', so his conception of the anticipated colour of the final 'stone of\nultimate goldenness' may not have changed.97 A very similar table appears in\none of the three manuscript treatises Maier sent to Moritz after writing his\nletter, together with a reiteration of the fact that Maier himself stands at the\nsixteenth rung of the ladder - having prepared a 'yellow mercurial medicine'\n- and that only time, labour and money lie between him and ultimate\nsuccess.98 The title of this short tract is the Scala Arcis Philosophicae,\nGradibus Octodecim Distincta ('The Ladder of the Philosophical Peak,\nhaving been Divided into Eighteen Steps'), and its burden is to tempt Moritz\nby partially revealing the nature of the first group of steps on Maier's ladder\nconcerning the 'aim of the Art'. Maier begins his treatise with a poetic\nanalogy for his quest:\nA certain philosophical peak of pure shining gold is situated on a lofty and precipitous\nmountain, carrying the most abundant treasury of all the most precious things. The\nsurrounding region is deserted and rocky, and no fertile trees nor the least twig is to be found\nacross 100 German miles. The concourse to the said peak is filled with people, but as almost\nall approach without a ladder they stand idly by and are unable to climb; and as often as they\nstrive to overcome the mountain barefoot and unaided they fall on their heads, and break\ntheir necks, legs or arms. 9 9\nMaier makes a similar comparison of the alchemist's quest with the ascent of\na mountain in his Viatorium, hoc est, De Mont\u00ecbus Planetarum Septem seu\nMetallorum ( \u0386 Guide for the Journey, that is, Concerning the Seven\nMountains of the Planets or Metals,' 1618), a treatise focussing on the\nproperties of metals, in which the ascent to the 'philosophical peak' is\njuxtaposed with the motif of wandering in the labyrinth of Daedalus. 100\nSimilarly, in the Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum ('The Swarm of\nPseudo-chymical Drones,' 1617) Maier employs the symbol of the ascent of\n97\nMaier, Michael. De Circulo Physico,\nQuadrato,\nhoc est, Auro, eiusque\nvirtute\nmedicinali, sub duro cortice instar nuclei latente. Oppenheim: Lucas Jennis, 1616, p. 6.\n98\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 M S Chem. 11, 1, p. 47 recto.\nIbid.: \"Arx quaedam philosophica ex mero et filiis auro splendescens, in quibus\ncopiosissimis omnium rerum preciosissimarum thesauris referta, in ardus et praecipiti\nmonte sita est: Regio Circumquaeque deserta et petrosa, nullis arborisque ac ne minimo\nligno per 100. miliaria germanica fertilis; Concursque ad dictam arcem\nfrequentissimus\nest; verum cum absque scalis fere omnes acc\u00e9dant, stant otiosi ac ascendere nequeunt; Et\nquotquot earn absque scala nudis pedibus superare nisuntur, in caput decidunt, ac vel\nCollum vel crura aut brachia frangunt.\"\n99\n100\nMaier, Michael. Viatorium, hoc est, De montibus planetarum\nOppenheim: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1618, pp. 5-10.\nSeptem seu\nmetallorum.\n\nPages 104:\nThe seventeenth rung of the alchemical ladder\n95\nMt. Helicon, home of the Muses and resting-place of the stone devoured by\nChronos in place of his son Zeus (figure 13).101 We can imagine that the\nimagery of climbing a great edifice or wandering lost in a maze accurately\nreflects the emotions felt by Maier as he laboured on his never-ending task.\nThe allusion to a ladder in his correspondence to Moritz is drawn from the\nwords of the Arabic alchemist Morienus in the De Transmutatione Metallica,\nwho confides to his patron King Khalid:\n...whosoever shall seeke any other thinge than this stone for this magistery shall be likened\nunto a Man that endeavoreth to clyme a Ladder without steppes, which thing he being unable\nto doe, he falleth to the Earth on his face... this stone is cast in the wayes, it is trodden upon\nin the dunghills of those wayes, and many men have digged in dunghills in hope to finde it\nout in them, and herein they have been deceived: but the wise men have known that thinge,\nand have often used it, which containeth in itself four Elements, and hath Dominion over\nthem. 1 0 2\nAn illustration of this passage appears in the emblematic depiction of Morienus given in Maier's Symbola Aureae Mensae (figure 14); there we see a\nfigure attempting to scale a wall without a ladder, whilst Morienus gestures\ndidactically and the motto warns, hoc accipe, quod in sterquiliniis suis\ncalcatur: si non, absque scala ascensurus cades in caput - \"accept that it is\ntrampled upon in their dungheap; if not, when climbing without a ladder you\nwill fall on your head.\" 103 Whilst this saying may appear abstruse, Maier's\ninterpretation of its meaning is to be found in the Scala Arcis Philosophicae.\nOn the front page of that treatise there is a rather crudely drawn mountain,\nwith a ladder or staircase leading to a temple on the \"peak of pure and shining\n101\n102\nMaier, Michael. Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum\ndetectorum et in gratiam\nveritatis amantium succincte refutatorum. Frankfurt am Main: Johann Theodor de Bry,\n1617, p. 9; the myth of Chronos/Saturn, who devoured his children but was tricked into\neating a stone instead of his son Zeus/Jupiter, is recounted in the twelfth discourse of the\nAtalanta Fugiens; according to antique tradition, many tried to climb Helicon to see the\nstone with their own eyes, but only a few reached their goal due to the difficult and\ndangerous ascent. See Beck, Michael Maiers Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum,\np.\n27.\nMorienus Romanus. \"Morieni Romani Eremitae Hierosolymitani Sermo.\" British\nLibrary, MS Sloane 3697, 17th century, pp. 52-53; for Maier's source see \"Liber de\nCompositione Alchemiae quem edidit Morienus Romanus.\" Artis Auriferae. Vol. 2.\nBasel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1593, p. 35; for a modern English translation see\nStavenhagen, A Testament of Alchemy, p. 27. The original Arabic text is unknown, but a\nnumber of identical passages are to be found in an Arabic tract written around 1250 by\nAbu'1-Q\u00e4sim Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Ir\u00e2q\u00ef; see Stavenhagen, p. 60; also Abu'1-Q\u00e4sim\nMuhammad ibn Ahmad al-Ir\u00e2q\u00ef. Book of the Knowledge Acquired Concerning the\nCultivation of Gold. Trans. E. J. Holmyard. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1923.\n103\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 141.\n\nPages 105:\n96\nBohemia and England\ngold.\" 104 On the left side of the mountain a small figure climbs, labelled with\nthe phrase, ascendere cupiens absque scala - \"he who desires to climb\nwithout a ladder.\" If each step in the alchemical process is the necessary\nprerequisite for the one that follows, as Maier asserts, then it appears that the\nfirst, indispensable step for the Art is recognition of the materia artis Saturnus or lead. For Maier's source on the nature of the Roman rites of\nSaturn, Macrobius {Saturnalia, 1.7.25), gives one of the aspects of the deity\nas 'Saturnus Sterculius', the god of manure. This is the thing of little value\nthat is \"trampled upon in their (i.e. the Philosophers') dungheap,\" but which\nnevertheless contains the seeds of gold.\nHowever, we must not overlook the fact that on Maier's 'ladder' there are\nthree steps that precede knowledge of the materia artis, which the unlearned\nfor the most part have yet to discover - the true aim of the Art. As we are\naware, for Maier this goal was first and foremost the healing of the sick and\nthe procurement of a cure for 'grief and anger'. In another letter to Moritz\nwritten on the 29th of April, 1611, Maier declares that he will gladly reveal to\nthe prince the three lower grades of his alchemical 'ladder', although he had\nalready touched upon the matter obliquely in his Scala Arcis Philosophicae.\nThe first of these steps consists of the knowledge that the aim of the Art is\nnot a 'vulgar' one, or one of \"momentary projection.\" 105 According to the\nLexicon Alchemiae, a work of Maier's contemporary Martin Ruland (15691611), there are two methods by which the agent of transmutation may be\napplied to make gold. One is through 'fermentation', whereby the lapis is\nmixed with a molten base metal and 'leavens' it in similar fashion to the\nyeast in bread, thus mimicking the long duration of the perfection of\nsubterranean metals through the sun's rays; the other is by the 'projection' of\nthe lapis upon a base metal, involving a \"violent penetration\" and instant\ntransmutation. 106\n104\nThis depiction is reminiscent of the Visions of Zosimos, and the seven steps of\n'mortification' leading to the 'temple', or the fifteen alchemical steps leading to the altar\nand the sacrificial priest: \"And saying these things, I slept, and I saw a certain sacrificing\npriest standing before me and over an altar which had the form of a bowl. And that altar\nhad fifteen steps going up to it. Then the priest stood up and I heard from above a voice\nsay to me, \u038a have completed the descent of the fifteen steps and the ascent of the steps\nof light. And it is the sacrificing priest who renews me, casting off the body's\ncoarseness, and, consecrated by necessity, I have become a spirit.'\" See Taylor, \"The\nVisions of Zosimos,\" p. 88.\n105\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 19, 1, p. 287 recto.\nRuland, Martin. Lexicon Alchemiae sive Dictionarium Alchemisticum.\nFrankfurt am\nMain: Zachariae Palthenii, 1612, p. 384: \"Projectio est per medicinam super re mutanda\nprojectam cum repentino ingressu ex mutatione ex altatio. Convenit cum fermentatione,\nquod rem intus in substantia mutet; differ\u00ec autem quod non fiat cum digestione lenta, qua\npaulatim mistilia alterantur et crasin accipiunt; sed violenta penetratione facta, quasi in\nmomento ingressus, transfiguret;\" also p. 211: \"Fermentatio est rei in substantia per\n106\n\nPages 106:\nThe seventeenth rung of the alchemical ladder\n97\nMaier considered this latter method to be a sign of charlatanism and one\nof the extravagant promises of unlearned mountebanks. Indeed, whilst Maier\nbriefly condemns the purveyors of fraudulent alchemical medicines in his\nExamen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum, the greater part of that work's invective is aimed towards the self-proclaimed 'gold-makers' and their deceitful\npractices. In her analysis of the Atalanta Fugiens (1617), de Jong has argued\nthat Maier followed Avicenna in denying the possibility of an artificial\nconversion of species, be that amongst plants, animals or metals. 107 Nevertheless, the fact that Maier included in his communications with Moritz two\nprocedures for the manufacture of gold - one by means of a wet method\ninvolving argenti vivi coagulanti, and the other by a dry method involving\nsulphuris fixi - demonstrates that gold-making formed part of his early bid\nfor the prince's patronage, even if it was not the main goal of his practice.108\nAlthough they are characteristically unclear, the main aim of Maier's\ncomments in the Atalanta Fugiens is to refute the possibility of artificially\nconverting one metallic species into another \"in the short time needed for\neating an egg;\" the goal of his own quest was to produce an agent possessing\nthe power of transmutation and unlimited increase through fermentation, be\nthat in metals or the human heart.109\nAnother aspect of Maier's appeal to Moritz, who was by all accounts a\nman of formidable humanist learning, was the promise to reveal the\ninnermost secrets of Nature. Thus in his Scala Arcis Philosophicae Maier\ndevotes a great deal of space to the subject of gold as the perfection of\nNature, being formed in the likeness of a circle and containing within itself\nthe opposing elements in equal quantity.110 It was this subject that Maier was\nto expound at length in the printed work he dedicated to Moritz, De Circulo\nPhysico Quadrato ( O n the Squaring of the Natural Circle,' 1616), which we\nadmistionem fermenti, qua virtute per spiritum distributa totam p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e2t massam, et in\nsuam materiam immutai...\"\n107\nde Jong, H. M. E. Michael Maier 's Atalanta Fugiens: Sources of an Alchemical Book of\nEmblems. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969, pp. 17, 155-157.\n108\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 4\u00b0 MS Chem. 39, 12; for a discussion of the\ncontents of this manuscript, see Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court, p.\n104.\n109\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 18: \"Quidam ex antimonio vel ejus stellato Regulo\ncuprum ex cupri odore, eo temporis spacio, quo quis ovum comedat, efficere posse\njactant, imo omnia metalla fecisse: verum illis sua sit debita fides, quamvis in hoc mihi\nnon fiat verisimile... Nihilominus Philosophi affirmant, ut in igne ignificandi principium\nextat, sic in auro aurificandi: verum tinctura quaeritur, cujus medio aurum fiat: Haec\nindaganda est in suis propriis principiis et generationibus non in alienis: Namsi ignis\nignem producat, pyrus pyrum, equus equum tum plumbum plumbum et non argentum,\naurum aurum et non tincturam generabit.\"\n110\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 11, 1, pp. 47 recto- 64\npassim.\nverso,\n\nPages 107:\n98\nBohemia and England\nshall shortly examine. In the course of the Scala Arcis Philosophicae he\nlikens the vulgar gold-makers' claims of effecting an instant transmutation to\nthe possibility of forming a magic square by a random placement of\nnumerals. 111 Both Paracelsus and Agrippa von Nettesheim had correlated\nmagic squares with the planets and the metals, following Arabic theories\nconcerning the proportion of the four elements within each metal; 112 Maier\nuses as his example a magic square of the order of 3, which corresponds to\nlead in the Paracelsian schema:\n8\n1\n6\n3\n5\n7\n4\n9\n2\nIf the chances of placing the numerals 1 to 9 in this pattern by chance are\nlow, Maier asks how much more difficult it would be to randomly construct\nhigher order magic squares, i.e. those corresponding to the nobler metals. 113\nIn this way Maier sought to demonstrate to his would-be patron his own\nknowledge of the harmony and order underlying matter, and thereby\ndistinguish himself from those unlearned practitioners who proceed without a\nproper understanding of the occult properties inhering in Nature.\nThe doubts Maier casts on the possibility of an artificial and instant\ntransmutation of metals in his correspondence with Moritz go some way to\nexplaining why he could later find himself in accord with the Fama\nFraternitatis, the first Rosicrucian manifesto, which rails against \"the godless\nand accursed art of making gold\" that has \"gotten out of hand in our time,\"\nbut which goes on to state that gold-making is possible for the true\nPhilosopher, albeit a mere parergon or triviality.114 For Maier, the third step\nof the alchemical ladder he promised to reveal to Moritz - \"the true aim of\nthe Art, having been hidden by the Philosophers\" - concerns the medicinal\nvirtues of gold and the production of a 'golden stone' which, like natural\ngold, contains the opposing sulphuric and mercuric principles in equal part\nand restores the balance of humours in the intemperate body. If Maier was\nfortunate enough to meet with Moritz prior to his departure for England, it\nwould have been the allure of this iatrochemical goal that he would have\n111\nIbid., p. 50 recto.\nOn this subject, see Karpenko, Vladimir. \"Between Magic and Science: Numerical\nMagical Squares,\" Ambix, Vol. 40, No. 3, November 1993, pp. 121-128; Stapleton, H. E.\n\"The Antiquity of Alchemy,\" Ambix, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1953, pp. 9-15.\n113\nIbid.\n114\nKooij, Pleun van der and Carlos Gilly (eds.). Fama Fraternitatis: Das Urmanifest der\nRosenkreuzer Bruderschaft. Haarlem: Rozekruis Pers, 1998, pp. 98-100.\n112\n\nPages 108:\nA journey to England\n99\nplayed upon, and the notion of maintaining health and piety in the body\npolitic - matters close to the heart of a Calvinist prince such as Moritz.\n7. A journey to England\nGiven the content and aim of these communications to Moritz the Learned, it\nis the pursuit of alchemical knowledge and further patronage for his work\nthat provides the context in which we should understand Maier's journey to\nEngland. As the English Freemason and patron of occult learning Elias\nAshmole (1617-1692) stated in 1652, Maier \"came to live in England,\npurposely that he might so understand our English Tongue, as to translate\nNorton's Ordinali into Latin verse.\" 115 Even if Maier did meet with Moritz\nbefore setting out for England, it seems that no concrete advantage ensued for\nhim or his work, much less a 'Rosicrucian' diplomatic mission.\nOn the other hand, Maier was certainly not persona non grata following\nhis departure from the environs of Kassel in mid-1611, as he was received\nat the court of Moritz' brother-in-law, Count Ernst III of HolsteinSchauenburg (1569-1622) in B\u00fcckeburg shortly thereafter. 116 There he gave\ndemonstrations of his knowledge to Peter Finxius (1573-1624), personal\nphysician to Ernst and Professor of Medicine at the University of Rinteln,\nwho would later contribute an epigram to the Symbola Aureae Mensae (a\nwork which was dedicated by Maier to Count Ernst).117 At this time Maier\nalso paid a visit to Conrad Hoier, the sub-prior of the monastery at\nM\u00f6llenbeck, some three miles from Rinteln and eight from B\u00fcckeburg.\nWhilst Maier was so impressed by Hoier's literary skills that he conferred\nupon him the title of Poet Laureate (the only known employment by Maier of\nthe aforementioned privileges adhering to his position as Count Palatine), it\nseems that Hoier did not immediately reciprocate this stranger's admiration.\nAccording to the account of Strieder, the sub-prior found Maier's demeanour\nsomewhat untrustworthy:\nIn the year 1611 Hoier was crowned Imperial Poet by Michael Maier, Philos, et Med. Doct.\net Caes. Maj. Com. Pal.; but he had doubts concerning the authenticity of this Count\nPalatine, and consequently concerning the authenticity of his own crowning as poet, as\nshortly before that time there had been a charlatan in the environs of M\u00f6llenbeck falsely\n115\nAshmole, Elias (ed.). Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum. London: J. Grismond, 1652, p.\nA2.\n116 Figala and Neumann, \"Author cui Nomen Hermes Malavici,\" p. 131.\n117\nIbid.-, Strieder, Friedrich Wilhelm. Grundlage zu einer Hessischen\nSchriftsteller Geschichte Seit der Reformation bis auf Gegenw\u00e4rtige\nKassel: G\u00f6ttingen: Barmeier, 1786, p. 83.\nGelehrten und\nZeiten. Vol. 6.\n\nPages 109:\n100\nBohemia and England\nposing as a Count Palatine. Thus one finds in the front of Hoier's book, Versus Biblici\nAntiquiores, the witnessing stamp of the then Chancellor of Schauenburg, D. Ant. von\nWietersheim, in order to corroborate the validity of his laurel wreath. 1 1 8\nWhether the talk in M\u00f6llenbeck of a roaming impostor had arisen due to\nsome act of Maier's whilst in neighbouring B\u00fcckeburg, or due to rumours\nconcerning the man and his Art, we shall never know. But the apparent\nindifference and distrust Maier inspired in some of his hosts following his\ndeparture from Prague certainly cast a revealing light on his persona, and\nshow that wherever he went, he walked a fine line between the status of\nlearned physician and fraud.\nFrom Lower Saxony Maier moved to Rotterdam - his likely port of\ndeparture for England. 119 There he met with Pieter Carpentier, the rector of\nthe local grammar school whose natural history collection appears to have\nbeen an inspiration for Maier's Tractatus de Volucri Arborea ('Concerning\nthe Tree Bird,' 1619) - a compendium of strange tales demonstrating the\nhieroglyphic significance of those vegetables and animals created contrary to\nNature, such as the Tree of Dragon's Blood, the Tartary Lamb and the\nLycanthrope. 120 The 'Tree Bird' in question is the barnacle goose, which\naccording to the medieval bestiaries is born from barnacles growing on the\nunderside of driftwood; in Maier's eyes, it had been created thus to mirror the\nVirgin Birth of Christ.121\nThe next traces of Maier's movements are the manuscript Christmas\ngreetings he offered to James I and his son, Henry Prince of Wales, in\n118\n119\nStrieder, Grundlage, pp. 91-93: \"...Hoier sich im J. 1611 vom Michael Maier, Philos, et\nMed. Doct. et Caes. Maj. Com. Pal. zum kaiserlichen gekr\u00f6nten Poeten machen lassen;\nweil er besorgt, man m\u00f6gte an der G\u00fcltigkeit dieses Comitis Palatii, folglich auch an\nseiner Kr\u00f6nung zum Poeten einen Zweifel tragen, indem sich kurz vorher in dortigen\nGegenden ein Betr\u00fcger f\u00fcr einen Comitem Palatinum f\u00e4lschlich ausgegeben; so finde\nman vor seinem Buche: Versus biblici antiquiores, den Abdruk eines Zeugnisses des\ndamaligen Schauenburgischen Kanzlers D. Ant. von Wietersheim's, um die Richtigkeit\nseines Lorbeerkranzes zu best\u00e4rken.\"\nFigala and Neumann, \"Michael M a i e r p . 43.\nIbid:, Maier, Michael. Tractatus de Volucri Arborea, absque patre et matre, in insulis\nOrcadum forma anserculorum proveniente, seu de ortu miraculoso potius quam naturali\nvegetabilium, animalium, hominum et supranaturalium quorundam. Frankfurt am Main:\nLucas Jennis, 1619, p. 43. In the course of this work Maier corroborates his story of the\n'Tree Bird' with reference to communications from a certain 'Doctor of Scotland'.\nCraven has suggested that this may have been Dr. John Johnston, whose Thaumatographia Naturalis (1632) cites the work of the 'most noble' Dr. Maier in turn, and\nalso names Johann Valentin Andreae - the likely progenitor of the Rosicrucian\nmanifestos - as a close friend of the author. Craven, Count Michael Maier, pp. 121-122.\n121\nIt seems that Maier may also have been inspired to create this compendium by the\nKunsthammer of Emperor Rudolf II, in which many oddities of natural history were to\nbe found: Godwin, \"A Context for Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens,\" p. 6.\n120\n\nPages 110:\nA journey to England\n101\nDecember of 1611. The manuscript given to Henry, recently discovered by\nSrigley, presents a poem in the form of a pyramid containing anacrostics\nwhich was clearly designed to appeal to the prince's interest in Hermeticism. 122 It is executed in red and gold ink and expresses Maier's hopes for the\nrestoration of a Golden Age, in similar fashion to the manuscript destined for\nJames, which mirrors Maier's early letter to Rantzau in its invocation of the\npristine wisdom of the 'Egyptian' double-faced Janus.123 Maier declares in\nhis greetings to Henry that the prince's noble blood is itself a portent of the\ngreat deeds he will perform, and he closes with a toast to \"the coming new\nyear of good omen, 1612.\" Unfortunately, however, the stars were not to\nshine favourably on Henry that year, as evinced by Maier's aforementioned\npresence amongst the 'Count Palatine's gentlemen' in Henry's funeral\nprocession on Monday the 7th of December, 1612. After 12 days of illness,\nHenry had capitulated to a certain 'New Disease' or 'corrupt putrid fever',\nthought by the physicians to have been brought from Hungary. 124 Rumphius,\nthe personal physician of Friedrich V, attended the Prince's dissection with\nMayerne, the personal physician of James I, along with \"many other Knights\nand Gentlemen.\" 125 The funeral procession was some two thousand strong;\nMaier walked together with Rumphius and others of the German retinue, but\nat a distance from the Elector Palatine and his closest courtiers, although it\nseems he was present in Westminster Abbey during the service.126\nHenry had been rumoured to hold more interventionist views than his\nfather James concerning the religious conflicts in the Empire, and his premature death came as something of a blow to those who hoped for English\nsupport of the German Calvinist cause. As a result of his demise, the wedding\nof Friedrich V to Princess Elizabeth (see figure 15) was postponed by James\nuntil Sunday the 14th of February, 1613, lest foreign dignitaries arrive and\nfind the English revelling after the death of his son.127 It is unclear as to\nwhether Maier was able to personally deliver the 'congratulatory poem'\nHartmann speaks of in his letter to Borbonius; nevertheless, it seems likely\nthat Maier at least attended the public nuptial celebrations, which began on\nthe Thursday evening before the wedding. Whilst James, Friedrich, Elizabeth\nand various English royalty and nobility watched from the galleries and\nwindows of the royal residence at Whitehall, many thousands gathered on the\nbanks of the Thames to witness a splendid fireworks display:\n122\nMoran, The Alchemical World of the German Court, p. 174.\nSrigley, Images of Regeneration, pp. 101-102.\n124\nNichols, Progresses, Processions and Magnificent Festivities, p. 472.\n125\nIbid., p. 485.\n126\nIbid., pp. 496-499.\n127\nIbid., p. 489.\n123\n\nPages 111:\n102\nBohemia and England\nFirst, for a welcome to the beholders, a peale of ordnance like unto a terrible thunder, railed\nin the ayer, and seemed as it were to shake the earth; immediately upon this a rocket of fire\nburst from the water, and mounted so high into the element, that it dazzled the beholders'\neyes to look after it. Secondly, followed a number more of the same fashion, spredding so\nstrangely with sparkling blazes, that the skie seemed to be filled with fire, or that there had\nbeen a combate of darting starres fighting in the ayre; and all the time these continued,\ncertaine cannons planted in the fields adjoyning made thundering musick to the great\npleasure of the beholders. After this, in a most curious manner, an artificiali Fire-worke with\ngreat wonder was seene flying in the ayre, like unto a Dragon, against which another fierie\nvision appeared, flaming like to St. George on horsebacke, brought in by a burning\nInchanter, betweene which was there fought a most strange battell... 128\nThat evening and in the following days there were mock battles between\n'Turkish' and English ships on the Thames - a spectacular display of antiIslamic sentiment which included thirty-six galleons, four floating castles\nwith fireworks, and a reconstruction (presumably in miniature) of the town\nand fort of Algiers at the riverbank. The spectacle cost over \u00a39000, as well as\nthe eyes and limbs of many of the performers, although the royal retinue\ngrew weary of their entertainment after the first night.129 Given his relatively\nminor position amongst the courtiers we cannot be sure if Maier attended the\nvarious lavish masques and feasts held in honour of the royal couple, and he\nwas certainly not present at the wedding service itself - an honour reserved\nfor \"sixteen young men batchelors, being as many as the Bridegroom was\nyears of age; the rest, by the express command of his Majesty, did not enter\nthe Chappel.\" 130\n8. Francis Anthony and the 'drinkable gold'\nIn the course of 1613 Maier submitted his Arcana Arcanissima to the London\nprinters Crede; like the De Medicina Regia, it seems Maier personally\ncirculated the work amongst prominent figures at the royal court in the hope\nof attracting patronage. One of the courtiers to whom he gave a copy of his\nwork with a hand-written dedication was Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626),\nBishop of Ely, Royal Almoner and one of the king's Privy Councillors, who\nis said to have \"converted many papists\" through his \"painful preaching\" 131\n128\n129\n130\n131\nIbid., p. 537.\nIbid., pp. 525, 539-540, 587.\nIbid., p. 542.\nBritish Biographical Archive. Microfiche Edition. M\u00fcnchen: Sauer, 1984, mf. 26, 407:\n\"painful preaching\" here seems to have the meaning of 'careful' or 'painstaking'; a\nsample follows so that the reader may decide the case: \"If this child be Immanuel, God\nwith us, then without this child, this Immanuel, we be without God. \"Without Him in\n\nPages 112:\nFrancis Anthony and the 'drinkable gold'\n103\nand took up the cause of James' Defence of the Right of Kings in the face\nof Catholic criticism.132 Another of Maier's dedicatees was Sir Thomas\nSmith (c.1558-1625), first Governor of the British East India Company and\na controversial Treasurer of the Virginia Company from 1609, who was\naccused by the Virginian colonists of causing famine by favouring the growth\nof tobacco to the neglect of staple commodities. 133 Maier also dedicated a\ncopy of his Arcana Arcanissima to Sir William Paddy (1554-1634), another\npersonal physician of James I, president of the London College of Physicians\nand close acquaintance of Lancelot Andrewes; Paddy had once gained His\nMajesty's favour by arguing against the proposition that smoking tobacco is\nharmful to the health, and was later appointed commissioner of tobacco\nprocessing for his efforts. 134\nYet again, it appears that Maier's efforts to secure patronage came to\nnaught. This much is suggested by the fact that the first dedicatee of the\nLusus Serius alongside Rumphius and Mosanus is the controversial English\nalchemist, Francis Anthony (1550-1623). A learned scholar of chemistry\nfrom Cambridge University, Anthony had been repeatedly fined and imprisoned by the College of Physicians for peddling his alchemical remedies\nwithout a license, and as we shall see, he clearly stood on the outside of\nthe circle of powerful courtiers who Maier had initially wooed. Amongst\nAnthony's remedies was his famous aurum potabile or drinkable gold, a\npowerful cathartic and emetic, which was said to have miraculously cured\ncertain of his patients, but as often seriously injured or killed them. 135 From\nthe earliest period in the history of chemistry, gold had been held to possess\ndivine properties on account of its seemingly incorruptible and eternal nature;\nthe goal of early modern alchemists such as Anthony was to find a means to\ndissolve an insoluble substance and make its divine virtues available for\nhuman digestion. 136 This was a central problem in Maier's own physic;\nthis world,\" saith the apostle, and if without Him in this, without Him in the next; and if\nwithout Him then, if it be not Immanu-el, it will be Immanu-hell. What with Him? Why\nif we have Him we need no more; Immanu-el and Immanu-all.' Cited in the Dictionary\nof National Biography. Vol. 1. London: Smith and Elder, 1885, pp. 403-404.\n132\nDictionary of National Biography, Vol. 1, p. 404.\n133\nBritish Biographical Archive, m\u00ed. 1017, 167.\n134\nDictionary of National Biography, Vol. 43, p. 35.\n135\nBritish Biographical Archive, mf. 31, 215-220.\n136\nThe noted poet and lutenist, Thomas Campion (1567-1620), who composed a masque for\nthe banquet feast of Friedrich V and Princess Elizabeth, offers a good example of\ncontemporary scepticism regarding the remedy in his epigram De Auro Potabili\u00b7.\n\"Pomponi, tantum vendis medicabilis auri,/ quantum dat fidei credula turba tibi;/\nevadunt aliqui, sed non vi futilis auri:/ servantur sola certius ergo fide;\" (\"Pomponius,\nthe more you vend that medical gold, the more the gullible masses place their trust in\nyou. Some patients are cured, but not by the power of this ineffectual gold: they are\n\nPages 113:\n104\nBohemia and England\nindeed, he tells us that his medicine is similar to the aurum potabile, except\nthat it is extracted not from elemental gold but from Philosophical Gold,\nwhich, he cryptically remarks, is only conceivable in the imagination. 137 Like\nthe aurum potabile, it is also a strong purgative that produces a cathartic\nreaction in the patient in order to restore the balance of fluids within the\nbody; however, it only affects the sources of sickness, and does not attack\nthe healthy parts of the body. 138 We are told he successfully applied this\nmedicine in both England and Germany; it heals not only epileptics and\ncripples, but causes grey hairs to regain their pristine colour and teeth to grow\nback again. 139\nThis certainly appears to be an advance on Anthony's medicine, which\naccording to one account caused his patients' teeth to drop out. 140 Nevertheless, Maier's defence of Anthony was emphatic, as we may gather from\nthe introduction he contributed to the Englishman's Apologia Veritatis\nIllucescentis (1616) appearing under the familiar anagram of Hermes\nMalavici. 141 There Maier commends the sober arguments Anthony has set\nforth in his work, and defends the 'potable gold' against certain detractors:\nMost famous sir, I have read your small treatise concerning the drinkable gold published in\nyour English homeland; the arguments and goal were clearly sound, and whosoever holds\nanother opinion should not be counted amongst good men. I have gratefully examined the\nsweetest little flowers plucked from the true gardens of chymia\u00b7, and truly when I saw that\nmost venomous pair of spiders alight upon them, making poison out of the nectar and\nspinning futile and useless webs, I could scarcely contain myself, but that I might blow away\nthose swollen and horrid creatures with one puff, not to say with one fart. But as I have\nnoticed their webs and many little works pleasing so many people, hitherto I have not wished\nto inflict anything too troublesome on those little animals, lest spiders conspire with hornets.\nMeanwhile, behold!, I send this sponge imbued with acrid vinegar, with which you can wipe\naway those nuisances, or the stinking slime carried in by those little beasts; or, if you prefer,\ntotally destroy their unpleasant stains and webs. 1 4 2\nsaved by their trust alone\"). See Campion, Thomas. Thomae Campiani\nEpigrammatum\nlibri primus. London: E. Griffin, 1619, Epigram 6.\n137\nStiehle, Michael Maierus Holsatus, p. 259; Maier, De Medicina Regia, p. 93.\n138\nStiehle, ibid.-, Maier, ibid.\n139\nStiehle, ibid., pp. 258-259; Maier, ibid., p. 84.; c.f. also Maier, Civitas Corporis Humani,\np. 48; Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 9.\n140\nBritish Biographical Archive, mf. 31,219.\n141\nAnthony, Francis. Apologia Veritatis Illucescentis, pro Auro Potabili: seu Essentia Auri\nabsque corrosivis reducti; ut fere omnibus\nhumani\nad medicinalem potabilitatem\ncorporis aegritudinibus,\nac praesertim Cordis corroborationi,\ntanquam\nUniversalis\nMedicina, utilissime adhiberi possit; una cum rationibus intelligibilibus,\ntestimoniis\nlocupletissimis, et modo convenienti in singulis morbis usurpandi, producta. London:\nJohannes Legatt, 1616.\n142\nIbid., p. u 4 recto: \"Legi vir clarissime tractatulum tuum de Auro potabili apud vos in\nAnglia editum; argumentum sane et intentio bona; qui aliter aestimet, vix mihi inter\n\nPages 114:\nFrancis Anthony and the 'drinkable gold'\n105\nThe two 'swollen and horrid' spiders in question were the alchemist Thomas\nRawlin and a physician and minor playwright, Matthew Gwinne, who was\nappointed co-commissioner for the processing of tobacco alongside his friend\nfrom the College of Physicians, Sir William Paddy. Gwinne had debunked\nAnthony's remedy in his Aurum non Aurum (1611) as a response to Anthony's first tract on the matter published in 1610,143 whilst Rawlin's tract the Admonitio Pseudo-Chymici - appeared in 1612 with the aim of exposing\nAnthony and espousing his own true 'potable gold'. 144 The 'sponge' which\nMaier offered up to Anthony was a long poem praising the flowers of the\n'garden of the Hesperides' which had been sown in England, and which\nAnthony has plucked. 145 This is a reference to the mythical Greek garden in\nwhich golden apples grew and a dragon guarded the Golden Fleece, a motif\nto which Maier alludes throughout his works as an alchemical hieroglyph.\nThose who would denigrate Anthony's medicine are likened in Maier's poem\nto 'Grillus', one of the men of Odysseus who, having been transformed into a\npig by the sorceress Circe, preferred the swinish form to his former humanity\nand so remained thus. 146 When we consider the similarity of Maier's own\n'mercurial medicine' to Anthony's aurum potabile - both of which act by\nfortifying the heart's calor innatus with the virtues of gold - then we may\nunderstand the sympathy he felt for his English friend, and the corresponding\nvitriol he directed towards Anthony's antagonists. Such was his support for\nbonos aestimandus. Flosculos tuos dulcissimos ex Chymiae verae hortis delibatos grato\nanimo lustravi; verum cum illis binos areaneos venenosissimos infidere viderem, exque\nilio nectare venenum sibi haurire et texere futilia et inutilia ret\u00edcula, vix me continere\npotui, quin illos t\u00fargidos et horridos uno ictu ne dicam flatu dissiparem. At cum\nanimadverterem eorum texturas et opuscula permultis admiranda existere, ideo nihil\nincommodi illis animalculis hactenus inferre volui, ne scilicet Crabrones cum ara\u00f1\u00e9is\nconspirent. Mitto interim en spongiam Muriaticam, seu muria acri imbutam, qua plagas\nab illis bestiolis illatas aut virus infixum elvere, abstergere et sanare possis; aut si mavis,\nillorum non candidas lituras aut texturas delere et omnino supprimere.\"\n143\n144\nAnthony, Francis. Medicinae Chymicae, et Veri Potabilis Auri Assertio. Cambridge: Ex\nofficina Cantrelli Legge, 16\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 97 to page 114 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 114 to page 132 out of a total of 334:\nPages 114:\nFrancis Anthony and the 'drinkable gold'\n105\nThe two 'swollen and horrid' spiders in question were the alchemist Thomas\nRawlin and a physician and minor playwright, Matthew Gwinne, who was\nappointed co-commissioner for the processing of tobacco alongside his friend\nfrom the College of Physicians, Sir William Paddy. Gwinne had debunked\nAnthony's remedy in his Aurum non Aurum (1611) as a response to Anthony's first tract on the matter published in 1610,143 whilst Rawlin's tract the Admonitio Pseudo-Chymici - appeared in 1612 with the aim of exposing\nAnthony and espousing his own true 'potable gold'. 144 The 'sponge' which\nMaier offered up to Anthony was a long poem praising the flowers of the\n'garden of the Hesperides' which had been sown in England, and which\nAnthony has plucked. 145 This is a reference to the mythical Greek garden in\nwhich golden apples grew and a dragon guarded the Golden Fleece, a motif\nto which Maier alludes throughout his works as an alchemical hieroglyph.\nThose who would denigrate Anthony's medicine are likened in Maier's poem\nto 'Grillus', one of the men of Odysseus who, having been transformed into a\npig by the sorceress Circe, preferred the swinish form to his former humanity\nand so remained thus. 146 When we consider the similarity of Maier's own\n'mercurial medicine' to Anthony's aurum potabile - both of which act by\nfortifying the heart's calor innatus with the virtues of gold - then we may\nunderstand the sympathy he felt for his English friend, and the corresponding\nvitriol he directed towards Anthony's antagonists. Such was his support for\nbonos aestimandus. Flosculos tuos dulcissimos ex Chymiae verae hortis delibatos grato\nanimo lustravi; verum cum illis binos areaneos venenosissimos infidere viderem, exque\nilio nectare venenum sibi haurire et texere futilia et inutilia ret\u00edcula, vix me continere\npotui, quin illos t\u00fargidos et horridos uno ictu ne dicam flatu dissiparem. At cum\nanimadverterem eorum texturas et opuscula permultis admiranda existere, ideo nihil\nincommodi illis animalculis hactenus inferre volui, ne scilicet Crabrones cum ara\u00f1\u00e9is\nconspirent. Mitto interim en spongiam Muriaticam, seu muria acri imbutam, qua plagas\nab illis bestiolis illatas aut virus infixum elvere, abstergere et sanare possis; aut si mavis,\nillorum non candidas lituras aut texturas delere et omnino supprimere.\"\n143\n144\nAnthony, Francis. Medicinae Chymicae, et Veri Potabilis Auri Assertio. Cambridge: Ex\nofficina Cantrelli Legge, 1610.\nGwinne, Matthew. Aurum non Aurum: In assertorem chymicae, sed verae medicinae\ndesertorum, Frac. Anthonivm, Matthaei Gwynn succincta aduersaria. London: R. Field,\n1611; Rawlin, Thomas: Admonitio Pseudo-chymicis: seu Alphabetarium\nPhilosophicum:\nomnibus doctrinae filiis, et philosophicae medicinae studiosis, verissime, sincere, et\nplusquam laconica brevitate conscriptum, et in bonum publicum emissum: in quo D. D.\nAntonii aurum potabile obiter refutatur, et genuina veri auri potabilis, in omnibus\ncreatis delitescentis, praeparatioproponitur.\nLondon: Alide, 1612.\n145\nAnthony, Apologia Veritatis Illucescentis, pp. H 4 verso- fl recto.\n146\nThe origins of this tradition are not clear to me, as the tale of 'Grillus' does not appear in\nHomer's Odyssey, however, the German word for a cricket is die Grille, and thus the\nterm 'Grillus' may indicate a form of invective.\n\nPages 115:\n106\nBohemia and England\nAnthony that he even took a copy of the Apologia back to Germany, with the\npromise of translating it into his native language.147\nGiven the fact that Anthony's antagonists counted amongst the very\ncourtiers who had been left unimpressed by Maier's advances, then the conspiratorial 'hornets' Maier mentions in the preface to Anthony's Apologia\nmay be identified as Sir William Paddy and the London College of Physicians. Thus in his Prologomena to the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum\nAshmole makes the remark that Maier's entertainment in England \"was too\ncoarse for so deserving a scholar.\"148 Maier's experiences with unspecified\nEnglish 'charlatans' inspired his Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum, the\nmore substantial sequel to the earlier 'vinegared sponge' he had presented to\nAnthony, in which he writes:\nWhen I was in England a few years ago I accrued quite some ill-feeling towards such\nalchemical frauds, or rather pseudo-chemists, after which time I could not rest until I had\nseized my pen and made a description of them. I have done this in order that I may give rein\nto my feelings, and also in order that I might light a torch for all good men, as it were, lest\nthey stumble upon a stone in the gloomy crypt of these frauds, or indeed hit their heads on a\nbeam. That is to say, lest good men be fooled by these leeches and hornets, who not only\nsuck out all blood and life-energy, but also attempt to inflict the greatest pain on the body\nand soul. 1 4 9\nIt seems that some of these 'leeches and hornets' were of the ilk of Thomas\nRawlin, as Maier devotes some space to the subject of the fraudulent\nvarieties of aurum potabile in the course of the Examen Fucorum Pseudochymicorum. His polemic also draws on testimonies from the works of\nHeinrich Khunrath and Oswald Croll. In the Treuhertzige WarnungsVermahnung ('Sincere Warning') cited by Maier, Khunrath relates the story\n147\nThe statement of Maier's intent appears in Maier's letter to the Stadtarzt of Frankfurt,\nJohannes Hartmann Beyer, which will be discussed further in the following chapter:\nFrankfurt am Main, Stadt- und Universit\u00e4tsbibliothek, MS Ff. J. H. Beyer \u0391. 161, p. 207\nverso. It seems that Maier never completed this task, although a Latin edition did appear\nfrom the publisher Frobenius in Hamburg in 1618 under the title Panacea aurea; sive\ntractatus duo de ipsius auro potabili... nunc primum in Germania ex Londinensi\nexemplari excusi, oper M.B.F.B:, thus the possibility remains that this was Maier's\ntranslation.\n148\nAshmole, Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, p. A2.\nMaier, Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum,\np. A2 verso: \"Cum aliquando in Anglia\npaucis ab hinc annis nonnihil bilis in eiusmodi fucos alchymicos, aut potius pseudochymicos, collegerim, non potui quiescere, quin eorum delineationem, calamo arrepto,\ninstituerem, tum ut animo meo pro tempore indulgerem, tum ut bonis omnibus hanc\nquasi facem incenderem, ne facile in tenebricosis illorum cryptis pedem lapidi, aut\nverticem trabi illiderent, hoc est, se circumveniri ab illis hirudinibus et crabronibus (qui\nnon solum sanguinem, opumque substantiam exugere, sed et dolores ac\u00e9rrimos animo\ncorporique infligere tentant) paterentur.\"\n149\n\nPages 116:\nThe Golden Tripod\n107\nof the alchemist George Penot, who paid 24 ducats for a suspension of gold\nfilings with camphor, clove and aniseed oil in Prague; 150 whilst Croll recalls\nmeeting a certain 'frivolous Philosopher', who concealed his conniving and\nsnake-like character under the cover of sincerity and Pharisaic piety, and who\npeddled a sulphurous solution for his own enrichment and the considerable\nharm of others.151\n9. The Golden Tripod: \"Truth is concealed\nunder the cover of shadows\"\nDespite his experiences with similar charlatanry in England, Maier held that\ncountry in considerable esteem as a centre of alchemical learning, as we may\ngather from the fruits of his journey contained in the Tripus Aureus ('Golden\nTripod,' 1618, figure 16).152 There we find Maier's translation of the Ordinal\nof Alchemy of Thomas Norton (c.1433-1513/14), as well as his transcription\nof the Testament of a certain 'Abbot John Cremer of Westminster' (figure\n17). Norton was a citizen of Bristol, a customs agent and purportedly a\nstudent of George Ripley. All that is known of the man is an entry in the\ntown records describing a bitter dispute with the mayor, whom he accused of\ntreason; during the trial Norton was denounced for keeping violent retainers\nand playing tennis on Sunday afternoons, and the whole affair led to his\npersonal humiliation before the king of England. 153 His Ordinal is a Middle\nEnglish poem of 3100 lines, which he intended to write in \"playne & comon\nspeche\" for \"al commyn peple,\" and to \"shew the trouth in few wordis &\nplayne.\" 154 In the course of the work he sets out the procedures of the\n150\nIbid., p. 45; Khunrath's tract is to be found in his Von Hylealischen, Das ist Pri-Materialischen Catholischen, oder Algemeinem Nat\u00fcrlichen Chaos. Magdeburg: n.p., 1597;\nPenotus' original text is given by Beck, Michael Maiers Examen Fucorum\nPseudochymicorum, p. 54, n. 232.\n151\nMaier, Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum,\np. 46: \"Communicatam ipsum aliquando\ncuidam Philosopho Corticario sub synceritate et pietate pharisaica, hypocriticum ac\ncolubrinum dexterrime decipientem animum tegenti, qui hunc pulverem (postquam ei\nsulfuris triti admixtionem, per admonitionem vim percutiendi ademisset) de facie\nincognitum suis imposturis miscens, cum damno aliorum et suo commodo auri\nmultiplicationem apud plurimos attentavit.\"\n152\nMaier, Michael. Tripus Aureus, hoc est, Tres tractatus chymici selectissimi.\nMain: Lucas Jennis, 1618.\n153\nNorton, Thomas. Thomas Norton's Ordinal of Alchemy. Ed. JohnReidy. Oxford: Oxford\nUniversity Press, 1975, pp. xlvi ff.\nIbid., pp. 6-7. As Ashmole once noted, the first syllables of the first lines of each chapter\nof the Ordinal form an anacrostic of the author's name, 'Tomas Norton of Brystow': \"To\nthe honour of god oon in persones |jree.../ Mastrie ful mervelous & Archymastrie.../\n154\nFrankfurt am\n\nPages 117:\n108\nBohemia and England\nalchemical process \"like as the Ordinalle to prest\u00eds settith owte the seruyce of\nthe dayes,\" i.e. in imitation of the order of the Church's liturgies for the\nyear.155 Maier must have found this manner of ordering the magnum opus\npleasing, given his own conception of the alchemical significance of\nEpiphany and Easter; and Norton, like Maier, also brings astrological\nconsiderations and celestial virtues to bear in his work. 156 Other aspects of\nthe Ordinal which resonate with Maier's worldview are the extensive\ndescriptions it gives of alchemical swindlers - including a certain \"monke of\nNormandie\" who attempted to beguile Norton himself - and the insistence on\nthe importance of a knowledge of grammar, rhetoric, arithmetic and music\nfor the practitioner of the Art.157 However, in the course of his translating\nwork Maier must have felt a little apprehensive when reading the dire\nwarning issued in Norton's introduction not to change a single syllable of his\nwork:\nNow souerayn lord god me gyde and spede,\nFor to my maters as now I will procede,\nPrayng al men which this boke shal fynde,\nwith deuowte prayers to haue my soule in mynd;\nAnd that no man for better ne for wors,\nChange my writyng, for drede of goddis curs;\nFor where quyck sentence shal seme not to be,\nfiere may wise men fynd selcouth priuyte;\nAnd changing of som oone sillable\nMay make this boke vnprofitable. 1 5 8\nNormandie norshide a monke now late.../ Tonsile was a laborere in fyre.../ Of Jje Grose\nwerk now I will not spare.../ Bryse, when |)e change of |)e coyne was had.../ Towarde the\nmaters of concordance.../ A Perfite Maister ye may him trowe.\" In Ashmole's\nmanuscript collection at the Bodleian Library there is a copy of the Ordinal transcribed\nby John Dee (1527-1608), magus resident at the court of Elizabeth I, which may have\nserved as Maier's source; Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 57, 1577.\n155\nNorton, Ordinal of Alchemy, p. 8.\n156\nThus Norton speaks of the concord of love \"bitwen your werkis & the spere above\":\n\"The virtew of ye mover of ye orbe ys formali,/ The virtew of ye viijth spere is here\nInstrumentall,/ With his signis & figuris et parties aspectuall;/ The planet virtue is propre\n& speciali;/ The virtew of Elementis is here Materiali,/ The virtew infuside resultith of\nthem all.\" Ibid., pp. 84, 91.\n157\nIbid., pp. 52-53: \"Conioyne your elementis Grammatically/ with alle theire concordis\nconueniently;.../ Ioyne them also in Rethoricalle gyse/ with naturis ornate in purifiede\nwyse;.../ Ioyne them to-gedir also Arismetically,/ Bi subtile nombres proporcionally,.../\nIoyne your elementis Musicallye,/ For ij causes: one is for melodye/ whiche theire\naccordis wil make to your mynde/ The trewe effecte when fcat ye shall fynde;/ And al-so\nfor like as Dyapason,/ with diapente & with diatesseron,/ with ypate ypaton & lekanos\nMused,/ with accordis which musike be used,/ with theire proporcions cawsen\nArmonye,/ Moch like proporcions be in Alchymye...\"\n158\nIbid., p. 10; 'selcouth privyte' means a 'marvelous secret knowledge' or 'rare secret'.\n\nPages 118:\nThe Golden Tripod\n109\nJohn Cremer, 'Abbot of Westminster', is a less tangible figure than Norton;\nindeed, a thorough inspection of the names of abbots and monks given in the\nobedientiary rolls preserved at Westminster Abbey reveals that no abbot or\nmonk ever went by the name of Cremer at Westminster. 159 Maier's transcription of the Testament of Cremer is the earliest record we have of the\nallegedly medieval author writing under that name; two further manuscript\nversions of the Testament are extant, one in the library of the Wellcome\nInstitute (a French translation dated to around 1675), and the other in\nAshmole's collection residing at the Bodleian Library (a copy from\nAshmole's own hand). 160 Which manuscript source Maier himself drew upon\nis unknown, although the work appears to be of sixteenth century origin.\nMaier himself seems to have had doubts regarding some aspects of the\nTestament, as he introduces the text with the following verse:\nEither the mind of the author, or at any rate his words are deceptive;\ntherefore you should be wary, a serpent lies hidden everywhere.\nDo not look down upon this plainly spoken sermon:\nby chance truth is concealed under the cover of shadows. 1 6 1\nWhen Maier says that the mind of the author or his words are deceptive,\ncould he be referring to the identity of Cremer and the strange story of his life\nrecounted in the introduction to the Testament? There we learn that the author\nhad been led astray by incomprehensible alchemical authors for some thirty\nyears, but during a journey to Italy Divine Providence brought him into the\ncompany of a certain 'Raymund', a man who was as honourable as he was\nerudite:\nI stayed in his company for a long time, and having thus obtained favour in the eyes of this\ngood man, he opened up some part of this great mystery to me. Therefore I made many\nentreaties to him, and so he came with me to this island and remained with me for two years.\nDuring that time I attained the entire work. And afterwards I led this distinguished man into\nthe presence of the most illustrious King Edward, by whom he was welcomed with the\n159\nKind information of Christine Reynolds, Assistant Keeper of Muniments at Westminster\nAbbey.\n160\nBodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1415; Wellcome Institute Library, MS 3557; mention is\nmade of Cremer in Richard Widmore's An History of the Church of St. Peter\nWestminster, commonly called Westminster Abbey. London: J. Fox and C. Tovey, 1751,\np. 174, but his account is drawn from Maier's Tripus Aureus itself. Nevertheless,\nWidmore conjectures that 'Cremer' may not be on the abbey records because that is the\nauthor's family name rather than the name he took upon entering the monastery, which\nwas customarily derived from the monk's town or region of origin.\n161\nMaier, Tripus Aureus, p. 184: \"Aut mens Authoris, vel certe est littera fallax,/ Inde tibi\ncaveas, anguis ubique latet./ Hune ne despicias plano sermone locutum,/ Forte sub\numbroso tegmine vera tegit.\"\n\nPages 119:\n110\nBohemia and England\ndignity he deserved and treated very respectfully; and having secured from the King many\npromises, pacts and conditions, Raymund was content to make the king rich with his Art.\nThe most important conditions were that the king should personally conduct a war against\nthe Turks, the enemies of God, give shelter to the house of the Lord, and least of all make\nconflict with other Christians by arrogance or war. But (O great sorrow!) this promise was\nbroken by the King, and that pious man was afflicted in his soul and spirit, and he fled across\nthe sea in a miserable state... 162\nThese words draw on a tradition that the Catalan theologian and martyr\nRamon (Raymund) Lull (c. 1235-1316) visited England, a story which derives\nfrom the pseudonymous alchemical literature attributed to Lull, as does\nthe erroneous belief that Lull believed in the possibility of the transmutation\nof metals. 163 Indeed, Cremer's work uses as its literary model the Testament\nof pseudo-Lull, which set the fashion for later alchemical wills and testaments such as Basil Valentine's Letztes Testamenti\nAshmole embellishes\nCremer's tale of his dealings with 'Raymund' with a further tradition that\nKing Edward used the riches he gained through Lull's Art to declare war on\nFrance, and imprisoned the pious alchemist in the Tower of London, although\nLull \"made himself a Leaper, by which meanes he gained more liberty.\"165\nStories of patrons financing war by means of the spagyric Art are a standard\nmotif in the alchemical corpus; thus Ashmole mentions elsewhere in his\n162\nIbid., pp. 185-186: \"Et ego huius artis facultatisque veluti sectator studiosus mirandum\nin modum fui retardatus re obscure mihi in multis variisque codicibus explanata, quos\nlegi exercuique suis per spatium triginta annorum instructionibus ad meum magnum\nsumptum, detrimentumque laboris mei. Quantoque magis legi, tanto magis erravi, usque\ndum in Italiam divina Providentia me contulerim, ubi Deo optimo m\u00e1ximo visum fuerit,\nme in sodalitium unius viri non minus dignitate, quam omni genere eruditionis praediti,\nRaymundi nomine destinare, in cuius sodalitate diu remoratus sum, sicque favorem in\nconspectu huius boni viri nactus sim quod ille aliquam partem huius tanti mysterii\naperuerit, propterea ilium multis precibus ita tractavi, quod mecum in hanc insulam\nveniret, mecumque duos annos manserit. In cuius temporis tractu, sum absolutive totum\nopus consecutus. Posteaque hunc virum egregium in conspectu inclitissimi Regis\nEdouardi deduxi, a quo merita dignitate recipitur et omni humanitate tractatur, ibique\nmultis promissis, pactis, conditionibusque a rege inductus, erat contentus Regem\npromissione divina sua arte divitem facere. Hac solummodo conditione, ut rex in propria\npersona adversus Turcas, inimicos Dei, bellum gereret impenderetque super domum\nDomini, minimeque in superbia aut bello gerendo adversus Christianos: sed (proh dolor)\nhoc promissum erat irritum a rege violatumque, tum ille vir pius in spiritibus\npenetralibusque cordis sui afflictus hinc trans mare lamentabili miserabilique more\naufugit...\"\n163\nRoberts, Gareth. The Mirror of Alchemy: Alchemical Ideas and Images in Manuscripts\nand Books from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century. London: The British Library,\n1994, pp. 38-40.\n164\nIbid., p. 40; Valentine, Basil. Letztes Testament und Offenbahrung\nirdischen Gehmeimni\u00df. Jena: Eyring, 1626.\n165\nAshmole, Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, p. 467.\nder Himmlischen\nund\n\nPages 120:\nThe Golden Tripod\n111\nTheatrum Chemicum Britannicum that George Ripley spent some time on the\nIsle of Rhodes, and whilst there produced \u00a3100 000 worth of gold annually\nfor the Knights of the Order of Saint John in order to aid their struggle\nagainst the Muslim Turks. 166\nNevertheless, whilst there is every reason to doubt the authenticity of\nCremer's story and self-professed identity on the basis of his use of such\ntraditional motifs, Maier's historical account in the Symbola Aureae Mensae\nindicates he thought of 'Abbot Cremer' as a true contemporary of Lull who\nreceived the secrets of the Art from that man, and he also specifically refutes\nthose who doubt certain aspects of Lull's reported visit to England. 167 This\nmakes Maier's introductory verse to the Testament all the more puzzling, and\nleads us to wonder exactly what it is about the words of this tract or the mind\nof its author that are deceptive. Like Norton's Ordinal ~ which also draws\nheavily from the works of pseudo-Lull - Cremer's Testament is written in\nsupposedly simple terms, and the author instructs us to ignore any books\nwhich deal with an inordinate number of Decknamen,168 Cremer exposes the\n'true' meaning of certain of these codenames - thus the 'Black Raven' is\noxidised iron ore - although he warns that if any one of his brethren betrays\nthe identity of the central ingredient of the work, 'Red Dragon's Blood', he\nwill have his name erased from the Book of Life. 169 Whether or not the 'true'\nmeanings of certain Decknamen supplied by Cremer were themselves\ncodenames, he ends his Testament with the supplication that succeeding\nabbots, priors and seniors make a copy of his work every sixty years, as the\nwritten letter is liable to change its form in time. 170 As we will see, the\nfinal testament of Maier's life, the Ulysses, shows that he failed to find the\n166\n167\n168\n169\n170\nIbid., p. 458.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 480: \"Hic est ille, qui se Lullium deduxisse in\nAngliam refert, a quo artem obtinuerit;\" the arguments concerning Lull's visit to\nEngland are given on pp. 417 ff.\nMaier, Tripus Aureus, pp. 185, 195.\nIbid., p. 195: \"Item iubeo, ut hoc quod vobis revelavi, quod est sanguis draconis rubri, ne\ncuiquam indicetis, quid id est, nec quantitatem, nec quando in opus nostrum immittatur,\n\u00f1eque tempus, neque manifestabitis ulli hominum praeterquam ipsis personis solis supra\nconstitutis: ...quicunque hoc meum mandatum non observaverit, eius nomen e libro vitae\nabradatur.\" He also bids his fellow monks not to make use of his Art unless the abbey\nfaces penury or ruin, an 'impossible' circumstance given the treasure he has already\nbequeathed it: ibid., p. 194.\nIbid., pp. 194-195: \"...mandatum vobis do, quod vos, qui in supremo dignitatis gradu in\nhac domo estis collocati, videlicet Abbas, Prior, gravissimique seniores, ut aliquis\nvestrum renovet hoc meum opus, exercitiumque rescriptione quotiescunque numerus\nsexaginta annorum finiatur; Nam illud hoc meum opus conservabit ut quam rectissime\npossit intelligi: Et quoniam ratio scribendi literas per caracteres varientur, rescriptio de\nintegro est via tutissima conservandi opens nostri, ut integrum et inviolatum successoribus nostris relinquatur.\"\n\nPages 121:\n112\nBohemia and England\ntruth concealed in the shadowy words of Cremer and Norton, and whatever\nknowledge may once have been held by his English forerunners, something\nwas lost in the translation.\n\nPages 122:\nIV. The Rosicrucian 'imposture'\n1. Illness and a chance encounter\nMaier returned to Germany in the summer of 1616, as we may gather from\nthe preface to the Jo cus Severus written in Frankfurt am Main in September\nof that year. He had initially planned to journey once more to Prague, but due\nto a grave and chronic illness he was waylaid in Frankfurt and could travel no\nfurther. In a letter of supplication to Johann Hartmann Beyer (the dedicatee of\nhis Tripus Aureus) he identifies this illness as the quartan, the fever of the\nmelancholic, and speaks of the adversities he has faced living in foreign\nclimes whilst suffering \"in body and soul.\"1 Beyer (1563-1625) was not\nonly the Stadtarzt of Frankfurt, but also an important publisher of medical\ntracts, and the term of address utilised by Maier in the course of his letter\n(\"your Excellency\") is an indication of the importance of Beyer's position.2\nNevertheless, despite Maier's best efforts to secure his patronage, there is no\nrecord of any response from Beyer to either the letter or the sample tracts that\naccompanied it. Furthermore, the fact of Maier's illness (which appears\neventually to have led to his demise) must have lent a very personal urgency\nto his alchemical quest; for Maier's search for the temperance-imparting\nUniversal Medicine was motivated not only by the necessity of securing an\nincome, but also by an increasingly desperate desire to correct the imbalance\nof humours within his own body. That prolonged exposure to toxic chemicals\nFrankfurt am Main, Stadt- und Universit\u00e4tsbibliothek, MS Ff. J. H. Beyer \u0391. 161, p. 207\nverso: \"Non aut em satis fuit: plurimos hie morosos expertum fuisse ab initio, sed\npraeterea morbus gravissimus et Chronicus, Quartana, invasit, et integrum annum me\nexercuisse: Durum sane extitit tot mala alienis in omnis peregrino, incognito, adeo\nafflicto animo et corpore experiri, alias nec satis a fortuna instructo. Quid facerem? Licet\niter meum Pragam institueram, hucusque tamen hie praepeditus manere coactus fui.\nInterea ad Studia mihi recursus, etiamsi vix unum aut alterum penes me librum\nhabuerim, nec amicum ullum ex literatis, a quo mutuo authores paucos acciperim.\" The\nletter is dated October 20, 1617.\nBeyer was a student of Girolam Fabrici (c.1533-1619), professor of anatomy at the\nUniversity of Padua; he was also the inventor of a popular 'Frankfurter Pille', made\nfrom aloe and gentian for the relief of indigestion. Beyer is not to be confused with\nMaier's acquaintance Johannes Hartmann (1568-1631), professor of chemical medicine\nat Marburg.\n\nPages 123:\n114\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nin the laboratory may well have been the very source of the illness he sought\nto cure is an ironic circumstance.\nMore will be said of Maier's downfall in due course; for now it suffices to\nnote that the changes to his travel itinerary occasioned by his illness were to\nprove fateful for the history of Rosicrucianism. The home of a renowned six\nmonthly book fair, Frankfurt am Main was also a major publishing centre,\nand Maier now lived in close proximity to the publishers Johann Theodor de\nBry and Lucas Jennis, who printed the majority of his publications in the\nfollowing nine years. Whilst visiting the autumnal book fair of 1616 Maier\nfirst became embroiled in the Rosicrucian affair; according to his account\nin the Symbola Aureae Mensae, he had heard rumours during his stay in\nEngland concerning the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, but at that time he was\noccupied solely with the subject of chemia3 and considered the matter to be\n\"obscure and unbelievable gossip.\" As it had been said that these Brethren\nwere bringing an occult wisdom to Europe via Spain, he had associated them\nwith contemporaneous reports of a certain prophet or 'magician king' named\n'Abdela' who had conquered the kingdom of Morocco with the help of occult\npowers, and he gave the matter no further attention.4 Nevertheless, during\nthe book fair by \"fortunate chance\" he came upon the true source of the\nwidespread rumours concerning the Brethren, the anonymous Rosicrucian\nmanifestos. Having read these tracts his opinion was radically altered, and he\nheld it to be a \"great and almost unbelievable matter\" that had been set in\nmotion by these strange Brethren; and if by \"practice itself' the programme\nof the manifestos might lead to results, he deemed it worthy of being extolled\nand promoted with every effort. 5 In accordance with this declaration, during\nAs Maier utilises the terms chymia and chemia interchangeably, I have chosen to utilise\neither the Latin chemia or the English 'alchemy' (for reasons elaborated upon in our\nconclusion) in relation to his work.\nThe tale of the 'magician king' that Maier had heard is related in a contemporary work,\nA True Historicall Discourse of Muley Hamets rising to the three Kingdomes of\nMoruecos, Fes and Sus: the dis-union of the three Kingdomes, by civili warre, kindled\namongst his three ambitious Sonnes, Muley Sheck, Muley Boferes, and Muley Sidan.\nLondon: Thomas Purfoot, 1609. In the fifteenth chapter of this tract it is said that in 1608\na certain 'Abdela' had defeated his more powerful brother 'Muley Sidan' in a battle,\nduring which a contingent of 200 English mercenaries with 60 cannons refused to retreat\nand was routed - the reason, no doubt, for the currency of the rumours Maier heard in\nEngland. The role played by occult powers in the conflict seems to have been confused\nin these rumours, as it was Sidan who eventually wrested control of Morocco back from\nhis brother Abdela some five months after his defeat through the good advice of his\nsoothsayers (see chapter 17 of the True Historicall\nDiscourse).\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 290: \"[Fama de Fr. R. C. ad exteros transiti.] FAMA\nILLA dictae FRATERNITATIS, quae hie in plurimorum auribus oreque iampridem\nperstrepuit, adque exteras oras circum circa vagata latissimas regiones pervolavit, mihi\nquoque tum in Anglia agenti, reique Chymicae unice invigilanti, obscuris quibusdam\n\nPages 124:\nIllness and a chance encounter\n115\nthe two years that followed the chance encounter at the Frankfurt Book Fair\nMaier dedicated a number of tracts to the defence of the programme set out in\nthe manifestos, and to the defence of a Brotherhood that remained as elusive\nas the goals it preached.\nOn account of his leading role as apologist for this shadowy Order, in time\nMaier came to be known as a man who squandered his talents not only on the\nimpossible claims of alchemy, but also on the Rosicrucian 'imposture', as\nNewton would put it when reviewing the manifestos and Maier's defence of\nthem. 6 By the eighteenth century the 'Fraternity of the Rosy Cross' that had\ninspired the hopes and fears of early seventeenth century Europe was widely\ncondemned alongside alchemy as a malicious fraud, and Maier was depicted\nas its chief victim, as the Biographie Universelle makes clear:\nIt is difficult to know if the society of the Brothers of the Rosy Cross existed elsewhere than\nin the imagination of some scoundrels, who used it as a means of extorting money from\noverly credulous people. The Brothers were believed to possess the power to change metals\ninto gold, or to retain their health over many centuries, and to transport themselves with the\nrapidity of thought through all the lands of the world. This society commenced with a great\ndeal of noise in Germany at the beginning of the seventeenth century; and Michael Maier\nwas certainly one of its initiates, or rather one of its dupes, since he had the inclination to\nwrite up their laws and customs, and took up their defence in his works. 7\nrumusculis, incredibilibus, ipsaque veritate longe maioribus insonuit, cui fidem, pro\nreferentis fide, dubiam prima vice adhibui: [A. C. 1613 Barbaria propheticus aut certe\nmagicus rex multa admiranda fecit.] Eodem tempore ex Barbaria innovationes quaedam\nmirabiles ore referebantur, quomodo prope Marocum et Fessam quidam propheta ex\nsapientum numero surrexerit, nomine Mullei Om Hamet Ben Abdela, qui plurima\nocculta signa in se demonstrans, Regem istius regionis, Mullei Sidan, satis magno\nexercitu instructum, pene inermis, exigua manu aggressus profligavit et vicit, regnique\nsedem obtinuit. [Prima relatio incerto] Cum vero et hi fratres fama inconstanti ex\nBarbaria venisse per Hispaniam dicerentur, eiusdem artis et institutionis hi et ille\nBarbaricus propheta, existimati sunt: [Francf. nundi autumnal: A. 1616] Sed libro ipso\nde fama et confessione eorum edito, forte fortuna perlustrato, longe aliter de illis ferre\njudicium informatus sum. Magna sane res est, quae ab illis agitatur, et pene incredibilis;\nquam si eventus expresserit, usuque ipso verissimam declaraverit, habebimus satis per\nvitam, quod miremur, collaudemus et omnibus conatibus promoveamus.\"\nMacguire, W. et. al. (eds.) Alchemy and the Occult: A Catalogue of Books and\nManuscripts from the Collection of Paul and Mary Mellon given to Yale University\nLibrary. Vol. 2. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968, pp. 348-9.\nBiographie Universelle, Vol. 26, p. 232: \"C'est encore un probl\u00e8me de savoir si la\nsoci\u00e9t\u00e9 des fr\u00e8res de la Rose-Croix a exist\u00e9 ailleurs que dans l'imagination de quelques\nfourbes, qui en firent un moyen d'extorquer de l'argent \u00e0 des personnes trop cr\u00e9dules.\nOn leur attribuait le pouvoir de changer les m\u00e9taux en or, de se conserver pleins de sant\u00e9\npendant plusieurs si\u00e8cles, et de se transporter avec la rapidit\u00e9 de la pens\u00e9e dans tous les\npays de la terre. Cette soci\u00e9t\u00e9 commen\u00e7a \u00e0 faire du bruit en Allemagne au\ncommencement du 17e si\u00e8cle; et Ma\u00efer fut certainement un des initi\u00e9s ou plut\u00f4t une des\ndupes, puisqu'il a eu la bonhomie de r\u00e9diger leurs lois, leurs coutumes, et qu'il a pris\nleur d\u00e9fense dans un de ses ouvrages.\"\n\nPages 125:\n116\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nThe following chapter will seek to answer one central question concerning\nMaier's relation to early Rosicrucianism - was he the perpetrator or the\nvictim of an 'imposture', if indeed the manifestos and their programme can\nbe referred to as such? Before considering the evidence of Maier's Rosicrucian writings, some remarks are in order concerning the nature of the\nRosicrucian affair that gripped Europe at this time.\n2. The origins of Rosicrucianism and the Leipzig Manuscript of\nMichael Maier\nIf truth is indeed known by error, as the alchemists have asserted, then we\nmay justly utilise the enigmatic 'Rosicrucian manuscript' of Michael Maier\nas a means of introducing and defining the Rosicrucian phenomenon with\nwhich he was involved. For the literature - both academic and esoteric concerning the history of Rosicrucianism is so replete with fabrications,\nintentional and otherwise, that one begins to suspect such deceptions and\nfantasies form something of the essence of the Rosicrucian phenomenon from\nits inception to the present day.\nThat inception was declared across Europe by the publication of the\naforesaid anonymous manifestos, the Fama Fraternitatis ('Fame of the\nFraternity,' 1614) and the Confessio Fraternitatis ('Confession of the\nFraternity,' 1615).8 The former was circulating in manuscript form in the\ncities of Kassel and Marburg, centres of intellectual activity within the\nHessian state of Moritz the Learned, from at least July of 1611.9 It purported\nto describe the opening of the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz, the founder of\nan Order of pious scientist-monks dedicated to the reformation of theology\nand the sciences; and the discovery of this tomb, and of the books secreted\ntherein, was said to herald the dawn of a new era of the knowledge of\nGod and Nature, in which the proto-sciences of the Golden Age, Alchemia,\nCabala and Magia, would be restored:\nSeeing as the only wise and merciful God has lately poured out his mercy and goodness so\nrichly to the human race, so that the knowledge of his Son as also that of Nature is\ncontinually broadened, we may justly exalt a happy time; because He has allowed us not\nAlthough the Fama Fraternitatis states the manifestos would be propagated in five\nlanguages throughout Europe, only German, Latin and Dutch editions are known to us\nfrom this early period; an English translation appeared in 1652 under the auspices of\nEugenius Philalethes (Thomas Vaughan): The Fame and Confession of the Fraternity of\nR: C:, commonly, of the Rosie Cross. With a Praeface annexed thereto, and a short\nDeclaration of their PhysicalI Work. London: Giles Calvert, 1652.\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 70; Kooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, p. 41.\n\nPages 126:\nThe origins of Rosicrucianism\n117\nonly to discover almost a half part of the unknown and hidden world, and has shown to us\nmany wonderful works and creatures of Nature hitherto never seen, but also He has raised up\nhighly enlightened men of wisdom, who might partly restore the polluted and imperfect arts,\nin order that Man might finally understand his nobility and splendour, the nature of the\nMicrocosm, and how far his art extends into Nature. 1 0\nThe Confessio Fraternitatis states that Christian Rosenkreutz (or 'Father C.\nR.') was born in 1378 (the commencement of the Great Schism between the\npopes), and that he lived 106 years (i.e. until shortly after the birth of Martin\nLuther in late 1483), whilst in the Fama Fraternitatis it is said that his\ntomb was to remain undisturbed for 120 years; which references, considered\ntogether, give the date of the opening of the tomb as 1604, the year in\nwhich a 'new star' appeared in the constellation of Serpens.11 The markedly\nchiliastic Confessio Fraternitatis interprets this astronomical event, in tandem with the appearance of a 'new star' in Cygnus in 1600, as a sign and\ntestament to the will of God concerning the coming Reformation of science\nand religion. 12 Thus, just as the door to the tomb of Father C. R. has been\nmiraculously opened, so soon \"a door will open for Europe,\" as many\nanticipate with great yearning.13 The Fama Fraternitatis goes on to relate that\nwithin the tomb the discoverers found the body of Christian Rosenkreutz,\n\"venerable and undecayed\" - evidence of the miraculous properties of his\nlife-prolonging medicine, which, according to the foreword to the reader\n10\nKooij and Gilly, ibid., p. 72: \"Nachdem der allein weyse und gn\u00e4dige Gott in den letzten\nTagen sein Gnad und G\u00fcte so reichlich \u00fcber das Menschliche Geschlecht au\u00dfgossen, da\u00df\nsich die Erkantnu\u00df, beydes seines Sohns und der Natur, je mehr und mehr erweitert, und\nwir uns billich einer gl\u00fcckseligen Zeit r\u00fchmen m\u00f6gen, daher Er dann nicht allein fast das\nhalbe theil der unbekandten und verborgenen Welt erfunden, viel wunderliche und zuvor\nnie geschehene Werck und Gesch\u00f6pff der Natur uns zuf\u00fchren, und dann hocherleuchte\nIngenia auffstehen lassen, die zum theil die verunreinigte unvollkommene Kunst wieder\nzu recht br\u00e4chten, damit doch endlich der Mensch seinen Adel und Herrlichkeit\nverst\u00fcnde, welcher gestalt der Microcosmus, und wie weit sich sein Kunst in der Natur\nerstrecket.\"\n11\nIbid., p. 89; Yates, Rosicrucian Enlightenment, pp. 255-256; in his De Stella Nova in\nPede Serpentarii Johannes Kepler describes the star (a supernova known today as\nSN 1604) observed by his assistant on the 27 th of September, 1604 of the old calendar as\nmulti-coloured and flickering with astonishing rapidity, which gave it the appearance of\na multi-sided adamantine in sunlight. See Kepler, Johannes. De Stella Nova in Pede\nSerpentarii. Prague: Pauli Sessii, 1606, pp. 1-6; the 'new star' in Cygnus (known today\nas \u03a1 Cygni) also mentioned by the Confessio Fraternitatis was discovered on August the\n8 th , 1600 by a Dutch astronomer, Willem Blauew - contrary to Yates and other writers\non the subject, who speak of the two supernovas appearing in the same year. Kepler's\nstar was visible to the naked eye for 18 months, the supernova in Cygnus for a number of\nyears; neither were as bright as the famous supernova of 1572 analysed by Tycho Brahe.\n12\nPeuckert attributes astrological significance to the date of birth of Christian Rosenkreutz;\nPeuckert, Will-Erich. Pansophie. Vol. 3. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1973, p. 74.\nKooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, p. 88.\n13\n\nPages 127:\n118\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nappended by Thomas Vaughan to the first English edition, takes away all\ndisease, fear, distress and troubles of the soul, just as it transmutes imperfect\nmetals into the finest gold.14 Clasped within Father C. R.'s hands was the\n'Book I.', the most treasured of the Fraternity's texts after the Bible, in which\nis depicted \"a microcosm corresponding in all motions to the macrocosm\" the intellectual fruits of the Father's pilgrimage to Arabia and Africa, where\nhe studied under the wise men of the city of Damcar and the \"elemental\ninhabitants\" of Fez.15\nFor all their mythic dimensions, the Rosicrucian manifestos presented to\nMaier and like-minded Protestants a comprehensive and provocative intellectual agenda, giving expression to a Paracelsian-inspired Hermeticism and\na heterodox, humanist Lutheranism with strong millennialist overtones.\nNevertheless, they were advertised in the catalogues of the Leipzig and\nFrankfurt book fairs as \"Teutsche Theologische B\u00fccher der Calvinisten,\" 16 a\nclassification followed by the chief English Rosicrucian apologist, Robert\nFludd. 17 This classification reflects the fact that the first printing of the Fama\nFraternitatis was made at Kassel with the express consent of Moritz of\nHessen-Kassel; 18 despite being far removed from Calvinist theological\ncurrents, Rosicrucianism was nurtured above all by Calvinist Germany, that\nunlikely inheritor of the Renaissance Hermetic tradition, which provided a\nsafe haven for modes of thought inimical to the Counter-Reformation.\nAccording to their own testimony, the manifestos were distributed anonymously because the Brethren of the Rosy Cross - their purported authors faced persecution at the hands of the Jesuits. Thus the Confessio Fraternitatis\nstates that, just as the Brethren now openly name the Pope 'Antichrist', so the\nday will come when they will be able to reveal their true identities to the\nworld. 19 Even if these Brethren did not exist beyond the virtuality of the\n14\n15\n17\n18\n19\nIbid., p. 93; Vaughan, Fame and Confession, p. 42.\n\"Elementarischen Inwohnern;\" the 1617 printed edition of the Fama Fraternitatis gives\nthe word \"Elementaristen;\" in MS Nagel they are described with the Latin Elementarii;\nKooij and Gilly suggest the earth-spirits of Paracelsus may be denoted here; Kooij and\nGilly, Fama Fraternitatis, pp. 76, 104 n. 35.\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 41.\nSee Westman, Robert S. \"Nature, Art and Psyche: Jung, Pauli and the Kepler-Fludd\nPolemic.\" In Vickers, Brian (ed.). Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance.\nCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 179.\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 70.\nFama Fraternitatis, oder Entdeckung der Bruderschafft de\u00df l\u00f6blichen Ordens de\u00df Rosen\nCreutzes/ Beneben der Confession Oder Bekantnu\u00df derselben Fraternitet/ an alle\nGelehrte und H\u00e4upter in Europa geschrieben. Kassel: n.p., 1616, pp. 37-38: \"Gleich wie\nwir aber jetzunder gantz sicher/ frey und ohne einige gefahr den bapst zu Rom/ den\nAntichrist nennen/... Also wissen wir gewi\u00df/ es werde noch einmal die zeit kommen/ da\nwir da\u00df jenige/ so jetzunder noch ingeheim gehalten wirdt/ frey \u00f6ffentlich/ mit heller\nStimme au\u00dfruffen/ und vor jederman bekennen werden/...\"\n\nPages 128:\nThe origins of Rosicrucianism\n119\nmythic manifestos and the literary storm they provoked (a question we shall\nsoon explore in detail), the danger posed to sympathisers of the Rosicrucian\nprogramme was very tangible - a fact demonstrated by the fate of Adam\nHaslmayr, a Catholic Paracelsian from the Tyrol and a distributor of the\nmanuscript Fama Fraternitatis from 1610, whose outspoken advocacy of the\nFraternity earned him four and a half years in irons on a galley.20\nThe virulent anti-Catholicism of the manifestos went hand-in-hand with\ntheir scientific predilections, as those Scholastics who follow \"Popery, Galen\nand Aristotle\" are condemned for imagining an \"old manuscript\" would\nbe equivalent to the \"bright, manifest light\" of truth.21 Whilst orthodox\ntheologians of all confessions insisted on the separation of things divine and\nhuman in the sciences, the Fama Fraternitatis gave expression to the\npansophist dream of encapsulating the whole of human knowledge within\none overarching schema - a dream epitomised by the words, \"it shall not be\nsaid, this is true according to philosophy, but false according to theology.\"\nThe manifestos promoted a humanist resurrection of classical philosophy and\nupheld its agreement with the teachings of Scripture - together the pagan\nphilosophers and the wisdom of the Bible \"form a sphere or globe, whose\nparts are all removed from the centre by the same distance, which fact should\nbe dealt with further and more elaborately in Christian discourse.\" 22 As\nSchick notes, such pansophic sentiments deflected charges of heresy from\nwithin the Protestant camp by promising the consummation rather than the\ndethroning of Christianity; in this sense the Rosicrucian manifestos follow in\nthe syncretic tradition firmly established in Europe by the humanists of the\nItalian Renaissance. 23\nBut what of the identity of these shadowy Protestant Brethren and their\nfounder? One of the most astute esoteric writers on the subject of Rosicrucianism, Arthur Waite, enumerated three different approaches to reading the\nmanifestos: firstly, to regard the story of Christian Rosenkreutz and his\nfounding of the Rosicrucian Fraternity as historically true; secondly, to\nconsider both the society and its founder as purely mythical; and thirdly, to\naccept the existence of the Rosicrucian Fraternity as a secret society without\n20\n21\n22\n23\nGilly, Carlos. Adam Haslmayr: Der Erste Verk\u00fcnder der Manifeste der Rosenkreuzer.\nStuttgart: Frommann, 1994, pp. 152-162.\nKooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, p. 72.\nIbid., p. 98: \"So soll es nicht heissen: Hoc per Philosophiam verum est, sed per\nTheologiam falsum, sondern worinnen es Plato, Aristoteles, Pytagoras, und andere\ngetroffen/ wo Enoch/ Abraham/ Moses/ Salomon den Au\u00dfschlag geben/ besonders wo\nda\u00df grosse Wunderbuch die Biblia concordiret, da\u00df kommet zusammen/ und wird eine\nsphaera oder globus, dessen omnes partes gleiche weit vom Centro stehen/ wie hiervon\nin Christlicher Collation weiter und au\u00dfflihrlich.\"\nSchick, Das Altere Rosenkreuzertum,\np. 76.\n\nPages 129:\n120\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\naccepting the historical existence of its supposed founder. 24 We shall soon\nfind Waite's categories wanting; for now it is enough to note that a plethora\nof traditions have grown up over the centuries amongst those who have\ndevoted their time to uncovering a true secret society lying behind the\nmanifestos. There is no room here to deal with the perennial Rosicrucian Knights Templar legend, or the myriad other fantasies stretching from\nAkhenaton's Egypt to the kings of medieval Cambodia. But one of the more\npervasive (and persuasive) of these traditions, circulating in academic and\nesoteric circles alike, purports to derive from a manuscript of Michael Maier\nresiding at the University of Leipzig, in which Maier is alleged to state that\nthe Fraternity of his time was formed in 1570 by followers of Heinrich\nCornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (d.1535), the renowned German natural\nmagician and alchemist whose black dog inspired the appearance of\nMephistopheles as a poodle in Goethe's Faust.\nAlthough he did not investigate the matter himself, Roland Edighoffer first\ncast the existence of this \"Rosicrucian manuscript\" into some doubt in his\nRose-Croix et Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Ideale selon Johann Valentin Andreae (1982), in which\nhe points to the insubstantial basis of Montgomery's theory of sixteenth\ncentury Rosicrucian origins.25 In his Cross and Crucible: Johann Valentin\nAndreae (1586-1654), Ph\u0153nix of the Theologians (1973), John Warwick\nMontgomery (formerly of the Facult\u00e9 de Th\u00e9ologie Protestante at the\nUniversity of Strasbourg) had spoken of 'the claim of the Lutheran alchemist\nand Rosicrucian Michael Maier that the Rose Cross originated ca. 1570\nthrough conventicles reflecting the influence of the occultist Heinrich\nCornelius Agrippa' ,26 Although Montgomery tells us that he has not verified\nthe manuscript from which this data originates, the idea that Maier ever made\nsuch a claim is never brought into question in his work. As Edighoffer\ncorrectly states, we may be more sure of Maier's opinion on the matter when\nconsulting his Silentium post Clamores (1617), in which he defends the\nexistence of the Fraternity on the grounds that similar secret societies have\nexisted in the past amongst the wise men of many nations, including the\nDruids of Britain, the Brahmans of India and the priests of Egypt. 27 We shall\nreturn to this verifiable testimony of Maier's at a later point; for now, it\nmay be insightful to follow the long and convoluted journey of the 'Rosi-\n24\nWaite, A. E. The Real History of the Rosicrucians, founded on their own manifestos, and\non facts and documents collected from the writings of initiated brethren. New York: J.\nW. Bouton, 1888, pp. 217-218.\n25\nEdighoffer, Roland. Rose-Croix et Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Ideale selon Johann Valentin Andreae. Paris:\nArma Artis, 1982, Vol. 1, pp. 222-223; Vol. 2, pp. 591-592 n. 192.\nMontgomery, John Warwick. Cross and Crucible: Johann Valentin Andreae (15861654), Phoenix of the Theologians. Vol. 1. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973, p. 210.\n26\n27\nEdighoffer, Rose-Croix et Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Ideale, pp. 591-592 \u03b7. 192.\n\nPages 130:\nThe origins of Rosicrucianism\n121\ncrucian' Leipzig manuscript myth through the centuries, as an illustration of\nthe Rosicrucian enigma that continues to lead both diligent and credulous\nresearchers astray.\nMontgomery's misleading passage is derived from an article entitled\n\"Historique du Mouvement Rosicrucien\" in a French Rosicrucian journal of\n1927, Le Voile d'Isis ('The Veil of Isis'). 28 There the author, a certain Joanny\nBricaud, speaks of the \"community of mages\" organised in France at the\nbeginning of the sixteenth century by Agrippa von Nettesheim. The\ndocumentary evidence for the existence of this community is slight; but we\nshall continue with the story as it stands. Bricaud goes on to state that, upon\narriving in London in 1510, Agrippa founded a secret society similar to that\nwhich he had organised in France; the members of this society adopted secret\nsigns of reconnaissance (presumably \u00e0 la Freemasonry) and thereafter\nfounded corresponding 'chapters' of their society throughout Europe devoted\nto the study of the occult arts. And - according to the 'Rosicrucian' Leipzig\nmanuscript of Michael Maier - it was this society of Agrippa's that gave rise\nto the Brethren of the Gold and Rosy Cross around the year 1570:\nSi l'on en croit un manuscrit de Michel Ma\u00efer conserv\u00e9 dans la biblioth\u00e8que de Leipzig, c'est\ncette communaut\u00e9 qui aurait donn\u00e9 naissance en Allemagne, vers 1570, aux Fr\u00e8res de la\nRose-Croix d'Or 29\nWere it to exist, there can be no doubting the significance of such a\nmanuscript of Maier's, as it might provide good reason to push the origins\nof the Fraternity - as a true secret society rather than a virtual, literary entity\n- beyond its academically accepted genesis in the imagination of the authors\nof the Fama Fraternitatis and Confessio Fraternitatis in the early seventeenth century. The myth of the 'Rosicrucian' Leipzig manuscript has been\nvariously put to work by writers in support of this agenda. Thus Akerman\nspeaks of Maier's manuscript as evidence for the emergence of the Goldund Rosenkreutz as a \"two-tiered Hermetic society\" embroiled in sixteenth\ncentury French inter-confessional disputes.30 Likewise, the 'Rosicrucian'\nLeipzig manuscript myth has taken root in Freemasonic lore - in his Les\nOrigines de la Franc-Ma\u00e7onnerie: Le M\u00e9tier et le Sacr\u00e9 (1991) Naudon\nquotes Bricaud verbatim as proof of the anteriority of Rosicrucianism (as a\nforerunner of Freemasonry) to the Rosicrucian manifestos. 31\n28\nBricaud, Joanny. \"Historique du Mouvement Rosicrucien,\" Le Voile d'Isis, Vol. 91 July\n1927, pp. 559-574.\n29\nIbid., p. 561.\n\u00c2kerman, Rose Cross over the Baltic, p. 181.\nNaudon, Les Origines de la Franc-Ma\u00e7onnerie,\npp. 269-270: \"...Une autre soci\u00e9t\u00e9\nimportante dont l'action sur la Ma\u00e7onnerie, du moins indirectement, est probable, est la\n30\n31\n\nPages 131:\n122\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nMore plausibly, the existence of such a manuscript might also point to\na tradition concerning Rosicrucian origins stemming from the early seventeenth century and adhered to by Maier. As related in our third chapter, there\nis indeed a manuscript of Michael Maier's residing at the library of the\nUniversity of Leipzig, entitled De Theosophia Aegyptiorum?2 Nevertheless, a\nthorough perusal of this tract does not reveal the slightest mention of the\nRosy Cross, let alone Cornelius Agrippa and his supposed contribution to the\nfoundation of the Order. Nor should such mention be expected, as it would be\nunusual for Maier to affiliate himself with an Order inspired by a man who\nwas - in Maier's own opinion - an impoverished and fumbling failure in the\nalchemical Art.33 Furthermore, we have seen that the De Theosophia Aegyptiorum is in fact a rough draft for Maier's Arcana Arcanissima (1614), and\nalthough Maier was distantly acquainted with the contents of the manuscript\nmanifestos prior to their publication in print, it was only in 1616 that he\nbegan to consider the subject worthy of his attention. There is no other\nmanuscript of Maier's to be found at the University of Leipzig; and whilst\nAkerman adduces that no manuscript confirming the sixteenth century Goldund Rosenkreutz hypothesis has been found in Leipzig because \"no effort has\nbeen made to locate it,\" my own examination of other library catalogues in\nLeipzig also revealed no trace of a manuscript by Maier.\nThis absence is hardly surprising, given that at least one element of this\ncurious Rosicrucian tale is derived from the Reverend Craven's work on\nCount Michael Maier. Writing in 1910, Craven discounts the mention of\nMaier's Rosicrucian 'Leiden manuscript' made by John Yarker in his Arcane\nSchools (1909) as a mistake; having consulted the librarian of the University\nof Leiden, Craven was assured that there was no such manuscript residing in\nCommunaut\u00e9 des Mages. Elle fut fond\u00e9e en 1510 par Henri-Corneille Agrippa, lorsqu'il\narriva \u00e0 Londres, sur le mod\u00e8le de celle qu'il avait d\u00e9j\u00e0 cr\u00e9\u00e9e en France. La Communaut\u00e9\ndes Mages \u00e9tait une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 secr\u00e8te groupant les ma\u00eetres de l'alchimie et de la magie. Les\nmembres usaient de signes particuliers de reconnaissance, de \"mots de passe.\" Ils\nfond\u00e8rent alors, dans divers autres Etats de l'Europe, des associations correspondantes,\nd\u00e9nomm\u00e9es Chapelies, pour l'\u00e9tude des sciences \"interdites.\" Si nous en croyons un\nmanuscrit de Michel Maler (1568-1622), conserv\u00e9 \u00e0 la biblioth\u00e8que de Leipzig, ce serait\ncette Communaut\u00e9 des Mages qui aurait donn\u00e9 naissance, en Allemagne, vers 1570, aux\nFr\u00e8res de la Rose-Croix d'or, ant\u00e9rieurs par cons\u00e9quent a la Fama Fraternitatis de\nValentin Andr\u00e9a.\" Needless to say, my consultations with French Freemasons and\nRosicrucians concerning this passage failed to reveal any further details with respect to\nthe whereabouts and nature of this mysterious manuscript.\n32\n33\nSee above, pp. 78 ff.\nSee, for example, Maier, Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum,\np. 41: \"Cornelius\nAgrippa testatur alicubi, se potuisse ex auro hunc subtilem spiritum extrahere: Interim\nqualis vir hic fuerit, ex eius epistolis apparet, nempe egestate obrutus et obaeratus, cui\nhoc artificium, si id sciverit, nihil profuerit;\" also Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 1;\nde Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, pp. 62-63.\n\nPages 132:\nThe origins of Rosicrucianism\n123\nLeiden, and that Yarker had confused 'Leiden' with 'Leipzig'. Evidently the\nLeiden librarian was aware of the existence of a manuscript of Mai er's\nat Leipzig, whilst not being aware of its contents.34 Craven believed the\ndocument at Leipzig was the only manuscript of Maier's to have \"survived\nthe destruction of Magdeburg;\" thus the 'Leiden manuscript' became the\n'Leipzig manuscript', and this may ultimately be the reason why it appears as\nsuch in Bricaud's article - the Leiden librarian's deduction being transmitted\nto later authors first by Craven and then by Waite.\nYarker's account of a 'Leiden manuscript' in his Arcane Schools35 which Waite correctly identifies as a \"tissue of inextricable reveries,\"\nalthough he follows Craven in referring to an extant 'Leipsic manuscript'\nwith references to the Rose Cross and Agrippa 36 - is based upon the\ntestimony of Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhoffen in his work of 1782,\nDer Rosenkreuzer in seiner Blosse (The Rosicrucian in his Nakedness).31\nThere the author, writing under the name of 'Magister Pianco', makes a\ndisgruntled expos\u00e9 of the secrets of the \"so-called True Freemasons, or\nGolden Rosicrucians of the Old System,\" an attack aimed in particular at\n\"Brother Phoebron, General Director of the Supreme Order of the\nRosicrucians in Germany\" (i.e. Bernhard Joseph Schlei\u00df von L\u00f6wenfeld). As\nwe have seen in our introduction, the Gold- und Rosenkreutz to which he\nrefers was a Freemasonic offshoot, combining Masonic initiatory grades with\nalchemical lore and practice. Having been expelled from this group a year\nprior to his book's publication, and having founded his own rival grouping\nknown as the 'Asiatic Brethren', von Ecker und Eckhoffen attempts to\np\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 114 to page 132 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 132 to page 149 out of a total of 334:\nPages 132:\nThe origins of Rosicrucianism\n123\nLeiden, and that Yarker had confused 'Leiden' with 'Leipzig'. Evidently the\nLeiden librarian was aware of the existence of a manuscript of Mai er's\nat Leipzig, whilst not being aware of its contents.34 Craven believed the\ndocument at Leipzig was the only manuscript of Maier's to have \"survived\nthe destruction of Magdeburg;\" thus the 'Leiden manuscript' became the\n'Leipzig manuscript', and this may ultimately be the reason why it appears as\nsuch in Bricaud's article - the Leiden librarian's deduction being transmitted\nto later authors first by Craven and then by Waite.\nYarker's account of a 'Leiden manuscript' in his Arcane Schools35 which Waite correctly identifies as a \"tissue of inextricable reveries,\"\nalthough he follows Craven in referring to an extant 'Leipsic manuscript'\nwith references to the Rose Cross and Agrippa 36 - is based upon the\ntestimony of Hans Heinrich von Ecker und Eckhoffen in his work of 1782,\nDer Rosenkreuzer in seiner Blosse (The Rosicrucian in his Nakedness).31\nThere the author, writing under the name of 'Magister Pianco', makes a\ndisgruntled expos\u00e9 of the secrets of the \"so-called True Freemasons, or\nGolden Rosicrucians of the Old System,\" an attack aimed in particular at\n\"Brother Phoebron, General Director of the Supreme Order of the\nRosicrucians in Germany\" (i.e. Bernhard Joseph Schlei\u00df von L\u00f6wenfeld). As\nwe have seen in our introduction, the Gold- und Rosenkreutz to which he\nrefers was a Freemasonic offshoot, combining Masonic initiatory grades with\nalchemical lore and practice. Having been expelled from this group a year\nprior to his book's publication, and having founded his own rival grouping\nknown as the 'Asiatic Brethren', von Ecker und Eckhoffen attempts to\nportray the 'Golden Rosicrucians' as puppets of the Jesuits. In the course of\nhis polemic he refers to the manuscript of Michael Maier of Rensburg, \"one\nof the most notorious of the Rosicrucians,\" to be found at the library of the\n34\n35\n36\n37\nCraven, Count Michael Maier, pp. 4-5.\nYarker, John. The Arcane Schools; a Review of their Origin and Antiquity; with a\nGeneral History of Freemasonry, and its Relation to the Theosophic, Scientific, and\nPhilosophic Mysteries. Belfast: William Tait, 1909, p. 212: \"There exists in the library\nof the University of Leyden a MS. by Michael Maier which sets forth that in 1570 the\nSociety of the old Magical brethren or Wise Men was revived under the name of the\nBrethren of the Golden Rosy Cross.\" Amongst other curious 'facts' included in Yarker's\naccount are the ascription of a pre-Reformation date to the Fama Fraternitatis and the\nassertion that Maier \"published the de Vita Morte et Resurectione of his friend Robert\nFludd.\"\nWaite, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, p. 330.\nEcker und Eckhoffen, Hans Heinrich von (Magister Pianco). Der Rosenkreuzer in seiner\nBlosse. Amsterdam: n.p., 1782. The authorship of this tract is also a matter of dispute;\nsee Mcintosh, Christopher. The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason:\nEighteenth-Century\nRosicrucianism in Central Europe and its Relation to the Enlightenment. Leiden: E J\nBrill, 1992, p. 133.\n\nPages 133:\n124\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nUniversity of Leiden. 38 In this supposed manuscript Maier is purported to\ndescribe the reformation of the Rosicrucian Order in 1510, by which the\nteachings of the Books of Moses and the Book of Revelations were brought\ninto accord with the instructions of the \"old Magi.\" As a sign of their\nreformation, the Brethren decided to rename themselves \"Brethren of the\nGolden Rose Cross, True Freemasons, and True and Sincere Friends and\nKindred of the Golden Rose Cross.\" 39\nThat this history is a fabrication, and does not derive from a true document\nof Maier's, is confirmed by two important facts. Firstly, whilst Craven was\nled astray by the good advice of the Leiden librarian, he was correct in stating\nthat no such manuscript exists - or is likely to have existed - at the\nUniversity of Leiden. The university's manuscript catalogue of the early\nnineteenth century contains no trace of a manuscript under the names of\nMichael Maier, Meier or Mayer, either as an acquisition or as a possession,\nnor have there been any major losses in the collection due to fire, war or\nother disasters. Nor is such a manuscript held by the library of the Museum\nBoerhaave in Leiden - the other major seventeenth century collection in that\ncity.40\nSecondly, the term 'Gold and Rosy Cross' does not appear in the literature\nuntil the second half of the seventeenth century, when it is mentioned\nin certain Italian documents; as a denomination in Germany it is fully\nestablished only with the appearance of Samuel Richter's Die Warhaffte und\nvollkommene Bereitung des Philosophischen Steins (1710).41 There is no\nmention of a 'Gold and Rosy Cross' in the Rosicrucian apologetic works of\nFludd, 42 as \u00c2kerman asserts.43 Nor does the allusion to \"brothers of the\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\nEcker und Eckhoffen, Der Rosenkreuzer in seiner Blosse, p. 82.\nIbid., pp. 80-82.\nI must thank the current keeper of manuscripts at the University of Leiden, Mr. Anton\nvan der Lem, for his kind investigations into this matter.\nSuch is affirmed by Peuckert, Die Rosenkreuzer: zur Geschichte einer\nReformation.\nJena: Eugen Diedrichs, 1928, p. 85; see also above, chapter I, \u03b7. 125.\nFludd, Robert. Apologia Compendiaria, Fraternitatem de Rosea Cruce suspicionis et\ninfamiae maculis asspersam [sic], veritatis quasi Fluctibus abluens et abstergens.\nLeiden: Gottfried Basson, 1616; Fludd, Robert. Tractatus Apologeticus\nIntegritatem\nSocietatis de Rosea Cruce defendens. In qua probatur contra D. Libavii et aliorum\neiusdem farinae calumnias, quod admirabilia nobis a Fraternitate R. C. oblata, sine\nimproba Magiae impostura, aut Diaboli praestigiis et illusionibus praestari\npossint.\nLeiden: Gottfried Basson, 1617. Both of these works set forth a defence of the\nFraternity, natural magic and astrology against Libavius' accusations of necromancy and\ndiabolic magic; in the course of his apologies Fludd uses a number of variations on the\n'Bruderschafft des Hochl\u00f6blichen Ordens des Rosen Creutzes' and the 'Fraternitet de\u00df\nR. C.' given in the manuscript Fama Fraternitatis, such as 'Fraternitas de R. Cruce',\n'Fratres de Societate R. Crucis', 'Societas de Rosea Cruce', 'Fratres Societatis de Rosea\nC.' and 'Fraternitas R. C'. I would encourage interested readers not to take my word on\n\nPages 134:\nThe origins of Rosicrucianism\n125\ngolden cross\" made in the Aureum Seculum Redivivum (1625) of Adrian von\nMynsicht suggest the existence of \"a two-tiered Hermetic society\" known as\nthe Gold- und Rosenkreutz\u00b7, whilst the term was probably suggested to\nMynsicht by the Rosicrucian Order's appellation, he utilises fratres aureae\ncrucis as an ornate but general means of addressing those amongst his readers\nwho are affiliated with him by virtue of their alchemical proclivities. 44 Given\nthis fact, the mention made by a certain mid-seventeenth century writer in\nItaly of \"a company entitled the rosy cross, or as others say the golden cross\"\ndemonstrates the logic by which the ' Gold- und Rosenkreutz' term first arose,\ni.e. from the conflation of tracts written under the aureae crucis and roseae\ncrucis appellations 45\nIn short, it appears that the 'inextricable reverie' that has grown up around\nthe De Theosophia Aegyptiorum is extricated thus: Maier's 'Rosicrucian'\nLeipzig manuscript is an eighteenth century myth arising within the Goldund Rosenkreutz Freemasonic order, first 'exposed' by 'Magister Pianco',\nthen associated via Yarker with the tale of Agrippa's secret society, and\nfinally conveyed by Craven - quite innocently - as a 'Leipzig' rather than a\n'Leiden' manuscript. Assuming that it was not an intentional fabrication, the\nexact mechanism by which the Leipzig manuscript myth first arose cannot be\ntraced; nevertheless, the subsequent development of the myth shows that the\nmere proximity in a conversational or textual source of two unrelated\nthis matter, but to read the works for themselves, as reliance on second-hand reports will\nonly further nourish the confused mass of fabulous weeds that have overgrown\nRosicrucian history.\n43\n\u00c2kerman, Rose Cross over the Baltic, p. 181: \"[In his Apologia\nCompendiaria\nFraternitatem de Rosea Cruce] Fludd then declared that the movement actually draws on\ntwo schools, one of \"Aureae crucis fratres\" dealing with the supercelestial world and one\nof \"Roseae crucis fratres\" dealing with the sublunary world; these two schools create\ndivergent theosophical and alchemical traditions for the Golden and Rosy Cross.\"\n44\nMynsicht, \"Aureum Seculum Redivivum,\" pp. 67-87. Mynsicht addresses his readers as\n\"true brothers of the golden cross\" and \"exceptional members of the philosophical\nfellowship in eternal affiliation\" in his foreword: \"Weil deutlicher und kl\u00e4rlicher hiervon\nzuschreiben ernstlich und zum allerh\u00f6chsten in rep\u00fablica chymica verboten ist: trage\naber ganz keinen zweiffei/ es werden all die/ so di\u00df Tractetlein in warer Zuuersicht mit\nden innerlichen Augen des Gemilths/ so alles verm\u00fcgen/ recht anschawen/ in denselben\nflei\u00dfig studiren, und darbey f\u00fcr allen dingen Gott inniglichen und von Herzen anruffen/\ngleich mir/ die hierin verborgene Philosophische wundersiisse Fr\u00fcchte geniesen/ und\nderselben nach dem Willen Gottes theilhafftig werden. Und alsdann sein und bleiben sie/\nware Br\u00fcder des g\u00fcldenen Creuzes/ unnd au\u00dferlesene Gliedmassen der Philosophischen\ngemeine in ewiger Verb\u00fcndnu\u00df.\" The term is also utilised to describe Mynsicht himself\non the frontispiece and in the work's closing paragraphs. The Aureum\nSeculum\nRedivivum appeared in the Dyas Chymica Tripartita edited by Johannes Grasshoff;\nGrasshoff s own \"G\u00fcldener Tractat\" reiterates the term, possibly in imitation of\nMynsicht's work (which follows Grasshoff s tract in the compendium).\n45\nVatican Library, MS Reginensis Latini 1521; see above, chapter I, n. 125.\n\nPages 135:\n126\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nelements can lead to colourful results in the minds of the credulous. As the\nDe Theosophia Aegyptiorum was undoubtedly the most prominent of the\nsurviving manuscripts of Maier, thanks to its mention in the Polyhistor of\nMorhof, it is in fact possible that von Ecker und Eckhoffen himself confused\n'Leipzig' with 'Leiden' in the course of his communications with 'Brother\nHosmopina Neberus' (on whose authority his story concerning the reformation of the Order in 1510 stands).46 In any case, the unread manuscript is\nlikely to have formed the focus for considerable conjecture or 'projection',\nas Jung might have put it. Furthermore, as Arnold points out in his Histoire\ndes Rose-Croix et les Origines de la Franc-Ma\u00e7onnerie, it appears that\nthe Gold- und Rosenkreutz of the late eighteenth century was determined\nto demonstrate its anteriority to the widely discredited Rosicrucianism of\nthe manifestos (although Arnold himself speaks of a \"lost Leipzig manuscript\"). 47\nThe history of Rosicrucianism is littered with such spurious traditions,\nmany of which stem from the nineteenth century German occultist Carl\nKiesewetter, whom Waite amusingly but accurately describes as Rosicrucianism's fabulator magnus. Kiesewetter claimed to be a direct descendant of\nthe last 'Imperator' of the Brethren, and declared himself to be in the\npossession of priceless manuscripts of the Order dating to the sixteenth\ncentury and earlier.48 He also promulgated a component of the 'Rosicrucian'\nLeipzig manuscript myth, claiming that Agrippa von Nettesheim had\nspecifically been named as an 'Imperator' of the Order by the seventeenth\ncentury English Rosicrucian Thomas Vaughan (who in fact only speaks of\nAgrippa as \"the oracle of Magick\" and \"the master\" of his secretary\nWieras). 49 Paul Arnold theorised that Kiesewetter's manuscripts were in fact\n46\n47\n48\n49\nEcker und Eckhoffen, Der Rosenkreuzer in seiner Blosse, p. 81.\nArnold, Paul. Histoire des Rose-Croix et les Origines de la Franc-Ma\u00e7onnerie.\nParis:\nMercure de France, 1954, p. 80.\nAccording to Yarker, Arcane Schools, pp. 213-214, \"Karl Kiesewetter was a grandson of\nthe last Imperator, he holds a manuscript claiming a Rosicrucian society existed in 1622\nin The Hague, the members of which wore a black silk cord in their top button hole,\nhaving vowed to be strangled with the same sooner than break their silence. Amongst\nother signs of recognition between members was their wont to leave their houses on\nfestival days by the east door and wave a green flag before sunrise. When two of these\nbrethren met one was compelled to say \"Ave Frater!,\" to which the other would answer\n\"Rosae et Aureae,\" then the first would say \"Crucis,\" then together \"Benedictus Deus\nDominus Noster, qui Nobis dedit signum.\"\nKiesewetter, Carl. Untitled article in Sphinx: Monatschrift f\u00fcr die Geschichtliche\nund\nExperimentale\nBegr\u00fcndung\nder \u00dcbersinnlichen\nWeltanschauung\nauf\nMonistischer\nGrundlage. Leipzig: Vol. 1, January, 1886, pp. 42-54; Vaughan, Thomas (Eugenius\nPhilalethes). Anima Magica Abscondita. London: H.B., 1650, pp. iv, 22. Paracelsus is\nthe anonymous author from whom Vaughan claims the Brethren \"borrowed most of their\ninstructions;\" ibid., p. 37.\n\nPages 136:\nJohann Valentin Andreae and the nature of the Order\n127\nfabrications of the eighteenth century Gold- und Rosenkreutz,50 and whilst\nsuch fabrications abound, one gets the feeling that Arnold had a little too\nmuch faith in the transparency of Kiesewetter's motives. For if the purveyors\nof Rosicrucianism through the centuries have delighted in providing fellow\noccultists and academics alike with a veritable school of red herrings, then\nthey are only following in the footsteps of the instigator of the Rosicrucian\nphenomenon - in all likelihood the Lutheran theologian Johann Valentin\nAndreae.\n3. Johann Valentin Andreae and the nature of the Order\nJohann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654) was a student of philosophy and\ntheology at the University of T\u00fcbingen; his grandfather had been one of the\nchief architects of the Formula of Concord, although in the irenicist climate\nof the early seventeenth century he became an admirer of the Calvinist\nchurch order.51 It seems likely that Andreae wrote the manifestos under the\ninfluence of his mentor and colleague at the University of T\u00fcbingen, Dr.\nTobias Hess - a one-time lawyer, physician, dabbler in alchemy and adept in\ntheology and millennialist prophecy, who was branded by the Medical Guild\nof T\u00fcbingen as \"a disciple of that impious Paracelsus.\"52 Hess formed the\nfocal point of an \"intimate league of friends\" in which Andreae spent some\nyears following his premature departure from T\u00fcbingen due to an unspecified\nscandal; such was the influence of Hess on the young Andreae that Gilly has\ndescribed him as the prototypic theologian-scientist lying behind the figure of\nChristian Rosenkreutz. 53\nThat the manifestos stem from the circle of Hess and Andreae is the\nmajority opinion in the academic study of Rosicrucianism, although Peuckert\npreferred Tobias Hess to Andreae as the author. Montgomery's is perhaps the\nmost prominent dissenting voice, but his opinion on the matter - that the\nmanifestos stem neither from Andreae nor from his circle, but from the late\nsixteenth century - not only draws on the myth of the 'Rosicrucian' Leipzig\nmanuscript we have just laid bare, but is also strongly coloured by his own\nideological objections to the encroachment of humanism into (contemporary)\n50\n51\n52\n53\nArnold, Histoire des Rose-Croix, p. 75.\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 47; Neumann, Ulrich. \"Johann Valentin Andreae.\" In\nFigala, Karin and Claus Priesner (eds.). Alchemie: Lexikon einer\nhennetischen\nWissenschaft. M\u00fcnchen: C. H. Beck, 1998, pp. 46-47.\nGilly, ibid., pp. 47-49.\nKooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, pp. 17-19.\n\nPages 137:\n128\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nChristianity.54 There is good evidence for Andreae's authorship of the\nmanifestos, not only on stylistic and redactional grounds,55 but also on the\ngrounds that by 1607 Andreae had already composed his famous alchemical\nallegory, the Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreutz ('Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz,' 1616) - long before the public appearance of\nthe manifestos. 56 And there is also the testimony of the Pietist Gottfried\nArnold, who reports that Andreae confided to a friend, John Arne, that he and\nhis colleagues had first set forth the Fama Fraternitatis \"in order that under\nthis cover they might learn the judgment of Europe thereon,\" and to see what\n\"lovers of true wisdom might then come forward.\" 57\nFurthermore, Gilly has identified a number of passages in Andreae's\nTheca Gladii Spiritus ('Sheath of the Spiritual Sword,' 1616) and in his\nTurris Babel, sive Judiciorum de Fraternitate Rosaceae Crucis CHAOS\n('The Tower of Babel, or the Chaos of Judgments concerning the Fraternity\nof the Rosy Cross,' 1619) that are highly suggestive of Andreae's authorship\nof the manifestos. In the latter work Andreae states:\nMore than enough sport has been made with people; at last we may free the binds, we may\nembolden those who hesitate, we may arouse those who have fallen into error, we may call\nback those who have gone across, we may heal the diseased. Lo, mortals! There is no need to\nwait for the Fraternity: the play is finished. The Fama has sanctioned it, and the Fama has\nended it. The Fama said yes, now it says no. 5 8\n54\nMontgomery, John Warwick. \"The World-view of Johann Valentin Andreae.\" In Das\nErbe des Christian Rosenkreutz. Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 1988, pp. 152-169. In his\npassage composed under the sub-title of 'The Gospel vs. Hermeticism', Montgomery\ncan surely not be referring to the good Lutheran Maier when he speaks of \"the belief of\nthe esoterists that man can become God by way of nature,\" as Maier quite clearly states\nthat eternal life cannot be gained by means of an elixir, but only by our death and rebirth\nin Christ. Furthermore, for Andreae to swear by Church and Trinity that \"he had always\nlaughed at the Rosicrucian fable and inveighed against the curious little brothers\" by no\nmeans constitutes a denial of his role in the affair, particularly given the connotation of\nfraterculus as a term of endearment for friends. For a sampling of Montgomery's views\non humanism and contemporary Christianity, see Crisis in Lutheran Theology. Grand\nRapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1973.\n55\nOn this point see the comprehensive survey of Schick, Das \u00c4ltere Rosenkreuzertum,\n64-87.\n56\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 82, gives the probable date of authorship as 1607 on\nthe basis of Carl Widemann's note that he possessed the \"alchimistische Hochzeit\" by\nMarch the 31 st of that year, and that it was known to Tobias Hess by that time.\n57\nArnold, Gottfried. Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzer- Historie, Vom Anfang des\nNeuen Testaments bi\u00df auf das Jahr Christi 1688. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967 (first\npublished 1699), p. 899.\n58\nAndreae, Johann Valentin. Turris Babel, sive Judiciorum de Fraternitate\nRosaceae\nCrucis CHAOS. Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner, 1619, p. 69: \"Satis superque hominibus\nillusum est, liberemus tandem constrictos, confirmemus fluctuantes, erigamus lapsos,\nrevocemus transversos, sanemus morbidos. Ehem, Mortales! nihil est, quod Frater-\npp.\n\nPages 138:\nJohann Valentin Andreae and the nature of the Order\n129\nGilly asserts that only the author of the Fama Fratemitatis would be in\na position to speak in such a way. 59 Be this as it may, Andreae's Turris\nBabel presents to us a series of three-way dialogues representing typical\nrespondents to the manifestos, the third respondent representing the views of\nAndreae himself. In the final chapter, Andreae demonstrates his uneasiness\nwith the unchecked immensity of the furore he has engendered by writing as\nRecipiscens, 'he who has come to his senses'. This mode of self-description\nnot only mirrors the shift in Andreae's thinking away from his 'youthful\nfolly' and towards a more orthodox Lutheran position, but also reflects the\ndanger of being identified as the author of the manifestos. For by the time of\nthe publication of the Turris Babel following the outbreak of the Thirty Years\nWar, Andreae's authorship had been uncovered by at least two parties in the\nRosicrucian debate, and threatened to become open knowledge. 60\nIs it justified, then, to name the 'intimate league of friends' of Andreae\nand Hess as the true 'Brethren of the Rosy Cross', as Schick has implied? To\nanswer this question we may turn again to the Turris Babel, and to the\nthirteenth dialogue between Admirator (an admirer), Contemptor (a despiser)\nand Aestimator (an appraiser according to the intrinsic value of a thing).\nAndreae as Aestimator gives the following revealing assessment of the furore\nprovoked by the Brethren:\nThe more I inquire into this fraternity, the more ingenious the game appears to me. For it\npossesses such a sum of human desires, that it inspires the appetite in pre-eminent intellects to obtain those things for which they have long exerted themselves. And truly, by\nthis coming together of intellects, or by this society, if it consisted of the most select and\nperspicacious men, it would be possible to produce things which surpass our comprehension.\nThat it is indeed such a kind of society, they have not yet persuaded me, because they proffer\nup too much imprudence, or indeed baseness. 61\nnitatem expectetis: fabula peracta est. Fama astruxit: fama destruxit. Fama ajebat: fama\nnegat...\"\n59\n60\n61\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 79.\nIbid., p. 78; in 1617 the Professor of Rhetoric at the University of T\u00fcbingen, Kasper\nBucher, alluded to Andreae as author of the manifestos in an anti-Rosicrucian lecture,\nwhilst in 1619 the feared pamphletist Friedrich Grick threatened to expose Andreae as\nthe author of the manifestos. For a discussion of Andreae's reasons for distancing\nhimself from the Rosicrucian affair, see Schick, Das \u00c4ltere Rosenkreuzertum, p. 72.\nAndreae, Turris Babel, p. 37: \"Quo magis in hanc fraternitatem inquiro, eo mihi lusus\nvidetur artificiosior. Habet enim nescio quam epitomen humanorum desideriorum, quod\nerectioribus ingeniis salivam moveat ea impetrandi, in quibus jam dudum defudarunt\n[sic]. Et verisimile est, ingeniorum concursu sive societate, si ea ex selectissimis et\nperspicacissimis constet, aliquid tale posse exhiberi, quod captum nostrum superet.\nTalem vero jam esse, nondum mihi persuaserunt, tum quia nimis vel temeraria, vel\nhumilia etiam proferunt.\"\n\nPages 139:\n130\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nThe crux of this passage is contained in its clear equation of the 'concourse of\nintellects' brought together by the manifestos with the 'society' itself; for it is\nclear from Andreae's words that what is ingenious about the 'game' is that a\nRosicrucian society of sorts had indeed been constituted by those inspired to\nthe defence of the Fraternity by Andreae's Utopian vision - or would have\nbeen constituted, if there were not so many vulgar opinions amongst those\nthat flooded the printing presses in response to the manifestos. In this sense\nthe manifestos did not simply constitute an invitation to the learned of Europe\nto eventually build a society akin to that outlined in the manifestos, but\nalso formed a very present and cogent virtual arena for the furtherance of\na Hermetic Protestant ideology. In light of this fact, Waite's misleading\nalternatives of a 'mythic' or a 'real' Fraternity do not hold. This Rosicrucian\n'Brotherhood' was not merely a ludibrium, i.e. a 'jest' or 'game', as Andreae\nwas later to describe it; to borrow the title of Michael Maier's first\n'Rosicrucian' work, the Jocus Severus, it was a very 'serious jest'.\nThat the tale of the opening of the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz draws\nfrom alchemical allegory should have been clear enough to anyone as well\nversed in the alchemical literature as Maier.62 We need only mention the\nfact that the discovery of the sepulchre and the Book I. held to the chest of\nChristian Rosenkreutz bears a close resemblance to the tale given in the\nTabula Smaragdina, in which the Emerald Tablet is said to have been found\nclasped in the hands of Hermes as he lay in state in his tomb. 63 Furthermore,\nMaier followed the lead of Andreae when composing his Allegoria Bella, in\nwhich he travels to Egypt and Arabia in search of the phoenix - a journey to\nthe source of the prisca sapientia which mirrors the phases of the alchemical\nwork in similar fashion to the journey of Christian Rosenkreutz in Andreae's\nChymische Hochzeit:64 Nevertheless, the evidence seems to overwhelmingly\ncontradict the possibility that Maier was aware of the strictly virtual existence\nof the Brethren: for why did he expend such great energy not only in\n62\n63\n64\nIt is pertinent to note that Rosenkreutz's return journey to Germany follows an important\nmedieval conduit of Arabic science into Europe, i.e. via Fez, the intellectual capital of\nthe Moorish empire, into Spain and beyond. In this sense the Fama\nFraternitatis\npresents a parable for the entrance of occult Arabic wisdom into medieval Europe.\nThe tradition that the discoverer was Alexander the Great is given in a tract ascribed to\nAlbertus Magnus: \"Scriptum Alberti super Arborem Aristotelis.\" In\nTheatram\nChemicum. Vol. 2. Stra\u00dfburg: Zetzner, 1659, p. 458.\nMaier's contemporary, the alchemist Christoffer Rotbard ('Radtichs Brotofferr') issued a\nwork at this time explaining the journey of Christian Rosenkreutz in the Chymische\nHochzeit in alchemical terms: Elucidar\u00edas Major, Oder Erleuchterunge\n\u00fcber die\nReformation der ganzen weiten Welt/ F. C. R. au\u00df ihrer Chymischen Hochzeit- und sonst\nmit viel andern testimoniis Phiiosophorum/\nsonderlich in appendice/\ndermassen\nverbessert/ da\u00df beydes materia et praeparatio lapidis aurei/ deutlich genug darinn\nangezeigt werden. L\u00fcneburg: bey den Sternen Buchf., 1617.\n\nPages 140:\nThe serious jest\n131\ndefending the existence of the Fraternity as an organised secret society, but\nalso in promoting the myth of Christian Rosenkreutz as historical fact? In\norder to understand Mai er's relationship to Rosicrucianism, it is necessary\nto approach his Rosicrucian works in strict chronological order, as they demonstrate the development of his response to the affair from one of initial\ndisinterest, through the issuing of tentative rejoinders to the Rosicrucian\nprogramme in his Jocus Severus (1616) and Symbola Aureae Mensae (1617),\nto a role as chief apologist for the Order through the publication of his\nSilentium post Clamores (1617) and Themis Aurea (1618).\n4. The serious jest\nGiven that anyone assenting in print to the programme of the manifestos or\ntaking up the defence of the Order might be said to belong to this virtual\n'Brotherhood', Maier's first genuinely Rosicrucian work is the Jocus Severus\n(1617). There is in fact a record of the Jocus Severus in a flyer produced for\nthe Frankfurt Book Fair by Maier's publisher, Johann Theodor de Bry; and\nwhilst the date given at the head of the flyer (1609) might again provide\nevidence for Maier's earlier acquaintance with the Rosicrucian phenomenon\n(and indeed for an earlier genesis of Rosicrucianism itself), Maier's work is\nin fact a later addition by the printer to a list composed in 1609 and used at\nsubsequent fairs. 65 Such are the obstacles that obscure a clear perspective on\nthis subject.\nMaier confesses that the Jocus Severus was written hurriedly; indeed, he\nwrote \"six or seven chemical treatises\" with a \"hot quill\" whilst lying ill in\nFrankfurt am Main, which were \"inspired more by the small payment which I\nreceived for them rather than by the improvement and perfection of the works\nthemselves.\" 66 Given that all these treatises were either in print or at the\nprinters by October of 1617, then we must count amongst them not only the\nJocus Severus, but also the Atalanta Fugiens (1617), De Circulo Physico,\nQuadrato (1616), Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum (1617), Lusus\nSerius (1616), Silentium post Clamores (1617) and Symbola Aureae Mensae\n65\n66\nProf. Karin Figala and Dr. Ulrich Neumann of Technische Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen brought\nmy attention to this perplexing document.\nFrankfurt am Main, Stadt- und Universit\u00e4tsbibliothek, MS Ff. J. H. Beyer \u0391. 161, p. 207\nverso: \"Atque sic aeger plaerumque haerens lecto nonnulla commentatus sum, ad\nChymiam spectantia (quorum quaedam proelo subjecta sunt, quaedam subiicienda ab\naliis reservantis ad pr\u00f3ximas nundinas) lucei la, quod inde evenit, magis incitatus, quam\nmaturitate et emendatione ipsorum opusculorum: Tractatus itaque chymicos 6 vel 7\ncalente calamo deproperavi, sperans me hac via, tantum lucraturum, quo in locum\npraefixum commode transmearem.\"\n\nPages 141:\n132\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\n(1617). If we are to take Maier by his word, then this is a remarkable\nachievement (even if work on some of the texts had been started in England,\nas Figala and Neumann suggest); moreover, the fact that their publication\nwas specifically intended to raise money for the abandoned journey to Prague\ngives us some insight into the source of their enduring popularity. In any\ncase, Maier's financial difficulties at this time cast further doubt on Yates'\ncontention that the reference in the Jocus Severus to a planned journey to\nBohemia is further evidence of Maier's service within a nascent AngloGerman-Bohemian political and military alliance.67 Rather, it seems more\nlikely that he simply hoped to find a livelihood there with the help of his\nformer colleagues.\nThere are no explicit references to the Brethren of the Rosy Cross within\nthe main body of the Jocus Severus, which fact suggests that the\n'Rosicrucian' preface was appended after the encounter with the manifestos\nat the Frankfurt Book Fair of October 1616 to a work which had been\ncomposed before that time. 68 The main text is a rather charming satirical\nfable in which, according to Trunz, Maier shows himself as \"a playful master\nof Latin verse forms.\" 69 In its frequent references to the Satires of Juvenalis,\nand in its recourse to curious zoological data, drawn in large part from\nPliny's Historia Naturalis, this work shows marked similarities to Maier's\nLusus Serius (1616), in which Mercury is crowned king of an assembly of\nanimals, plants and minerals beneficial to humanity. The Jocus Severus takes\nthe form of a court of judgment upon the bird of wisdom sacred to Pallas\nAthena, the Owl - in this instance embodying chemia as the highest science.\nThe Owl stands accused of a number of misdemeanours by an assembly of\nsquawking and cantankerous birds, who represent the various critics of\nchemia. Counsel for the defence is the Hawk; the judge presiding over the\ncourt is the Phoenix, the symbol of the Work's perfection which we shall\nexplore in greater detail in the following chapter. In order to please \"both the\nmind and the ears\" of his readers, Maier forms each verse in accordance with\nthe voice of the accusing bird, and the other birds reply in the same\n'language', ranging from the Nightingale's graceful and well-spanned\nSapphic strophes to the Jackdaw's staccato of five syllables per line. After\nfacing her fellow birds' accusations, the Owl and her Art are eventually\nvindicated by the Hawk's expert defence, and she is adjudged Queen of the\nBirds by the Phoenix.\nThus the Jocus Severus forms a mythic arena of debate in which the\nprotagonists enact a very real and 'serious' controversy; the Rosicrucian\n67\n68\n69\nYates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, pp. 81, 84.\nMaier, Jocus Severus, p. 12.\nTrunz, Erich. Wissenschaft und Kunst im Kreise\nNeum\u00fcnster: Karl Wachholtz Verlag, 1992, p. 90.\nKaiser\nRudolfs\nII.\n1576-1612.\n\nPages 142:\nThe serious jest\n133\nmanifestos could also be said to present such a mythic arena to the reader,\nalthough there the ambiguous character of the protagonists - the Brethren blurs the lines between literary symbol and referent. In his foreword to the\nJocus Severus Maier superimposes the 'Rosicrucian' arena onto that of his\nown work; in accordance with the emphasis on alchemy given in Maier's\nreading of the Rosicrucian manifestos, we are told that the symbol of the Owl\nrepresents not merely the true chymists of Germany, but specifically the\nBrethren of the Rosy Cross - who are, to his mind, primarily concerned with\nthe Art of chemia and the production of the Universal Medicine. Hence the\ncourt of judgment upon the Owl becomes a court of judgment on the Brethren\nthemselves, who are now defined in Maier's exclusively alchemical terms:\nI dedicate and bequeath this tract to all lovers of true chymia throughout Germany, known\nand unknown; and amongst them, unless Fame deceives us, to that ORDER OF GERMAN\nBLOOD, hitherto lying hidden, but manifested by the bringing forth of the Fama\nFraternitatis, as well as by the admirable and pleasing Confessio\nFraternitatis,70\nMaier's reference to deceiving 'Fame' here is to the Fama Fraternitatis,\nand it indicates that although he was unsure of the existence of an organised\nFraternity lying behind the manifestos, he proceeded with his apologetics\nregardless. Given his own predilection for literary conceits and 'serious\njests', the possibility that the manifestos were 'deceitful' could not have\nescaped Maier; but if by 'playing the game' he might promote his own\ninterests, then he was more than willing to do so.\nAccordingly, we find a double meaning in Maier's words; for the word\nfama possesses not only the connotation of the English 'fame' with which it\nhas been translated, but also that of 'rumour' or 'common talk' - an\nambiguity not lost to the manifesto's creator. In this sense the Fama might\ndeceive because truth withers away upon exposure to the vulgar and ignorant\nmasses; thus Maier states that the anonymous members of the Fraternity are\nthemselves like the Owl, because they shun the light of fame to avoid\nexposing the secrets of the Hermetic arts. And whilst it has been their custom\nto lead lives of anonymity,71 as the 'evening of the world' rapidly approaches\n70\nMaier, Jocus Severus, p. 10: \"Omnibus Verae Chymiae Amantibus, per Germaniam\nnotis et ignotis, et inter hos, nisi nos Fama fallat, ILLI SANGUINIS GERMANICI\nORDINI, adhuc delitescenti, at Fama Fraternitatis et Confessione sua admiranda et\nprobabili, in genere manifestato, asscribo, dico et dedico.\" It is noteworthy that de Rola\nomits 'ILLI SANGUINIS GERMANICI ORDINI in his rendering of this passage; de\nRola, Stanislas Klossowski. The Golden Game: Alchemical\nEngravings\nof the\nSeventeenth Century. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1988, p. 62.\n71\nIbid.\u00b7. \"Cum enim tantus Dei Thesaurus ab iis, quibus oblatus est, nulli prostitu\u00ed aut\nmanifestari debeat, hinc authores ipsi quasi Deo dicati, mundoque abrogati, Deo sibique\nviventes rarissime agnosci uni aut alteri, nunquam vero vulgo voluerunt.\"\n\nPages 143:\n134\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nthe Brethren - like the Owl - emerge from their diurnal concealment to\nmanifest the truth of the coming age:\n...Now there arises that profession of divine and human matters, which like a fanfare of\ntrumpets declares the indisputable conviction of truth throughout the whole of Germany,\nunder the name of the Fraternity. This Fraternity, like the Owl, hides itself with good reason\nfrom the abduction of rapacious and hostile birds until the evening arrives - which evening\nis now approaching as the great day of this world comes to its end, and as the truth manifests\nitself in signs that should not be dismissed. Thus I offer this Owl to the Fraternity, as\nto others working under the same noble Muse, known and unknown; not for the sake of\ncreating a work of great subtlety (because here you will find none), but (according to our\ntitle) for the sake of a SERIOUS JEST. 7 2\nHere Maier's worldview is revealed to us as deeply millenarian. His reference to the evening of the 'great day of this world' derives from the more\nchiliastic and prophetic of the two manifestos, the Confessio Fraternitatis,\nwhich as we have seen was particularly 'admirable and pleasing' to Maier.\nIn that tract the anonymous author speaks of the coming Sabbath of the\nworld:\nWhatsoever is published, and made known to everyone, concerning our Fraternity, by the\nforesaid Fama, let no man esteem lightly of it, nor hold it as an idle or invented thing, and\nmuch less receive the same, as though it were only a mere conceit of ours. It is the Lord\nJehovah (who seeing the Lord's Sabbath is almost at hand, and hastened again, his period or\ncourse being finished, to his first beginning) doth turn about the course of Nature... 7 3\nThese words derive in part from the apocryphal fourth book of Ezra; 74\nas Gilly notes, Andreae also utilises the passage from 4 Ezra concerning\nGod's 'hastening' in his Collectanea Mathematica, in which a table is given\n72\nIbid., p. 11: \"Ex quatuor igitur hisce, quae inseparabiliter convenire oportet, coniunctis\nexurgit PROFESSIO ilia divinarum humanarumque rerum, quae iam quasi TUBA\nquadam praecentoria per Germaniam haud dubia veritatis opinione, sub FRATERNITATIS nomine, insonuit: Haec cum iure suo, Noctuae instar, ab avium rapacium et se\ninfestantium raptu, donee vesper advenerit, occultetur, qui iam inclinante magni huius\nmundi die instet, ut illa per indicia haud aspernandae se manifestavit, sic ego illi merito\nhanc NOCTUAM, ut et aliis eiusdem Musae procis, ignotis et notis, asscribo, dico et\nobfero, non pro magnae subtilitatis (quae hic nulla est) opere, sed (ut inscriptio habet)\npro IOCO SEVERO.\"\n73\nYates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 251.\n4 Ezra 4.34-37: \"You do not hasten faster than the Most High, for your haste is for\nyourself, but the Highest hastens on behalf of many. Did not the souls of the righteous in\ntheir chambers ask about these matters, saying, 'How long are we to remain here? And\nwhen will come the harvest of our reward?' And Jeremiel the archangel answered them\nand said, 'When the number of those like yourselves is completed; for he has weighed\nthe age in the balance, and measured the times by measure, and numbered the times by\nnumber; and he will not move or arouse them until that measure is fulfilled.'\"\n74\n\nPages 144:\nThe serious jest\n135\nrepresenting the six millennia of the world, and Luther is portrayed as the\nherald of the end-time. 75 It may be pertinent to add that the conception of 'the\nLord's Sabbath' also hearkens to the medieval and early modern tradition of\nseven ages of the world corresponding to the seven days of Creation in\nGenesis, derived from the De Temporum Ratione of the Venerable Bede\n(673-735), who in his turn elaborated upon the world chronology of the\nChurch Fathers Isidor of Seville and Augustine. 76 In the worldview of the\nauthors of the Rosicrucian manifestos and their followers, Christian\nmillennialism merges with the Paracelsian prophecy of the coming of Elias\nArtista and the restoration of the arts and sciences to their pristine state. Thus,\nin congruence with representations of the alchemical process as the\nseptimana philosophica,77 the Sabbath of the Lord establishes the completion\nand perfection of God's work through a return to the point of origin. This\nreturn brings the recovery of the prisca sapientia for which Maier strove, but\nwhich he realised in the dying hours of his age must remain \"polluted and\nimperfect,\" as the Fama Fraternitatis would have it.78\nIn the course of his preface to the Jocus Severus, Maier makes it clear that\nhe considers himself to be a member of that Order of German Blood' which\nis ushering in the new age. As once the wise men of Athens worked under the\nfigure of the Owl, so in Maier's time the \"true investigators of Nature, known\nand unknown\" are denoted by that same hieroglyph; 79 and amongst these true\nscientists are numbered not only the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, but Maier\nhimself. For the Jocus Severus is a game that he plays in the nocturnal hours,\nin order to \"escape the silence of Vulcan's work\" and to \"obey his soul,\"\nrather than for the purpose of publishing his knowledge and exposing it to the\ncommon folk. 80 Thus we can envisage Maier patiently sitting before the\nfurnace in the late hours of the night, scratching at a manuscript with his quill\npen whilst the chemical processes within the vessel take their course. In\ndefence of such a nocturnal lifestyle, Maier invokes the authority of\nAvicenna, who writes in his commentary on Aristotle's De Anima\u00b7.\n75\n76\n77\n78\n79\n80\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 75.\nSchmidt-Biggemann, Wilhelm. Philosophia Perennisi Historische Umrisse abendl\u00e4ndischer Spiritualit\u00e4t in Antike, Mittelalter und Fr\u00fcher Neuzeit. Frankfurt am Main:\nSuhrkamp Verlag, 1998, pp. 593 ff. The tradition reflects the centrality of the number 7\nin Revelations - the opening of the seventh seal upon the Day of Judgment, the trumpetcall of the seventh angel announcing the fulfilment of the Mystery of God, etc.\nSee Roberts, The Mirror of Alchemy, p. 56.\nKooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, p. 73.\nMaier, Jocus Severus, p. 5.\nIbid., p. 3: \"En tibi iterum, candide lector, locum Severum insinuo, quem aliquando\nnocturnis horis ad vulcanias operas potius ad fallendum silentii illius moras, animoque\nobtemperandum meo, lusi, quam, ut vulgo ederetur, perfeci.\"\n\nPages 145:\n136\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nI have learnt all this by frequent reading, little sleep, little food and less drinking; and as\nmuch money as my colleagues spent during the daytime in order to have wine at night, so\nmuch did I spend for oil to stay awake and read; and as much as they have spent in eating by\nnight, I have spent more for the light necessary to stay awake and learn: and unless I do this,\n1 will not have skill in the magistery. 81\nThus only the pious are afforded the secrets of the Great Work, whilst those\nwho revel in the pleasures of the senses will surely fail. As the Owl might\nbe said to represent Maier's self-understanding as an alchemist - and by\nassociation, his understanding of the Fraternity - so those birds arrayed\nagainst the Owl in the Jocus Severus represent his own detractors. These\ndetractors, who bestow insults upon chemia and defame her with clamorous\nreviling, are divided by Maier into three different classes. The first are the\nfoolish, unlearned and ignorant mob, represented under the names of the Jay,\nMagpie, Raven, Goose and Swallow; at their head is the quarrelsome Crow,\nthe pre-eminent enemy of the Owl, denoting those \"ignoble and unrefined\ncensors\" who do not consider the true causes of things, but rather judge\nchemia prejudicially as a vain and frivolous pursuit.82 Thus the Crow argues\nbefore the court that his dispute with the Owl is an ancient one, and as he was\nborn of what he imagines to be a noble seed, that is enough reason for him to\nfollow his forefathers in attacking the Owl. Although he asks the court to\nexcuse his somewhat coarse mode of speech, the sentence of the Phoenix is\nemphatic:\nThe words that you have uttered, which fill the air with droning, do not help at all; if you\ntake away the body from the light, the shadow is lost. And if you do not rage with anger\nabout the blind habits that your parents teach you and your offspring, you are being deceived\nand are in want of reason, courage and fairness. If that is the crime of your forefathers, do not\ntake it up yourself. 8 3\n81\nIbid., p. 5: \"Ego hoc totum, inquit, didici frequenter legende, el parum dormiendo, et\nparum comedendo et minus bibendo, et quantum expenderunt sodi mei in lumine ad\npotandum vinum de nocte, tantum ego expend\u00ed ad vigilandum et legendum de node in\noleo, et quantum expendebant in comestione, amplius expendebam ego in lumine ad\nvigilandum et discendum de node: Et nisi hoc facerem, non scirem de magisterio.\"\n82\nIbid., p. 14: \"Sub nomine actoris ex vulgo imperiti, qui causas rerum non attendit, sed ex\nalterius praeiudicio de Chemia, in qua ne tantillum expertas est, iudicat. Argumentum\neius est, Chemiam esse vanam et frivolam, odioque dignam censendam, quia sic\niudicarint nostri maiores sapientia longe excellentissimi: Sunt autem cornices, (hoc est\neiusmodi illiberales et impoliti censores) noctuae inprimis inimicae, adeo ut sibi invicem\nova suffurentur: Inauspicatae quoque sunt garrulitatis.\"\n83\nIbid., p. 17: \"Nil data verba iuvant, quae replent aera bombo,/ Corpora si luci dempseris,\numbra perit./ Si nihil irarum furias, quam caeca parentum/ Consuetudo docet te\nsobolemque tuam:/ Falleris et rationis eges, virtutis et aequi,/ Si quod erit patrium, ne tibi\nsume, scelus.\"\n\nPages 146:\nThe serious jest\n137\nThe judgment having been passed, the little Crow plods away with a slow\nand gloomy step. In this passage Maier again associates blind emotion,\nstemming from a want of reason, with the masses - an association that, as\nwe have seen in our second chapter, has a special significance for his own\nbiography. The subject of piety is also uppermost when Maier depicts the\nthird class of the detractors of chemia: those men pre-occupied by greed, the\ndepraved in mind who fritter away expenses, signified by the Cuckoo,\nJackdaw, Woodpecker and Heron. Whilst possessing means and titles, such\nmen stand at the forefront of the mob on account of their love of sensual\npleasure. The Cuckoo represents one such \"uncivilised civilian\":\nAmongst those actors pre-occupied with worldly pleasures, or 'uncivilised civilians', stands\nthe Cuckoo. His argument is that chemia makes a man solitary and keeps him from\nconversation with others, so he entertains himself only by burning up coal, emaciating the\nbody with labour and wakefulness, and vexing the soul with sorrows and fruitless\nmeditation: whereby the Cuckoo rejects the Art and argues vehemently against it, in order\nthat he may return more freely to the revelling and drinking to which he is accustomed, and\ndistinguish himself thus amongst the common people. 8 4\nAccording to Maier's curious analogy, drawn in part from the sixth Satire of\nJuvenalis, the gluttonous Cuckoo is in the habit of breaking the eggs of other\nbirds and sucking out their contents, for which reason it has gained a bad\nreputation amongst its avian cousins; consequently it lays its eggs in other\nbirds' nests, by which subterfuge its unnoticed chicks escape retribution.85\nNevertheless, the Owl, being a wise creature, willingly offers up its eggs to\nthis glutton, \"in order that they may deliver abstinence, and infuse wisdom,\nsobriety and the yearning for temperance.\" 86 The eggs of the Owl in this\ncase denote Maier's medicine itself, which is offered up to his presumably\nundeserving patients in the most altruistic and Christian manner. For Maier's\nwas a medicine of piety, a cure for intemperance of mind and body stemming\nfrom a time in which the diagnosis and treatment of disease was closely\nintertwined with concepts of morality. As the Cuckoo has inadvertently eaten\nthe temperance-imparting eggs of the Owl, the Phoenix returns no judgment\n84\n85\n86\nIbid., p. 24: \"Sub nomine actoris, in mundo praeoccupati negociis ad ventrem\nspectantibus, aut sensuum delitias, sive impoliti Politici. Argumentum eius est, Chemiam\nhominem solitarium reddere et a conversatione cum aliis revocare, dum ei vacantes solis\ncarbonibus comburendis sese oblectent, corpus laboribus et vigiliis, animum curis et\nmeditationibus in subtilitatibus vanis et inanibus, macerantes: Unde plerique Chemiae\nvaledicunt et prorsus contradicunt, ut ad s\u00f3litas commessationes et compotationes\nliberius rederant, frontemque cum vulgo exporrigant.\"\nIbid.\nIbid.\u00b7. \"Noctuae ova comesta earn vim habere traduntur (quod scire, ad sequentia\nintelligenda non inutile) ut abstemium reddant, atque ita quasi sapientiam et sobrietatem,\nvini sublato desiderio, ea comedenti instillent et inducant.\"\n\nPages 147:\n138\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nupon him: although he may be \"a brigand worthy of hemlock,\" the \"cure of\nthe pharmacist\" has already rendered the appropriate remedy, and he is told\nto leave in order to avoid a harsher fate. 87 Given the unpleasant effects of\nMaier's medicine, the double meaning of pharmacus as 'pharmacist' and\n'poisoner' cannot go unnoticed here.\nIn describing the second class of the detractors of chemia - those who are\nlearned, but are nevertheless ignorant of the truth of chemia, represented by\nthe Parrot, Nightingale and Crane - Maier seems to make oblique reference\nto the Scholastic ethos, which to his mind is founded upon the reiteration of\nreceived wisdom without recourse to empirical data. Thus the Parrot is\n\"erudite enough in the arts and sciences of other learned men,\" but argues\nthat the study of chemia distracts the mind from more useful and fruitful\nprofessions such as medicine and law.88 Similarly, the Nightingale attempts\nto beguile the court with harmonious speech alone, as she is the most\neloquent of the birds. In her judgment the Phoenix advises the Nightingale\nthat those proficient in chemia have brought their speech and their hearts into\naccord - \"as musical harmonies ought to be present in the voice, so also\nshould they be present in the heart, and no tone is dissonant in the thread of\nlife itself.\" 89 It was this pansophic theme that Maier brought to its fullest\nexpression in his Atalanta Fugiens, in which the truths of chemia and the\nharmony of the spheres are expressed in the form of Maier's (not always\nharmonious) fugues.\nThe words of the Jocus Severus and its preface show us precisely the\nmanner in which Maier approached the Rosicrucian 'furore' that was raging\naround him on his return from England. Whilst he found himself in accord\nwith both the religious and the scientific sentiments of the manifestos, a work\nthat had been written without the 'Fraternity' in mind immediately became\nthe means by which he could define the 'Brethren' as men who value chemia\nas \"the most precious good in all the world after the Word of God.\" 90 Their\nlabour is his labour: to procure \"the most exquisite means of preserving\n87\n88\n89\n90\nIbid., p. 28: \"Qui non virus atrox ovis, sed pharmaci medelam/ Latro bibisti, dignior\ncicuta:/ Ne crimen regeratur, abi, ne morte praeoccuperis,/ Inferre noli funus innocenti.\"\nIbid., p. 51: \"Sub nomine actoris, viri alias docti et in reliquis artibus et scientiis satis\neruditi, licet cum vulgo hac parte consentientis. Cuius argumentum est: Quod Studium\nChemiae avocet animum a magis utilibus et frugiferis scientiis, quales sunt Medicina,\nIurisprudentia aut aliae de pane lucrando. Cum econtra Chemica ars sit sterilis et inanis,\ndelitamentis phantasticorum hominum plena, qui earn ad otiosorum ingenia exercenda,\ncupiditatemque magna spe auri proposita explendam, manuum labore et sumptuum\ntemporisque interpositione, inventam et introductam voluerunt.\"\nIbid., p. 35: \"Voce concordes ut adesse debent/ Musici, sic sint quoque corde, non est/\nDissonane ullus tonus ac in ipso Stamine vitae.\"\nIbid., p. 10.\n\nPages 148:\nAn invitation to Rosicrucians\n139\nhealth and restoring health which is lost.\"91 Although the manifestos already\npossessed an alchemical bent, they became the receptacle for Maier's own\nanti-social, elitist and secretive alchemical predilections: thus the anonymity\nmaintained by the Brethren is a sign that they are unwilling to 'prostitute'\ntheir knowledge of chemia to the masses. 92 Maier's interpretation of the\nprogramme of the manifestos is less an attempt to narrow its scope, and more\nto widen the scope of chemia, an Art which deals with the \"great things of\nGod\" once alluded to in the Hymnosophia.\n5. An invitation to Rosicrucians, wherever they may lie hidden\nThe second work in which Maier devoted some attention to the Rosicrucian\nBrotherhood was his Symbola Aureae Mensae ('Symbols of the Golden\nTable,' 1617); the dedication, directed to Count Ernst III of HolsteinSchauenburg, is dated December 1616 at Frankfurt am Main. This lengthy\nwork, sometimes considered to be Maier's magnum opus, is a defence and\nlegitimisation of the alchemical tradition with reference to the practitioners of\ntwelve nations - Hermes Trismegistus of the Egyptians, Maria Prophetissa of\nthe Jews, Democritus of the Greeks, Morienus of the Romans, Avicenna of\nthe Arabs, Albertus Magnus of the Germans, Arnoldus de Villanova of the\nFrench, Thomas Aquinas of the Italians, Raymond Lull of the Spanish, Roger\nBacon of the English, Melchior Cibinensis of the Hungarians, and an\nanonymous author from Sarmatia, figurehead of the Slavic practitioners. As\nin the Jocus Severus, Maier places his protagonists within an allegorical\narena of debate - in this case a banquet held in honour of the Virgin Queen\nChemia. The distinguished alchemists preside at a circular banquet table,\nformed \"in the image of the world,\" and composed of two semi-circles, one\nred and one snow-white, the colours of the sun (gold) and moon (silver) - a\n'hieroglyph' to warn the guests of the legitimacy of the alchemical work in\nquestion, and that no \"colour-changing chameleon\" can possibly imitate the\ncolours of the true alchemical phases.93 However, also presiding at the table\nis the troublesome guest Pyrgopolynices, the braggart centurion from the\nMiles Gloriosus of Plautus; in Maier's work he represents Queen Chemia's\nadversary, whose objections to her laws are at each opportunity refuted\n9\n'\n92\n93\nIbid.\nIbid.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 3: \"Erat autem mensa haec instar Orbis rotunda, ex\nduabus Hemicycliis compacta, quarum una ruberrimi coloris, altera nivei visa est;\nnullam aliam ob causam, quam ut hoc quasi Hieroglyphico Convivae assidentes admonerentur, hos inprimis colores esse veros et leg\u00edtimos, Lunae et Solis proprios, quos\nChamaeleon versipellis nullo modo imitari aut exprimere possit.\"\n\nPages 149:\n140\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nsuccinctly by the gathered alchemists. And whilst the phoenix was the chief\njudge of the avian court in the Jocus Severus, in his dedication Maier invites\nCount Ernst himself to act as arbiter of the dispute.94\nAccording to Waite, Maier's Symbola Aureae Mensae marks the first\nusage of the denomination Collegium Philosophorum Germanorum de\nR. '. C. '., or 'College of German Philosophers R.\u00c9. C . . ', which was propagated\nin the nineteenth century amongst certain esoteric initiatory societies.95 The\npassage in the Symbola Aureae Mensae concerning the Rosicrucian Brethren\noccurs in the midst of the sixth chapter, which is dedicated to the German\nalchemists, and in particular to the great German scientist and theologian\nAlbertus Magnus (c.1200-1280), who is said by Maier to have \"produced the\nphoenix,\" and was moreover the first to perfect the Art after the Arabs. 96 In\nthe course of this chapter Maier launches into a nineteen-page discourse on\nthe subject of the Brethren, which is placed within the wider context of the\ntransmission of the alchemical Art from the Arabs to the Germans. In so\ndoing he establishes not only alchemy but Rosicrucianism itself as the heir of\nthe wisdom of the great Egyptian sage, Hermes Trismegistus.\nWhilst discussing Paracelsus as a compatriot of Albertus, Maier states\nthat the \"hitherto unknown\" Brethren have given favourable testimony\nconcerning this man - a reference to the Fama Fraternitatis, in which it is\nstated that although he led a free and careless life and preferred to mock\nrather than peaceably confer with his peers, Paracelsus had nevertheless\ndiligently read the Fraternity's treasured work, the Liber M..91 Using this\nreference as a bridge to the topic of Rosicrucianism, Maier describes how the\nBrethren profess 'occult medicine' and the operation of 'astral properties' properties to which he, too, has recourse in his work. 98 He goes on to present\ntwo of his chief arguments for the Fraternity's reality and legitimacy:\nSince indeed we may recall that in ancient times there were instituted diverse and solemn\nphilosophical colleges by experts in the Art of chymia, would it not be marvellous if this\nkind of college should at some time have come to pass in our most populous German\nnation, which has been divided into so many peoples and regions? For as [these Brethren],\nbeing authors of truth, and having obtained the goals of the Art by their own faculty of\ninv\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 132 to page 149 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=144\nPages: 144\nhe considers himself to be a member of that Order of German Blood' which\nis ushering in the new age. As once the wise men of Athens worked under the\nfigure of the Owl, so in Maier's time the \"true investigators of Nature, known\nand unknown\" are denoted by that same hieroglyph; 79 and amongst these true\nscientists are numbered not only the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, but Maier\nhimself. For the Jocus Severus is a game that he plays in the nocturnal hours,\nin order to \"escape the silence of Vulcan's work\" and to \"obey his soul,\"\nrather than for the purpose of publishing his knowledge and exposing it to the\ncommon folk. 80 Thus we can envisage Maier patiently sitting before the\nfurnace in the late hours of the night, scratching at a manuscript with his quill\npen whilst the chemical processes within the vessel take their course. In\ndefence of such a nocturnal lifestyle, Maier invokes the authority of\nAvicenna, who writes in his commentary on Aristotle's De Anima\u00b7.\n75\n76\n77\n78\n79\n80]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=140\nPages: 140\nalso in promoting the myth of Christian Rosenkreutz as historical fact? In\norder to understand Mai er's relationship to Rosicrucianism, it is necessary\nto approach his Rosicrucian works in strict chronological order, as they demonstrate the development of his response to the affair from one of initial\ndisinterest, through the issuing of tentative rejoinders to the Rosicrucian\nprogramme in his Jocus Severus (1616) and Symbola Aureae Mensae (1617),\nto a role as chief apologist for the Order through the publication of his\nSilentium post Clamores (1617) and Themis Aurea (1618).\n4. The serious jest\nGiven that anyone assenting in print to the programme of the manifestos or\ntaking up the defence of the Order might be said to belong to this virtual\n'Brotherhood', Maier's first genuinely Rosicrucian work is the Jocus Severus\n(1617). There is in fact a record of the Jocus Severus in a flyer produced for\nthe Frankfurt Book Fair by Maier's publisher, Johann Theodor de Bry; and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=141\nPages: 141,142\nprotagonists enact a very real and 'serious' controversy; the Rosicrucian\n67\n68\n69\nYates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, pp. 81, 84.\nMaier, Jocus Severus, p. 12.\nTrunz, Erich. Wissenschaft und Kunst im Kreise\nNeum\u00fcnster: Karl Wachholtz Verlag, 1992, p. 90.\nKaiser\nRudolfs\nII.\n1576-1612.\nThe serious jest\n133\nmanifestos could also be said to present such a mythic arena to the reader,\nalthough there the ambiguous character of the protagonists - the Brethren blurs the lines between literary symbol and referent. In his foreword to the\nJocus Severus Maier superimposes the 'Rosicrucian' arena onto that of his\nown work; in accordance with the emphasis on alchemy given in Maier's\nreading of the Rosicrucian manifestos, we are told that the symbol of the Owl\nrepresents not merely the true chymists of Germany, but specifically the\nBrethren of the Rosy Cross - who are, to his mind, primarily concerned with\nthe Art of chemia and the production of the Universal Medicine. Hence the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=139\nPages: 139\na Hermetic Protestant ideology. In light of this fact, Waite's misleading\nalternatives of a 'mythic' or a 'real' Fraternity do not hold. This Rosicrucian\n'Brotherhood' was not merely a ludibrium, i.e. a 'jest' or 'game', as Andreae\nwas later to describe it; to borrow the title of Michael Maier's first\n'Rosicrucian' work, the Jocus Severus, it was a very 'serious jest'.\nThat the tale of the opening of the tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz draws\nfrom alchemical allegory should have been clear enough to anyone as well\nversed in the alchemical literature as Maier.62 We need only mention the\nfact that the discovery of the sepulchre and the Book I. held to the chest of\nChristian Rosenkreutz bears a close resemblance to the tale given in the\nTabula Smaragdina, in which the Emerald Tablet is said to have been found\nclasped in the hands of Hermes as he lay in state in his tomb. 63 Furthermore,\nMaier followed the lead of Andreae when composing his Allegoria Bella, in]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=141\nPages: 141\nthe main body of the Jocus Severus, which fact suggests that the\n'Rosicrucian' preface was appended after the encounter with the manifestos\nat the Frankfurt Book Fair of October 1616 to a work which had been\ncomposed before that time. 68 The main text is a rather charming satirical\nfable in which, according to Trunz, Maier shows himself as \"a playful master\nof Latin verse forms.\" 69 In its frequent references to the Satires of Juvenalis,\nand in its recourse to curious zoological data, drawn in large part from\nPliny's Historia Naturalis, this work shows marked similarities to Maier's\nLusus Serius (1616), in which Mercury is crowned king of an assembly of\nanimals, plants and minerals beneficial to humanity. The Jocus Severus takes\nthe form of a court of judgment upon the bird of wisdom sacred to Pallas\nAthena, the Owl - in this instance embodying chemia as the highest science.\nThe Owl stands accused of a number of misdemeanours by an assembly of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=140\nPages: 140\nthe Frankfurt Book Fair by Maier's publisher, Johann Theodor de Bry; and\nwhilst the date given at the head of the flyer (1609) might again provide\nevidence for Maier's earlier acquaintance with the Rosicrucian phenomenon\n(and indeed for an earlier genesis of Rosicrucianism itself), Maier's work is\nin fact a later addition by the printer to a list composed in 1609 and used at\nsubsequent fairs. 65 Such are the obstacles that obscure a clear perspective on\nthis subject.\nMaier confesses that the Jocus Severus was written hurriedly; indeed, he\nwrote \"six or seven chemical treatises\" with a \"hot quill\" whilst lying ill in\nFrankfurt am Main, which were \"inspired more by the small payment which I\nreceived for them rather than by the improvement and perfection of the works\nthemselves.\" 66 Given that all these treatises were either in print or at the\nprinters by October of 1617, then we must count amongst them not only the\nJocus Severus, but also the Atalanta Fugiens (1617), De Circulo Physico,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=141\nPages: 141\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\n(1617). If we are to take Maier by his word, then this is a remarkable\nachievement (even if work on some of the texts had been started in England,\nas Figala and Neumann suggest); moreover, the fact that their publication\nwas specifically intended to raise money for the abandoned journey to Prague\ngives us some insight into the source of their enduring popularity. In any\ncase, Maier's financial difficulties at this time cast further doubt on Yates'\ncontention that the reference in the Jocus Severus to a planned journey to\nBohemia is further evidence of Maier's service within a nascent AngloGerman-Bohemian political and military alliance.67 Rather, it seems more\nlikely that he simply hoped to find a livelihood there with the help of his\nformer colleagues.\nThere are no explicit references to the Brethren of the Rosy Cross within\nthe main body of the Jocus Severus, which fact suggests that the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=121\nPages: 121,122\nknowledge may once have been held by his English forerunners, something\nwas lost in the translation.\nIV. The Rosicrucian 'imposture'\n1. Illness and a chance encounter\nMaier returned to Germany in the summer of 1616, as we may gather from\nthe preface to the Jo cus Severus written in Frankfurt am Main in September\nof that year. He had initially planned to journey once more to Prague, but due\nto a grave and chronic illness he was waylaid in Frankfurt and could travel no\nfurther. In a letter of supplication to Johann Hartmann Beyer (the dedicatee of\nhis Tripus Aureus) he identifies this illness as the quartan, the fever of the\nmelancholic, and speaks of the adversities he has faced living in foreign\nclimes whilst suffering \"in body and soul.\"1 Beyer (1563-1625) was not\nonly the Stadtarzt of Frankfurt, but also an important publisher of medical\ntracts, and the term of address utilised by Maier in the course of his letter]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=267\nPages: 267\nsuccincte refutatorum. Frankfurt am Main: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1617.\nHymnosophia, seu Meditatio Laudis Divinae, pro Coelidonia, Medicina mystica, voarchadumica etc. Prague: n.p., n.d.\nJocus Severus, hoc est, Tribunal aequum, quo noctua regina avium, Phoenice arbitro,\npost varias disceptationes et querelas volucrum earn infestantium pronunciatur. Frankfurt\nam Main: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1617.\nLusus Serius, quo Hermes sive Mercurius rex mundanorum omnium sub hom\u00ecne\nexistentium, post longam disceptationem in concilio octovirali habitam, homine rationali\narbitro, judicatus et constitutus est. Oppenheim: Lucas Jennis, 1616.\nSeptimana Philosophica, qua aenigmata aureola de omni naturae genere a Salomone\nIsra\u00eblitarum sapientissimo rege, et Arabiae regina Saba, nec non Hyramo, Tyri principe,\nsibi invicem in modum colloquii proponuntur et enodantur: ubi passim novae, at verae,\ncum ratione et experientia convenientes, rerum naturalium causae exponuntur et]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=147\nPages: 147\nexpression in his Atalanta Fugiens, in which the truths of chemia and the\nharmony of the spheres are expressed in the form of Maier's (not always\nharmonious) fugues.\nThe words of the Jocus Severus and its preface show us precisely the\nmanner in which Maier approached the Rosicrucian 'furore' that was raging\naround him on his return from England. Whilst he found himself in accord\nwith both the religious and the scientific sentiments of the manifestos, a work\nthat had been written without the 'Fraternity' in mind immediately became\nthe means by which he could define the 'Brethren' as men who value chemia\nas \"the most precious good in all the world after the Word of God.\" 90 Their\nlabour is his labour: to procure \"the most exquisite means of preserving\n87\n88\n89\n90\nIbid., p. 28: \"Qui non virus atrox ovis, sed pharmaci medelam/ Latro bibisti, dignior\ncicuta:/ Ne crimen regeratur, abi, ne morte praeoccuperis,/ Inferre noli funus innocenti.\"]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=144\nPages: 144,145\nAvicenna, who writes in his commentary on Aristotle's De Anima\u00b7.\n75\n76\n77\n78\n79\n80\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 75.\nSchmidt-Biggemann, Wilhelm. Philosophia Perennisi Historische Umrisse abendl\u00e4ndischer Spiritualit\u00e4t in Antike, Mittelalter und Fr\u00fcher Neuzeit. Frankfurt am Main:\nSuhrkamp Verlag, 1998, pp. 593 ff. The tradition reflects the centrality of the number 7\nin Revelations - the opening of the seventh seal upon the Day of Judgment, the trumpetcall of the seventh angel announcing the fulfilment of the Mystery of God, etc.\nSee Roberts, The Mirror of Alchemy, p. 56.\nKooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, p. 73.\nMaier, Jocus Severus, p. 5.\nIbid., p. 3: \"En tibi iterum, candide lector, locum Severum insinuo, quem aliquando\nnocturnis horis ad vulcanias operas potius ad fallendum silentii illius moras, animoque\nobtemperandum meo, lusi, quam, ut vulgo ederetur, perfeci.\"\n136\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture']","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=98\nPages: 98\nHeidelberg suggests he opportunistically attached himself to Friedrich's\nretinue upon his arrival in England, and not before.\n79\nMaier, Michael. Lusus Serius, quo Hermes sive Mercurius rex mundanorum omnium sub\nhom\u00ecne existentium post longam disceptationem,\nin Consilio octovirali habitant,\nhomine\nrationali arbitro, judicatus et constitutus est. Oppenheim: Lucas Jennis, 1616.\n80\nIbid., p. 3: \"Dn. Jacobo Mosano Illustriss. Mauritii Hassiae Landgravii, Archiatro\ndigniori. Dn. Christiano Rumphio Electorali Palatino ad Rhenum Med. ordinario\ncircumspecto. Singulis Medicinae Doctoribus sagacissimis, Chymicis expertissimis et\namicis meis jucundissimis, tanquam trino Charitum vinculo, doctrinae rarioris scrinio et\nhumanitatis singularis sacello, D. D. D. Michael Majerus Med. D. C. Pal.\"\n81\nMaier, Michael. Jocus Severus, hoc est, Tribunal aequum, quo noctua regina avium,\nPhoenice arbitro, post varias disceptationes\net querelas volucrum earn\ninfestantium\npronunciatur.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=144\nPages: 144,145\nobtemperandum meo, lusi, quam, ut vulgo ederetur, perfeci.\"\n136\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nI have learnt all this by frequent reading, little sleep, little food and less drinking; and as\nmuch money as my colleagues spent during the daytime in order to have wine at night, so\nmuch did I spend for oil to stay awake and read; and as much as they have spent in eating by\nnight, I have spent more for the light necessary to stay awake and learn: and unless I do this,\n1 will not have skill in the magistery. 81\nThus only the pious are afforded the secrets of the Great Work, whilst those\nwho revel in the pleasures of the senses will surely fail. As the Owl might\nbe said to represent Maier's self-understanding as an alchemist - and by\nassociation, his understanding of the Fraternity - so those birds arrayed\nagainst the Owl in the Jocus Severus represent his own detractors. These\ndetractors, who bestow insults upon chemia and defame her with clamorous]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=144\nPages: 144,143\nyourself, but the Highest hastens on behalf of many. Did not the souls of the righteous in\ntheir chambers ask about these matters, saying, 'How long are we to remain here? And\nwhen will come the harvest of our reward?' And Jeremiel the archangel answered them\nand said, 'When the number of those like yourselves is completed; for he has weighed\nthe age in the balance, and measured the times by measure, and numbered the times by\nnumber; and he will not move or arouse them until that measure is fulfilled.'\"\n74\nThe serious jest\n135\nrepresenting the six millennia of the world, and Luther is portrayed as the\nherald of the end-time. 75 It may be pertinent to add that the conception of 'the\nLord's Sabbath' also hearkens to the medieval and early modern tradition of\nseven ages of the world corresponding to the seven days of Creation in\nGenesis, derived from the De Temporum Ratione of the Venerable Bede\n(673-735), who in his turn elaborated upon the world chronology of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=140\nPages: 140,141\nJocus Severus, but also the Atalanta Fugiens (1617), De Circulo Physico,\nQuadrato (1616), Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum (1617), Lusus\nSerius (1616), Silentium post Clamores (1617) and Symbola Aureae Mensae\n65\n66\nProf. Karin Figala and Dr. Ulrich Neumann of Technische Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen brought\nmy attention to this perplexing document.\nFrankfurt am Main, Stadt- und Universit\u00e4tsbibliothek, MS Ff. J. H. Beyer \u0391. 161, p. 207\nverso: \"Atque sic aeger plaerumque haerens lecto nonnulla commentatus sum, ad\nChymiam spectantia (quorum quaedam proelo subjecta sunt, quaedam subiicienda ab\naliis reservantis ad pr\u00f3ximas nundinas) lucei la, quod inde evenit, magis incitatus, quam\nmaturitate et emendatione ipsorum opusculorum: Tractatus itaque chymicos 6 vel 7\ncalente calamo deproperavi, sperans me hac via, tantum lucraturum, quo in locum\npraefixum commode transmearem.\"\n132\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\n(1617). If we are to take Maier by his word, then this is a remarkable]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=145\nPages: 145,146\nalterius praeiudicio de Chemia, in qua ne tantillum expertas est, iudicat. Argumentum\neius est, Chemiam esse vanam et frivolam, odioque dignam censendam, quia sic\niudicarint nostri maiores sapientia longe excellentissimi: Sunt autem cornices, (hoc est\neiusmodi illiberales et impoliti censores) noctuae inprimis inimicae, adeo ut sibi invicem\nova suffurentur: Inauspicatae quoque sunt garrulitatis.\"\n83\nIbid., p. 17: \"Nil data verba iuvant, quae replent aera bombo,/ Corpora si luci dempseris,\numbra perit./ Si nihil irarum furias, quam caeca parentum/ Consuetudo docet te\nsobolemque tuam:/ Falleris et rationis eges, virtutis et aequi,/ Si quod erit patrium, ne tibi\nsume, scelus.\"\nThe serious jest\n137\nThe judgment having been passed, the little Crow plods away with a slow\nand gloomy step. In this passage Maier again associates blind emotion,\nstemming from a want of reason, with the masses - an association that, as\nwe have seen in our second chapter, has a special significance for his own]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=251\nPages: 251\ncome to perceive this Art as an empty mockery, or curse all chymists as fraudulent. 3 3\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\nWaite, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, pp. 329, 386; according to Heisler, there is an\nEnglish manuscript translation of portions of the Themis Aurea dating to 1623.\nMaier, Michael. Lusus Serius, or, Serious Passe-time. A Philosophical\nDiscourse\nconcerning the Superiority of Creatures under Man. London: Moseley and Heath, 1654.\nMaier, The Flying Atalanta, is held by the British Library; Yale University Library\nhouses Atalanta Running, that is, New Chymicall Emblems relating to the Secrets of\nNature. Yale University Library, MS 48; this latter work may have been a rough draft for\na planned English edition that never emerged.\nMorhof, D. G. De Metallorum Transmutatione, ad Virum Nobilissimum et Amplissimum\nJoelem Langelottum, Serenissimi Principis Cimbrici Archiatrum Celeberrimum,\nEpistola.\nHamburg: Ex Officina Gothofredi Schultzen, 1673, p. 83.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=40\nPages: 40\nPoimandres.m Most early modern allegories demonstrate a similar intent to\nthat of their medieval and ancient counterparts, being mere tropes for natural\nphilosophical conceptions and laboratory procedure rather than consciously\nconstructed allusions to self-transformation. 129 Such may also be said for\nautografo della Bugia. Rome: Editrice lamia, 1986, p. 90; the manuscript in question is\nin the Vatican Library, MS Reginensis Latini 1521. Research is also said to be pending\non certain 'statutes and articles' dating to 1678 and relating to an Italian 'Gold and Rosy\nCross'; kind information of Susanna \u00c2kerman.\n126\nGrasshoff, \"G\u00fcldener Tractat,\" p. 17; Maier, Michael. Symbola\nDuodecim Nationum. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1617.\n127\nGrasshoff, \"G\u00fcldener Tractat,\" p. 55.\nAureae\nMensae\n128 p o r t ij e D u e n e c h allegory, see the Theatrum Chemicum. Vol. 3. Ursel: Zetzner, 1602, pp.\n756-757; for the allegory of Maria, see \"Practica Mariae Prophetissae in Artem]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=277\nPages: 277\nde Rola, Stanislas Klossowski. The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth\nCentury. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1988.\nDebus, Allen G. \"Chemists, Physicians, and Changing Perspectives on the Scientific\nRevolution,\" History of Science Society Distinguished Lecture, Isis, Vol. 89, No.l,\nMarch 1998, pp. 66-81.\n\u2014 The English \u03a1aracelsians. London: Oldbourne, 1965.\nDictionary of National Biography. Vol. 1. London: Smith and Elder, 1885.\nDobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. \"Newton's Commentary on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes\nTrismegistus: its Scientific and Theological Significance.\" In Merkel, Ingrid and Allen G.\nDebus (eds.). Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in\nEarly Modern Europe. Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1988, pp. 182-191.\n\u2014 The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.\nEco, Umberto. Das Foucaultsche Pendel. M\u00fcnchen: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1989.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=272\nPages: 272\nContenant Plusieurs Maximes pernicieuses \u00e0 \u0393Est\u00e2t, \u00e0 la Religion, et aux bonnes\nMoeurs. Combattue et Renversee par le P. Fran\u00e7ois Garassus de la Compagnie de\nJESUS. Paris: Sebastien Chappelet, 1623.\nGoethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Poetry and Truth. Vol. 1. Trans. Minna Smith. London: G.\nBell & Sons Ltd., 1911.\nGrasshoff, Johannes. Aperta Arca Arcani Artificiosissimi. Frankfurt am Main: Johan Carl\nUnckel, 1617.\n\u2014 \"Ein g\u00fcldener Tractat vom Philosophischen Steine.\" In Geheime Figuren der\nRosenkreuzer aus dem l\u00f6ten und 17ten Jahrhundert. Vol. 2. Altona: n.p., c. 1785-1790.\n\u2014 \"Ein g\u00fcldener Tractat vom Philosophischen Steine.\" In Dyas Chymica Tripartita.\nFrankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1625, pp. 55-66.\nGreverus, Iodocus. \"Secretum Nobilissimum et Verissimum.\" In Theatrum Chemicum.\nUrsel: Zetzner, 1602, pp. 783-810.\nGrick, Friedrich (Irenaeus Agnostus). Prodromus Fr. R. C. Das ist: Ein Vorgeschmack und\nbeyl\u00e4uffige Anzeig der grossen au\u00dff\u00fchrlichen Apologi \u03b5\u03b9\u03c3 \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, welche]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=65\nPages: 65\nprocess itself. Maier's clearest remarks on this matter are given in the\naforementioned Allegoria Bella, in which he makes a mythical peregrination\nthrough the four known continents (each representing a part of the human\nbody) to the 'heart' of the world, Egypt. He justifies this great journey with\nreference to a divinely instituted natural order:\nFor we are all strangers in this world, indeed even in our own native land: from which\nplace we migrate at length to those aethereal, most resplendent heavenly homes, to which\nour Saviour who has gone before invites and leads us. I might look to the swallow, the\nmessenger of spring, to the crane, the stork, and many other birds, and see how every year at\nfixed times they travel by instinct and set patterns through the air to unknown regions of\nNature; for in this way they set an example and model of peregrination through the regions\nof the world to man, lest he should grow old amidst the smoke and dung of the house altar.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=152\nPages: 152\nprincipibus in minori authoritate et precio est habitus, dum Saturni morositate et Maitis\ncholera seu iracundia fuerit taxatus: Ipse igitur aut mori aut curari voluit, si id possibile\nsit.\" Maier explains the allegory in terms of the purification of both human and metallic\nbodies.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 289: \"Authoris cum morbo (uti convivarum cum\nPyrgopolynice, conflictu) quarto quoque die.\"\n105\nIbid., p. 291: \"Denique nostri conatus ad Minervae Aenigmata, prout ilia in mentem\nmanumque venerint, eidem Collegio Germanico studiose, ceu philothesia in Saturnalibus\npropinamus hoc est, discumbentes inservientibus pro temporis ratione.\"\n106\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, epigram 4: \"Non hominum foret in mundo nunc tanta\npropago,/ Si fratti conjunx non data prima soror./ Ergo lubens conjunge duos ab utroque\nparente/ Progenitos ut sint foemina masque toro./ Praebibe nectareo Philothesia pocla\nliquore/ Utrisque, et foetus spem generabit amor.\" In the German translation of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=233\nPages: 233,234\ndefunctus, quamvis revera mortuus non sim, sed fama, ut semper, vegetus et superstes.\"\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n225\nconcerning its whereabouts. 162 Having crossed to the mainland of Persia he\ntravels by road until he comes to a fork in the way, where there stands a\nstatue of Mercury; like the \"man of silver who becomes a man of gold\" in the\nVisions of Zosimos, his body is made of silver and his head is golden, and\nwith his right arm he gestures towards the 'earthly paradise' which Maier\nseeks.163 Setting forth in this direction, Maier reaches a broad river - on the\nother shore lies a magnificent garden replete with the sound of birds, exotic\nfragrances, evergreen trees and flowers such as amaranths, lilies, roses and\nhyacinths. The parallels between the peregrination of the Allegoria Bella and\nMaier's own biography are demonstrated here when Maier also tells us he\ncould see an organ in the Edenic garden driven by a water-wheel and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=234\nPages: 234\nNevertheless, in Maier's failure to reach his goal we may also see a very\nChristian allusion to the afterlife awaiting us when our earthly toils are at an\nend. Although the divine law of death and resurrection is to be observed in\nthe microcosm of the vessel, and the elixir vitae Maier sought to procure\npartakes of the divine nature and power in some lesser measure, we have seen\nthat Maier believed eternal life can ultimately be found only through our\ndeparture from this life. Thus the Edenic symbolism of the Allegoria Bella\nrecalls the passage in 1 Corinthians to which Maier alludes when describing\nthe Rosicrucian Brotherhood's Liber M. in the third chapter of the Themis\n162\n163\nIbid., pp. 591-592.\nIbid., p. 592; see Taylor, \"The Visions of Zosimos.\" A representation of the Work as a\nhuman figure with a golden head is to be found in the sixth parable and emblem of the\nSplendor Solis.\n164\nIbid., p. 593: \"Nec defuit Musica arte Instrumentalis, quae facta erat cum rota suis clavis]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=94\nPages: 94\nThe most secret of secrets\n85\nThis short account should serve as an example of the method Maier\napplies to a myriad of myths in the course of the Arcana Arcanissima, from\nthe labours of Herakles to the perennial favourite of alchemists in the\nseventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the quest for the Golden Fleece. The\nfact that Maier speaks of Osiris and Isis as sun and moon deities65 serves as a\nreminder to us that the pre-Hellenistic form of Egyptian mythology and\nmagical ritual was almost entirely unknown to Maier's time - as does one of\nthe more peculiar examples of Maier's rationalising approach to myth and\nhieroglyph given in the Septimana Philosophica, in which he does not speak\nof the ibis as the bird sacred to Thoth, but rather claims it was used by the\nEgyptians for the procurement of enemas on account of its long hollow\nbeak. 66 Not surprisingly, Maier's faith never allows him to allegorise\nChristian mythology in a similar fashion; rather, the truths revealed by the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=40\nPages: 40\nPoimandres.m Most early modern allegories demonstrate a similar intent to\nthat of their medieval and ancient counterparts, being mere tropes for natural\nphilosophical conceptions and laboratory procedure rather than consciously\nconstructed allusions to self-transformation. 129 Such may also be said for\nautografo della Bugia. Rome: Editrice lamia, 1986, p. 90; the manuscript in question is\nin the Vatican Library, MS Reginensis Latini 1521. Research is also said to be pending\non certain 'statutes and articles' dating to 1678 and relating to an Italian 'Gold and Rosy\nCross'; kind information of Susanna \u00c2kerman.\n126\nGrasshoff, \"G\u00fcldener Tractat,\" p. 17; Maier, Michael. Symbola\nDuodecim Nationum. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1617.\n127\nGrasshoff, \"G\u00fcldener Tractat,\" p. 55.\nAureae\nMensae\n128 p o r t ij e D u e n e c h allegory, see the Theatrum Chemicum. Vol. 3. Ursel: Zetzner, 1602, pp.\n756-757; for the allegory of Maria, see \"Practica Mariae Prophetissae in Artem]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=225\nPages: 225\nsymbolises seven stages of the alchemical work, whilst the wedding itself\ndenotes the perfection of the opus through the union of Mercury and\nSulphur. 127 As we have mentioned, Maier's Allegoria Bella is constructed in\na very similar fashion, portraying the alchemical process as the author's\npilgrimage through four continents in search of the phoenix, the feathers of\nwhich constitute a cure for \"anger and grief.\" However, given Maier's own\nunsettled life of roaming it is clear that this allegorical pilgrimage was not\ncomposed merely as a didactic analogy for the laboratory work; Maier tells\nus at the outset that he himself was \"destined to imitate the natural\nprogression of elements,\" which tend from density to subtlety - that is to say,\nthe pattern of elemental transmutation described in Aristotle's De\nGeneratione et Corruptione to which we have referred. 128 Thus he begins his\nquest in Europe (earth), travels through America (water) to Asia (air) and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=152\nPages: 152\nwas offered up to the table guests during the Saturnalia.105 Although the word\nphilothesia is not to be found in any of the major Latin lexicons, from\nanother reference to this term made by Maier in the fourth epigram of the\nAtalanta Fugiens we may identify it as a love potion (figure 18).106\n103\n104\nSee \"The Allegory of Merlin.\" British Library, MS Sloane 3506, pp. 74-75; also\n\"Merlini Allegoria profundissimum Philosophici Lapidis arcanum perfecte continens.\"\nIn Artis Auriferae. Vol. I. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1610, pp. 252-254. The Duenech\nallegory is to be found in the Theatrum Chemicum. Vol. 3. Ursel: Zetzner, 1602, pp.\n756-757; Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 28: \"Duenech itaque a Pharut in\nLaconicum introducitur, ut ibi sudet, et tertiae concoctionis foeces per poros excernat:\nEst autem hujus regis affectus melancholicus seu atrabilarius, unde omnibus aliis\nprincipibus in minori authoritate et precio est habitus, dum Saturni morositate et Maitis]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=40\nPages: 40\nMaier's Symbola Aureae Mensae Duodecim Nationum (1617). 126 The whole\nis a treatise on alchemical natural philosophy drawn primarily from medieval\nsources, which Grasshoff concludes with the allegorical Parabola in much\nthe same manner that the Allegor\u00eca Bella is presented as the summation of\nMaier's Symbola Aureae Mensae. As in Maier's allegory, Grasshoff begins\nhis Parabola with a melancholic proclamation of the wretchedness of earthly\nlife before setting off on a quest for the Philosophers' Stone - in this case\nsymbolised by the Lion rather than Maier's phoenix. 127 The alchemical\nallegory was much in vogue in the early modern period; authors of that time\ndrew their inspiration from medieval alchemical allegories such as those of\nDuenech, Maria Prophetissa and Merlin, or mimicked the late antique dreamrevelations of the Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos and the Hermetic\nPoimandres.m Most early modern allegories demonstrate a similar intent to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=93\nPages: 93,94\nfacts explicitly, he only reminds us that the \"growth-imparting pudenda\" of\nOsiris are those \"black and useless dregs\" which at first are dissolved and\nconsumed by fire, but thereafter are separated from the body and purified into\nthe most fine and virtuous substance.64\nPersephone, Ceres et Venus alma, et Amores,/ Tritones, Nereus, Tethys, Neptunus et\nipse/ Mercurius, Iuno, Vulcanus, Iupiter et Pan,/ Diana et Phoebus jaculator, sunt Deus\nunus.\"\n62\n63\n64\nIbid., p. 11. Here Maier refers to a Christian cosmogonie tradition slightly pre-dating the\nfamous declaration of John Lightfoot in 1642 that the world was created on September\nthe 17th, 3928 BCE at 9 o'clock in the morning.\nIbid., pp. 95 ff.\nIbid., pp. 12-13: \"Osiris, ut dictum, pro materia artis, ex qua Medicina aurea\ncomponatur, absque omni circuitione habetur; Haec suo sepulchre, hoc est, vasi,\nimposita a Typhone fratre, in multas partes discerpitur; quas post operis absolutionem\nThe most secret of secrets\n85]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=180\nPages: 180\nan allegorical understanding not only of Greek myth, but of central elements\nof the narrative in the Fama Fraternitatis itself.\nIn the discourse on the initials R. C. given in his Themis Aurea, Maier\nstates that the Egyptians possessed two scripts, one profane and commonly\nknown, the other holy and understood by the priests alone. These latter were\nthe hieroglyphs, symbols of deep wisdom; and although popular belief holds\nthat the letters R. C. refer to rosa and crux, they are in fact just such sacred\nsigns serving to cover the mysteries of the Order. 216 Following this statement,\nFigala and Neumann have suggested an interpretation of the letters as res\nchymicae; but although this interpretation is ingenious and fully in accord\nwith Maier's ethos, it may be futile to attempt to discover one final, definitive\nphrase to which Maier adhered.217 Thus we have seen that Maier gave the\ninitials the significance of 'the sea' and 'the sublime laws of a fortress' in the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=238\nPages: 238,239\npp. 19-20.\n230\nThe completion of the work\nsignifies the heavens, and that the seven mouths of the Nile refer to the seven\nplanets; the Canopic mouth answers to the highest of the planets, Saturn, and\nas Mercury is his grandson Maier is told to look for him in another mouth of\nthe Nile. 176 Given the correspondence of the planets to the metals, this\nallusion shows the reader of the Allegoria Bella that Maier's passage through\nthe delta is akin to the progress of metallic development in the womb of the\nearth, and that Maier has begun his journey at Saturn or lead - which as\nRhazes stated is the \"first gate to the arcana.\" 177\nNevertheless, upon searching all the other mouths of the Nile - the\nBolbitic, Sebbenitic, Pelusian, Tanitic, Phanitic and Mendesian - the\ndwelling of the elusive Mercury is nowhere to be found, and the inhabitants\nare equally elusive in their answers to Maier's queries. Whilst the Sibyl had]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=94\nPages: 94\nChristian mythology in a similar fashion; rather, the truths revealed by the\nBible are the referent to which pagan teachings ultimately point.67 Thus\nMaier refers in the concluding remarks of the Arcana Arcanissima to Christ\nIsis colligit et unit, sulfure combustibili segregato; Atque sic collectio partium Osiridis\nab Iside institu\u00eda, est eiusdem operis reiteratio, quae eo usque contingit, donec Typhonis\nvirtus extincta sit, et in eius locum Anima Osiridis sat ardens successerit adeo, ut matrem\nIsidem, seu coniugem, seu sororem amantissimam facilime ad se convertat; quae est\nultima perfectio: Typhon quid sit iam ante diximus, nempe spiritus igneus et furiosus,\nqui mox Osiridem nostrum penetret, et in suum colorem rapiat, instar veneni; quod non\nin prima, sed ultima coctione fiaeri debet... Pudendum Osiridis membrum est faex illa\nnigra et inutilis, qua primo quidem incrementum sumpsit, at post solutionem separanda a\ncorpore reliquo mundo et puro.\"\n65\n66\n67\nIbid., p. 2.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=224\nPages: 224\nconstituted the black phase of the work, an impossible task from which the\nfinal release could only be death. Thus in the Atalanta Fugiens Maier clearly\nstates that \"there is nothing that can restore youth to man but death itself,\nwhich is the beginning of eternal life that follows it.\"124 This is the circular\nand paradoxical nature of Maier's spiritual alchemy, which like the\nouroboros devours and emerges out of itself (figure 6).\n6. The phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\nIn concluding our consideration of Maier's life and its relationship to\nhis alchemy, we may turn again to his Allegoria Bella, in which the\ncorrespondence of laboratory process to his own personal odyssey through\nthe world finds its clearest expression. This allegory forms part of the\nconcluding chapter of the Symbola Aureae Mensae (1617); in accordance\nwith his role as 'cook' for the banquet held in honour of 'Queen Chemia', the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=234\nPages: 234\ncould see an organ in the Edenic garden driven by a water-wheel and\nwindsocks, which gave forth wonderful multi-voiced melodies - a device that\nwas very similar to one he once saw near Florence.164 We may take this as\nanother indication that the peregrinatio acad\u00e9mica which Maier undertook\nsome twenty years earlier served as an important experiential source for the\npilgrimage described in the Allegoria Bella, as his only recorded visit to\nFlorence occurred on that journey. 165\nNevertheless, for want of a boat Maier is unable to cross the river to the\nearthly paradise, and so he decides to return to his quest for the phoenix,\nconfident in the knowledge that he will one day come back to this\nmagnificent place. In this passage we may see another reference to the\nsecluded alchemical garden with its roses and lilies - a symbol for the\nperfection of the work, in which things heavenly and earthly coalesce.\nNevertheless, in Maier's failure to reach his goal we may also see a very]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=249\nPages: 249\nprefigured in its Archetype, which is God; before Creation He was like unto\n\"a book rolled up in Himself,\" but by giving birth to the world His mind was\nmade manifest, so that Nature is nothing else but \"the disclosed image of an\noccult Deity.\" 22 In his writings d'Espagnet gives alchemical meanings to\nGreek and Egyptian myth in a style reminiscent of Maier's; he also\nrecommends that those who have not understood the alchemists should\ninspect the writings of Maier on account of their perspicuity:\nPhilosophers do usually expresse themselves more pithily in types and aenigmaticall figures\n(as by a mute kind of speech) then by words; for example, Senior's Table, the allegoricall\nPictures of Rosarius, the Schemes of Abraham Judaeus in Flamellus: of the later sort, the rare\nEmblemes of the most learned Michael Maierus, wherein the mysteries of the Ancients are\nso fully opened, that as new Perspectives they can present antiquated truth, and remote from]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19\nThey are metaphors like the others, and nothing but metaphors, a fact which Arnold and the\nauthors who follow in his tradition explain extremely well, and which also applies to the\nillustrations of such treatises. Nothing allows us to speculate on the religiosity of an author\nwhen he uses a consciously rhetorical process. 4 3\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\nIbid.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 406:\n\"...the historians Barbara Obrist and Robert Halleux have presented detailed arguments\nagainst Jung's interpretation based upon their extensive reading of late medieval and\nRenaissance alchemical texts, indeed, some of the very same figurative texts that Jung\nfound most attractive.\"\nHalleux, Robert. Les Textes Alchimiques. Brepols: Turnhout, 1977, p. 55.\nIbid., pp. 140 ff.\nIbid., p. 142.\nObrist, Les D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie Alchimique, p. 21 : \"Dans les textes attribu\u00e9s \u00e0 Arnaud,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=139\nPages: 139\nMaier followed the lead of Andreae when composing his Allegoria Bella, in\nwhich he travels to Egypt and Arabia in search of the phoenix - a journey to\nthe source of the prisca sapientia which mirrors the phases of the alchemical\nwork in similar fashion to the journey of Christian Rosenkreutz in Andreae's\nChymische Hochzeit:64 Nevertheless, the evidence seems to overwhelmingly\ncontradict the possibility that Maier was aware of the strictly virtual existence\nof the Brethren: for why did he expend such great energy not only in\n62\n63\n64\nIt is pertinent to note that Rosenkreutz's return journey to Germany follows an important\nmedieval conduit of Arabic science into Europe, i.e. via Fez, the intellectual capital of\nthe Moorish empire, into Spain and beyond. In this sense the Fama\nFraternitatis\npresents a parable for the entrance of occult Arabic wisdom into medieval Europe.\nThe tradition that the discoverer was Alexander the Great is given in a tract ascribed to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=273\nPages: 273\nKircher, Athanasius. Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Vol. 2. Rome: Vitalis Mascardi, 1653.\nMaier, Michael. \"A Subtle Allegory concerning the Secrets of Alchemy.\" In The Hermetic\nMuseum, Restored and Enlarged. Trans. Arthur Edward Waite. London: J. Elliott and\nCo., 1893, pp. 199-233.\n\u2014 Intellectual Cantilenae in Nine Triads upon the Resurrection of the Phoenix. Trans. Mike\nDickman. Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks No.25. Glasgow: Magnum Opus\nHermetic Sourceworks, 1997.\n\u2014 Lusus Serius, or, Serious Passe-time. A Philosophical Discourse concerning the\nSuperiority of Creatures under Man. London: Moseley and Heath, 1654.\n\u2014 \"The Flying Atalanta, Or Philosophical Emblems of the Secrets of Nature.\" British\nLibrary, MS Sloane 3645, 17th century, pp. 51-102.\n\u2014 Themis Aurea: The Laws of the Fraternity of the Rosie Crosse. Written in Latin by Count\nMichael Maierus, And now in English for the Information of those who seek after the\nknowledge of that Honourable and mysterious Society of wise and renowned]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=222\nPages: 222\ngustatus, odoratus, tactaus, quam interni, communis, phantasia et memoria: Hi omnes a\nvenefica Circe, seu vitiorum voragine superantur, in bestias mutantur, solo intellectu,\nUlysse, excepto, qui amuleto prestantissimo ad veneficium avertendum usus est: Quid\nmoly sit, flos albus cum radice nigra, hic quaeri posset? Certe est amara dulc\u00eds virtus tam\nintellectu investiganda, quam vol\u00fantate perficienda: Nigram habet radicem et amaram,\nsed flosculum album, amabilem et dulcem: Per angusta n. ad augusta, per laborem ad\ngloriam, per virtutem ad immortale nomen tenditur et pervenitur: De Moly que dicitur, et\nvirtute, idem in Rosario Philosophorum a Gratiano Philosopho asseritur, nempe que sit\nin arte quoddam corpus nobile, que movetur de domino ad dominum, in cujus principio\nerit miseria cum aceto, sed in fine gaudium cum laetitia: Herba ea a radice nigra ad\nflosculum album, a tenebris ad candorem, ab immaturitate ad perfectionem pervenit;]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=246\nPages: 246\nof multimedia, the Atalanta Fugiens, which has been described as \"the\nstrangest, the most beautiful and the most innovative work of esoteric\nalchemy in the seventeenth century.\" 10 Maier has also figured in recent works\nof popular fiction, in which he has been playfully portrayed as the erstwhile\ncorrespondent of John Dee, or the purveyor of an elusive wisdom. 11 Amongst\nProtestant writers of the last century the judgment was mixed; thus Montgomery perceived in Maier's work inclinations towards \"an existential Christ\nmysticism,\" yet the Reverend Craven felt that Maier's desire for \"earthly\nriches\" led him away from \"higher studies.\"12 And in the esoteric circles of\ncontemporary Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, Maier is accepted as an\ninitiate of the mysteries and a representative of the 'Tradition', even if his\nenigmatic style has eluded some writers.13\nThe conception of a Tradition prevalent in contemporary esoteric circles]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=106\nPages: 106\nthe power of transmutation and unlimited increase through fermentation, be\nthat in metals or the human heart.109\nAnother aspect of Maier's appeal to Moritz, who was by all accounts a\nman of formidable humanist learning, was the promise to reveal the\ninnermost secrets of Nature. Thus in his Scala Arcis Philosophicae Maier\ndevotes a great deal of space to the subject of gold as the perfection of\nNature, being formed in the likeness of a circle and containing within itself\nthe opposing elements in equal quantity.110 It was this subject that Maier was\nto expound at length in the printed work he dedicated to Moritz, De Circulo\nPhysico Quadrato ( O n the Squaring of the Natural Circle,' 1616), which we\nadmistionem fermenti, qua virtute per spiritum distributa totam p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e2t massam, et in\nsuam materiam immutai...\"\n107\nde Jong, H. M. E. Michael Maier 's Atalanta Fugiens: Sources of an Alchemical Book of\nEmblems. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969, pp. 17, 155-157.\n108]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=246\nPages: 246\nThe conception of a Tradition prevalent in contemporary esoteric circles\nstems in part from the Renaissance, and the attempt to identify the chain of\n10\nKindlers Literatur Lexikon. Vol. 8. Weinheim: Zweiburgen Verlag, 1982, p. 10478; in\naddition to those works already cited above, we may mention M\u00f6dersheim, Sabine.\n\"Mater et Matrix: Michael Maiers alchimistische Sinnbilder der Mutter.\" In Mutter und\nM\u00fctterlichkeit:\nWandel und Wirksamkeit einer Phantasie in der deutschen\nLiteratur.\nW\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigshausen und Neumann, 1996, pp. 31-56; Rebotier, Jacques. \"La\nMusique Cach\u00e9e de \u0393 Atalanta Fugiens,\" Chrysopoeia, Vol. 1, 1987, pp. 56-76; Allen,\nSally G. \"Outrunning Atalanta: Feminine Destiny in Alchemical Transmutation,\" Journal\nof Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 6, 1980, pp. 210-221; Streich, Hildemarie.\n\"Musikalische und psychologische Entsprechungen in der Atalanta Fugiens von Michael\nMaier.\" In Correspondences in Man and World. Eranos Yearbook, 1973. Leiden: E. J.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=224\nPages: 224\nconstituted the black phase of the work, an impossible task from which the\nfinal release could only be death. Thus in the Atalanta Fugiens Maier clearly\nstates that \"there is nothing that can restore youth to man but death itself,\nwhich is the beginning of eternal life that follows it.\"124 This is the circular\nand paradoxical nature of Maier's spiritual alchemy, which like the\nouroboros devours and emerges out of itself (figure 6).\n6. The phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\nIn concluding our consideration of Maier's life and its relationship to\nhis alchemy, we may turn again to his Allegoria Bella, in which the\ncorrespondence of laboratory process to his own personal odyssey through\nthe world finds its clearest expression. This allegory forms part of the\nconcluding chapter of the Symbola Aureae Mensae (1617); in accordance\nwith his role as 'cook' for the banquet held in honour of 'Queen Chemia', the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=88\nPages: 88,87\n118.\n39\n40\nIn his Atalanta Fugiens Maier mentions a contemporary English report that a toad with a\ngolden chain was found inside a quarry stone: \"William of Newberry, an English writer,\nsaith (how truly let others judge) that in a certain quarry in the diocese of Vintonia, a\ngreat stone being split, there was a living Toad found in it, with a golden chain, and it\nwas by the Bishop's command, hidden in the same place and buried in perpetual\ndarkness, lest it might bear an ill omen with it.\" Maier goes on to jestingly question why\na toad should require golden jewellery, \"lest by chance he should meet the beetle in the\nThe reversal of fortune\n79\nthe earliest extant alchemical literature, alchemy was concerned with the\npowers that link heaven and earth; following the apocryphal Book of Enoch,\nthe Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis claimed that the\nalchemical secrets were taught to humanity by fallen angels, who wrote the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=248\nPages: 248\nemblem and discourse of Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617), in which it is said\nthat Nature, reason, experience and reading should be 'guide, staff, spectacles\nand lamp' to those who are employed in alchemical affairs (figure 32). The\nfirst intention of the alchemist, Maier writes, must be to discover \"through\nintimate contemplation how Nature proceeds in her operations.\" 21 This was a\nstaple theme of the medieval alchemical literature, and one that was\nreinforced by the Paracelsian emphasis on observation and experiment.\nStoltzius adds that such knowledge of Nature aids our proximity to God, and\nthat all our labours should be made to repay His love for us - a restatement of\nMaier's belief that we may know God through His works. The reading of the\nliber mundi remained a central concern of the Tradition as it appeared in later\nParacelsian Naturphilosophie and eighteenth century Rosicrucianism.\npictura recrearet, et mystico sensu animum oblectaret: potissimum in hac Medicinae ergo]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=248\nPages: 248,249\npyronomicae trutinam omnia examinabimus, verum avide arripiemus, falsum abjiciemus,\nInexhaustas Naturae abyssos, et miracula immensa in hoc totius Universitatis\nAmphitheatro intuendo, ad laudem et gloriam Conditori decantandam excitabimur.\"\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 42: \"Prima itaque intentio est, naturam intime\ncontemplati quomodo procedat in suis operationibus eo fine, ut subjecta Chymiae\nnaturalia absque defectu aut superfluitate haberi queant.\"\n240\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nThe conception that knowledge of Nature leads to knowledge of things\ndivine was succinctly expressed by another early appraiser of Maier, the\nFrench alchemist Jean d'Espagnet (1564-C.1637). In his Enchiridio Physicae\nRestitutae ('Summary of the Restored Physics,' 1623), written a year after\nMaier's death, d'Espagnet tells us that the ancients knew the world was\nprefigured in its Archetype, which is God; before Creation He was like unto]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=44\nPages: 44,45\nAtalanta Fugiens (1617). See Figala, Karin and Neumann, Ulrich. '\"Author cui Nomen\nHermes Malavici': New Light on the Bio-Bibliography of Michael Maier (1569-1622).\"\nIn Rattansi, Piyo and Antonio Clericuzio (eds.). Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and\n17th Centuries. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994, pp. 124, 141 n.20.\n2\nEvans, R. J. W. Rudolf II and his World: A Study in Intellectual\nOxford: Oxford University Press, 1973, p. 3.\nHistory,\n1576-1612.\n36\nMaier's formative years\nas alchemy was not only an important means of displaying the prestige and\npower of his court, but also reflected the hope of making technological\nadvances that might grant him the upper hand in his struggle against\nthe Habsburgs and the Catholic states of the fragmented empire.3 Alchemy in\nparticular promised the development of new techniques for the manipulation\nof metals (the debasement of coinage through alloying practices caused]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=195\nPages: 195,196\nAula/ Proque suo nutu subdita membra trahit./ Illud spiritibus venas, vegetoque tepore,/\nUnde fluit vitae flammea taeda, beat./ Omnibus, in medio Princeps velut imperai Urbis,/\nArtubus hoc vires datque negatque suas.\"\n22\nIbid., pp. 41-42, 45-46.\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, epigram 21 : \"Fac de masculo et foemina circulum rotundum, et\nde eo extrahe quadrangulum, et quadrangulo triangulum; fac circulum rotundum et\nhabebis lapidem philosophorum.\" From \"Rosarium Philosophorum.\" In Artis Auriferae.\nVoi. 2. Basel: Petrus Pernam, 1572, p. 278.\n23\nThe squaring of the natural circle\n187\nThis puzzling pronouncement ultimately pertains to the secret of Creation, in\nwhich the four elements emerge from the 'monad' or unity that is God. In the\nAtalanta Fugiens the square within the circle is again said to correspond to\nthe four elements, whilst the triangle within the square corresponds to \"soul,\nspirit and body.\" Although de Jong takes this to be a reference to the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=260\nPages: 260,261\nArcanissima, and gave an alchemical reading of the symbolism of the\nfifteenth century Order of the Golden Fleece (which we also find in the\nsixteenth chapter of Maier's Themis Aurea, albeit in passing). 69 A similar\nalchemical treatment of pagan mythology drawing directly from Maier's\nArcana Arcanissima, Symbola Aureae Mensae and Atalanta Fugiens is to be\nfound in the Fables \u00c9gyptiennes et Grecques D\u00e9voil\u00e9es (1758) of Antoine\nJoseph Pern\u00e9ty, who would become librarian to the most prominent member\n63\n64\n65\n66\n67\n68\n69\nIbid., p. 103.\nIbid., p. 106.\nMcintosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, pp. 33-34.\nIbid., pp. 39,44.\nIbid., pp. 46-47.\nIbid:, Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 179-180.\nFaivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 76, 186; on Maier's reading of the myth of the\nGolden Fleece in his Arcana Arcanissima, Symbola Aureae Mensae and Atalanta\nFugiens, see also Faivre, The Golden Fleece and Alchemy, pp. 24-26.\n252\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=106\nPages: 106\npractices. In her analysis of the Atalanta Fugiens (1617), de Jong has argued\nthat Maier followed Avicenna in denying the possibility of an artificial\nconversion of species, be that amongst plants, animals or metals. 107 Nevertheless, the fact that Maier included in his communications with Moritz two\nprocedures for the manufacture of gold - one by means of a wet method\ninvolving argenti vivi coagulanti, and the other by a dry method involving\nsulphuris fixi - demonstrates that gold-making formed part of his early bid\nfor the prince's patronage, even if it was not the main goal of his practice.108\nAlthough they are characteristically unclear, the main aim of Maier's\ncomments in the Atalanta Fugiens is to refute the possibility of artificially\nconverting one metallic species into another \"in the short time needed for\neating an egg;\" the goal of his own quest was to produce an agent possessing\nthe power of transmutation and unlimited increase through fermentation, be]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=251\nPages: 251\nwas also published in English at this time as The Serious Jest (1654),30 and\nthere exist two English manuscript translations of the Atalanta Fugiens\ndating to the seventeenth century.31\nFollowing the devastation wreaked by the Thirty Years War in Germany,\nthe thought of Maier re-appeared in an interesting series of dialogues\nconcerning the true nature of alchemy and the possibility of the transmutation\nof metals. In 1673 the renowned German encyclopaedist and professor of\nhistory at the University of Kiel, Daniel Morhof (1639-1691), published a\nlengthy letter concerning the transmutation of metals (De Metallorum\nTransmutatione) he had earlier sent to the chief physician at the court of\nSchleswig-Holstein, Joel Langelott (1617-1680). In this letter he advises\ncaution in the pursuit of metallic transmutation, arguing agnostically that\nthe secrets of chrysopoeia or gold-making will probably remain forever\nunknown, just as the processes of metallic formation in the womb of the earth]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=224\nPages: 224\nwith his role as 'cook' for the banquet held in honour of 'Queen Chemia', the\nAllegoria Bella is offered up by Maier as the bellaria or 'dessert', i.e. a\nsummation of the combined wisdom of the sages gathered around the Golden\nTable. 125 Although strictly speaking it is not an autonomous text, the\nAllegoria Bella counts amongst the most attractive and intriguing works of\nMaier, a fact which no doubt earned its separate publication in the Musaeum\nHermeticum of 1678 and 1749 as A Subtle Allegory concerning the Secrets of\nAlchemy.126\nInspiration for Maier's allegory was undoubtedly drawn from the quintessential expression of early Rosicrucianism, Johann Valentin Andreae's\nChymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreutz, which appeared a year prior to\n123\n124\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 39: \"...quod si aliquis monstrum praetereat, nil mali\nab ipso patitur, qui vero animi vel ingenii audacia fretus ejus aenigmata dissolvere]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=147\nPages: 147\nexpression in his Atalanta Fugiens, in which the truths of chemia and the\nharmony of the spheres are expressed in the form of Maier's (not always\nharmonious) fugues.\nThe words of the Jocus Severus and its preface show us precisely the\nmanner in which Maier approached the Rosicrucian 'furore' that was raging\naround him on his return from England. Whilst he found himself in accord\nwith both the religious and the scientific sentiments of the manifestos, a work\nthat had been written without the 'Fraternity' in mind immediately became\nthe means by which he could define the 'Brethren' as men who value chemia\nas \"the most precious good in all the world after the Word of God.\" 90 Their\nlabour is his labour: to procure \"the most exquisite means of preserving\n87\n88\n89\n90\nIbid., p. 28: \"Qui non virus atrox ovis, sed pharmaci medelam/ Latro bibisti, dignior\ncicuta:/ Ne crimen regeratur, abi, ne morte praeoccuperis,/ Inferre noli funus innocenti.\"]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=241\nPages: 241,242\nCreation - for just as the spiritus descended as a dove at Maier's birth, so it\nascended at death as Maier returned to his true heavenly home. All things\nstem from God, and all return to God; the spiritus moves through the sun to\ngold and the human heart, and then returns again to its source. Alternatively,\nit is the 'return to the Monad' of the Atalanta Fugiens, the 'unity and eternal\npeace' following the purification of the matter in the vessel - \"make a circle\nout of a man and a woman, derive from it a square, and from the square a\ntriangle: make a circle again and you will have the Philosophers' Stone.\"\n184\n185\n186\nCook, Albert Stanburrough. The Old English Elene, Ph\u0153nix and Physiologus. New\nHaven: Yale University Press, 1919, pp. xxxviii ff.\nIbid., p. xxxix; according to Cook, the etymological origin of bennu lies in a root verb\nmeaning 'to turn'.\nSee above, p. 56.\nVI. Conclusion: Maier and the historiography of alchemy\n1. Piety and the coniunctio\noppositorum]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=154\nPages: 154\nmay be understood as the Mercurial Water, a universal solvent used to extract\nthe 'miraculous power' from the base metals or primary subject (the 'fish')\nwithin the alchemical vessel. In the twenty-second discourse of his Atalanta\nFugiens Maier follows Paracelsus in referring to the alchemical fish as trout,\nas it was believed that trout hold within themselves traces of the river gold\nthey swallow (and hence, according to Maier's alchemical cosmology, they\nare a model for the divine power of the Sun, the seed of gold, lying at the\nheart of all metals). 112 A good emblematic depiction of the alchemical sea\nand its fish is to be found in Lambsprinck's De Lapide Philosophico Libellus\n(see figure 19), which Maier mentions a little prior to the enigmas in his\nSymbola Aureae Mensae.113\n109\nIbid., p. 289: \"Germani authores Chymici et philosophi, incogniti et anonymi, latentes\nsub symbolo R. C.\"\n110\nIbid., p. 302: \"R. mihi adest aequor, pisces captantur in ilio/ Tempore tres vario, primus]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=245\nPages: 245,246\nesoteric traditions, as the alchemical Decknamen of the seventeenth century\nbecame 'meaningless' in the hands of the secret societies.9\n7\n8\n9\nde Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, p. 11.\nPeuckert, Pansophie (1936 edition), pp. 107-108.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 387.\nThe 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\n237\n3. The 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\nIn order to offer a corrective to this claim, let us proceed to chart the history\nof the reception of Maier's thought amongst later writers. When delving\nthrough this history and uncovering the myriad verdicts pronounced concerning the value of Maier's labour or the moral standing of this man, it must\nbe said that a mercurial figure emerges. Maier has been the subject of a\nspate of recent academic studies, many of which have focussed on his work\nof multimedia, the Atalanta Fugiens, which has been described as \"the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=196\nPages: 196\nspirit and body.\" Although de Jong takes this to be a reference to the\nParacelsian tria prima, there is no mention in Maier's discourse of salt, the\nthird element Paracelsus added to the traditional sulphur-mercury dyad.24\nIndeed, elsewhere Maier clearly states that there are in reality only two\nprimary elements, sulphur and mercury. 25 Rather, this mention of 'soul,\nspirit and body' is another reference to Aristotle's theory of elemental\ntransmutation: thus according to the Atalanta Fugiens the 'body' is the\nblackness of Saturn or lead, corresponding to earth; the 'spirit' is the white\nphase of the work corresponding to water; and the 'soul' is the 'yellowness of\nthe air'. The final 'redness' of fire is the \"unity and eternal peace\" of the\nPhilosophers' Stone (represented in Maier's emblem by the union of man and\nwoman), which marks the perfection of the work through \"the return to the\nMonad.\" 26 In the De Circulo Physico, Quadrato Maier employs the symbols]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=173\nPages: 173\nreceived sacrificial offerings on January the 13th of each year.190 True to his\nalchemical inclinations, Maier seems to suggest that the arcana protected by\nthese deities concerned the mysteries of cyclical transformation, as he also\nmentions the Roman worship of Consus (possibly synonymous with Janus)\nwhose festival marked the end of the solar year. Sigalion - or the Egyptian\n187\n188\n189\n190\nSee above, n. 100.\nSchmitt, Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, p. 266; that Maier was\nconversant with della Porta's work is shown by the citations from his Magia Naturalis to\nbe found in the Themis Aurea (1624 edition), p. 112; Maier, Atalanta\nFugiens,\ndiscourses 18, 29.\nMaier, Silentium post Clamores, pp. 53-54.\nIbid., p. 58: \"Hinc Ethnici D\u00e9os silentii produxerunt varios, ut Consum Romani, quasi\nconsiliorum secretorum largitorem, Angeronam deam, quae (teste Plinio lib. 2.) ore\nobligato, obsignatoque Romae simulachrum habuit, eique sacrificatum fuit ad diem 13.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=230\nPages: 230\nvaguely akin to that portrayed in Andreae's Chymisches Hochzeit.148 From\nthere he sails onwards to America on a ship with an eagle at its prow. The\neagle is the symbol of St. John; yet its significance for Maier is also to be\nfound in the forty-sixth emblem and discourse of the Atalanta Fugiens, in\nwhich Maier speaks of two eagles circumnavigating the globe: one comes\nfrom the east, and one from the west, which together signify the two\nprinciples (masculine Sulphur and feminine Mercury) necessary for the\ncompletion of the work (figure 30). Maier also likens the eagle to the lapis\nphilosophorum because it is said to restore itself to youth by plunging itself\nthree times into a fountain. 149 In this way the eagle is linked with the cyclical\nprocesses in the vessel, in which the alchemical subject eventually returns\nto the point of origin, albeit in a purified and renewed state. In the course\nof his peregrination Maier also returns to the place of his departure by]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=277\nPages: 277\nde Rola, Stanislas Klossowski. The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth\nCentury. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1988.\nDebus, Allen G. \"Chemists, Physicians, and Changing Perspectives on the Scientific\nRevolution,\" History of Science Society Distinguished Lecture, Isis, Vol. 89, No.l,\nMarch 1998, pp. 66-81.\n\u2014 The English \u03a1aracelsians. London: Oldbourne, 1965.\nDictionary of National Biography. Vol. 1. London: Smith and Elder, 1885.\nDobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. \"Newton's Commentary on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes\nTrismegistus: its Scientific and Theological Significance.\" In Merkel, Ingrid and Allen G.\nDebus (eds.). Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in\nEarly Modern Europe. Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1988, pp. 182-191.\n\u2014 The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.\nEco, Umberto. Das Foucaultsche Pendel. M\u00fcnchen: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1989.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=78\nPages: 78,79\nconstituerim: Testor igitur hoc meo libro, hactenus omnia quae legi, quae vidi, cum\nauthoribus omnibus et singulis (de veris, non ficticiis loquor) si non verbis, at rebus\noptime convenire, et a me hyemem, ver et aestatem, anni tempora absoluta, autumnum\nvero propter calumnias vicinorum et injurias, quas quotidie passus sum, non attigisse:\nQuamvis autem haec quarta pars sit opus mulierum et ludus puerorum, ac merito requies\na philosophis dicatur, respectu praecedentium laborum, in quibus manibus et oculis,\nGebro teste, opus est.\" The reference to \"women's work and child's play\" is a standard\nmedieval alchemical allusion to the processes of 'cooking' and 'washing' by which the\nalchemical subject is purified. The phrase is attributed to Geber in the Rosarium\nPhilosophorum, but appears in the seventeenth dictum of the Turba Philosophorum from\nthe mouth of 'Socrates'; see also the third and twenty-second emblems of Maier's\nAtalanta Fiigiens.\n70\nBohemia and England]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=142\nPages: 142\nescaped Maier; but if by 'playing the game' he might promote his own\ninterests, then he was more than willing to do so.\nAccordingly, we find a double meaning in Maier's words; for the word\nfama possesses not only the connotation of the English 'fame' with which it\nhas been translated, but also that of 'rumour' or 'common talk' - an\nambiguity not lost to the manifesto's creator. In this sense the Fama might\ndeceive because truth withers away upon exposure to the vulgar and ignorant\nmasses; thus Maier states that the anonymous members of the Fraternity are\nthemselves like the Owl, because they shun the light of fame to avoid\nexposing the secrets of the Hermetic arts. And whilst it has been their custom\nto lead lives of anonymity,71 as the 'evening of the world' rapidly approaches\n70\nMaier, Jocus Severus, p. 10: \"Omnibus Verae Chymiae Amantibus, per Germaniam\nnotis et ignotis, et inter hos, nisi nos Fama fallat, ILLI SANGUINIS GERMANICI]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=167\nPages: 167\nMaybe there are some who name themselves Brethren, whilst not being at all in harmony\nwith our choir. Such an impostor some time ago spread the most deceitful rubbish amongst\nthe peoples of the lands between Innsbruck and Vienna. That purse-thief was exposed, and\npaid a bitter price by being suspended on a cross. Another such meddler was similarly caught\nin the city of Augsburg, and he lost his earlobes with the lash. 1 6 5\nIt must be remarked that, authentic or otherwise, any 'Rosicrucians' found\npeddling their ideologies or alchemical wares in Austria - at that time a seat\nof the Counter-Reformation - could expect short shrift from the authorities.\nHowever, B. M. I. himself gives a clue that the true Fraternity was rather\nmore virtual than tangible when - in a somewhat cryptic aside - he\nadmonishes such impostors not to \"throw our gaming-board (alveolus) into\nconfusion.\" 166 Here we have another allusion to the game or 'serious jest' set\nin motion by Andreae.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=256\nPages: 256\nAn expos\u00e9 of the falsely celebrated art known as Alchemy, wherein the inanity of this art is\nclearly proven, the principles of the alchemists scrutinised and refuted, their beguiling\nexposed, and the likelihood of the impossibility of metallic transmutation is set forth... 46\nIn the course of his polemic Wegner does not distinguish between chrysopoeia and the quest for the Universal Medicine, which he also impugns as a\ndelusion. His definition of alchemy runs as follows:\nBy alchemy I understand that art which teaches the means of transmuting metals, and of\nbringing imperfect metals to their maturity, or making Gold or Silver from imperfect metals.\nOr it is the art of preparing the Philosophers' Stone, which not only makes imperfect metals\ninto Gold and Silver, but also works in the human body as a general medicament for the\npreservation of health and life. I speak therefore not of Chimia, which is the art of opening]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=15\nPages: 15\nCrosland wrote in his Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry\n(1962):\nThe psychologist Jung considered the paradox as 'one of our most valued spiritual possessions' and stated that a religion 'becomes inwardly impoverished when it loses or reduces its\nparadoxes', because an unambiguous language is unsuited to express the incomprehensible.\nIt seems clear that, whereas mystical alchemy may well have thrived on paradox, its\nexistence in the literature was stultifying to alchemy as a science. 21\nAlthough more rationalistic sensibilities were offended by the mysticallyminded 'adept', whose \"cloud of obscure nomenclature and speculation\ncontributed nothing to chemistry,\" 22 other historians followed Pagel in\nan attempt to address the complete intellectual output of the alchemists.\nOne such writer was Betty Dobbs, who - in stark contrast to Principe and\nNewman - utilised Jung's ideas to emphasise the continuity of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=138\nPages: 138,139\nTalem vero jam esse, nondum mihi persuaserunt, tum quia nimis vel temeraria, vel\nhumilia etiam proferunt.\"\n130\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nThe crux of this passage is contained in its clear equation of the 'concourse of\nintellects' brought together by the manifestos with the 'society' itself; for it is\nclear from Andreae's words that what is ingenious about the 'game' is that a\nRosicrucian society of sorts had indeed been constituted by those inspired to\nthe defence of the Fraternity by Andreae's Utopian vision - or would have\nbeen constituted, if there were not so many vulgar opinions amongst those\nthat flooded the printing presses in response to the manifestos. In this sense\nthe manifestos did not simply constitute an invitation to the learned of Europe\nto eventually build a society akin to that outlined in the manifestos, but\nalso formed a very present and cogent virtual arena for the furtherance of\na Hermetic Protestant ideology. In light of this fact, Waite's misleading]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=251\nPages: 251\nwas also published in English at this time as The Serious Jest (1654),30 and\nthere exist two English manuscript translations of the Atalanta Fugiens\ndating to the seventeenth century.31\nFollowing the devastation wreaked by the Thirty Years War in Germany,\nthe thought of Maier re-appeared in an interesting series of dialogues\nconcerning the true nature of alchemy and the possibility of the transmutation\nof metals. In 1673 the renowned German encyclopaedist and professor of\nhistory at the University of Kiel, Daniel Morhof (1639-1691), published a\nlengthy letter concerning the transmutation of metals (De Metallorum\nTransmutatione) he had earlier sent to the chief physician at the court of\nSchleswig-Holstein, Joel Langelott (1617-1680). In this letter he advises\ncaution in the pursuit of metallic transmutation, arguing agnostically that\nthe secrets of chrysopoeia or gold-making will probably remain forever\nunknown, just as the processes of metallic formation in the womb of the earth]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=34\nPages: 34\nalchemy', as Principe and Newman suggest, then we must follow those\n'secret threads' of which Jung speaks and trace the sources of their (nonexclusive) conception of alchemy as a process of self-transformation within\nthe alchemist.\nIn his Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik, Silberer attributes the\n'rediscovery' of the psychological content of alchemy to the 'profound'\nEthan Allen Hitchcock (1798-1870); throughout his work Silberer states that\nhe is indebted to Hitchcock when he argues that the central subject of the\nHermetic Art is humankind - i.e. its subject is das Subjekt.102 Hitchcock was\na Union general and military adviser to Abraham Lincoln who, like Silberer,\nwas influenced by Freemasonic doctrine: indeed, his father Samuel was a\nprominent Freemason who incorporated the society's motifs into the seal of\nthe state of Vermont. 103 Hitchcock's thesis as set forward in his Remarks\n101\nJung, \"Mysterium Coniunctionis\" (English edition), p. 555; Jung, Mysterium]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=77\nPages: 77\nthe alchemical process as a necessary, cathartic means of the spirit's release\nfrom bondage. 135\nHaving beheld the correct colour sequence in his experiment, and having\nwitnessed the appearance of the 'pelican' at Easter, Maier deemed that the\nwritings of the medieval alchemical masters he had consulted at K\u00f6nigsberg\nwere fully in accord with the laws of Nature. Significantly, he also felt that\nthe experiment had clarified the meaning of his mother's strange experience\nof augury prior to his birth 136 - another avowal that the alchemical processes\nhe observed in the laboratory were inextricably linked with his own destiny\non earth. As we read the closing section of the autobiographical portion of\nMaier's De Medicina Regia, we may begin to gather what that destiny would\nbe. For although we are told by Maier that his experiment had produced a\npowerful medicament - indeed, a substance he could confidently name the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=139\nPages: 139\nMaier followed the lead of Andreae when composing his Allegoria Bella, in\nwhich he travels to Egypt and Arabia in search of the phoenix - a journey to\nthe source of the prisca sapientia which mirrors the phases of the alchemical\nwork in similar fashion to the journey of Christian Rosenkreutz in Andreae's\nChymische Hochzeit:64 Nevertheless, the evidence seems to overwhelmingly\ncontradict the possibility that Maier was aware of the strictly virtual existence\nof the Brethren: for why did he expend such great energy not only in\n62\n63\n64\nIt is pertinent to note that Rosenkreutz's return journey to Germany follows an important\nmedieval conduit of Arabic science into Europe, i.e. via Fez, the intellectual capital of\nthe Moorish empire, into Spain and beyond. In this sense the Fama\nFraternitatis\npresents a parable for the entrance of occult Arabic wisdom into medieval Europe.\nThe tradition that the discoverer was Alexander the Great is given in a tract ascribed to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=262\nPages: 262,263\nsich bringen.\"\n254\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\n1. A vitalistic conception of alchemy as a universal science, which also\nencompasses the life of the human soul as a 'spiritual alchemy'\nwith pietistic overtones. In the Freemasonic and later Rosicrucian\ntraditions this alchemy was integrated with the Freemasonic system of\ninitiatory grades designed to accomplish a moral transformation in the\nadept.\n2. An alchemical philosophy of Nature focussing on celestial virtues,\nsolar mysticism, cyclical natural processes and correspondences\nbetween the macrocosm and the microcosm. As Mcintosh and\nPeuckert have argued, above all other authors it was Maier who\neffected a definitive binding of such alchemical conceptions with the\nRosicrucian tradition, as alchemy had formed only a part of the\nmessage of the original manifestos and rejoinders. 82\n3. A concern with the deciphering of 'hieroglyphs', in the pansophist\nsense of signs in Nature pointing to universal, divinely instituted laws.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=251\nPages: 251\nunknown, just as the processes of metallic formation in the womb of the earth\nmust remain hidden from human eyes.32 Whilst acknowledging the many\nbenefits of chymia, Morhof argues that prudence should prevail before\nspending time and money on the uncertain quest for transmutation. He goes\non to impugn those pseudo-chemists who set out to deceive even the most\nobservant clients by concealing gold dust in the coals of their fires, or within\nthe instruments with which they work. On this count he mentions the Examen\nFucorum Pseudo-chymicorum of the 'learned' Michael Maier, in which are\nenumerated over fifty such ingenious frauds:\n...I have recommended that his book be read, lest we may be deceived by those impostors,\nwhose sole labour it is, to seek wealth of their own by imposing the hope for wealth on\nothers: a practice by which the harmless study of alchemy is led into odium, and honest men\ncome to perceive this Art as an empty mockery, or curse all chymists as fraudulent. 3 3\n29\n30\n31]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=225\nPages: 225\nsymbolises seven stages of the alchemical work, whilst the wedding itself\ndenotes the perfection of the opus through the union of Mercury and\nSulphur. 127 As we have mentioned, Maier's Allegoria Bella is constructed in\na very similar fashion, portraying the alchemical process as the author's\npilgrimage through four continents in search of the phoenix, the feathers of\nwhich constitute a cure for \"anger and grief.\" However, given Maier's own\nunsettled life of roaming it is clear that this allegorical pilgrimage was not\ncomposed merely as a didactic analogy for the laboratory work; Maier tells\nus at the outset that he himself was \"destined to imitate the natural\nprogression of elements,\" which tend from density to subtlety - that is to say,\nthe pattern of elemental transmutation described in Aristotle's De\nGeneratione et Corruptione to which we have referred. 128 Thus he begins his\nquest in Europe (earth), travels through America (water) to Asia (air) and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=15\nPages: 15\nstudy of alchemy was the Swiss-educated John Read, who commented in\n1947 that it had required 'the discernment of a master' to elucidate the\nintimate relationship of alchemy to psychology. 19 Soon the conception that\nalchemy had involved the projection of unconscious psychological processes\ninto the objective world of the laboratory became a commonplace amongst\nacademics in the field. Even those positivistic writers who were antagonistic\ntowards the role of the irrational in alchemy referred to Jung's theories in\norder to demarcate the realm of 'genuine' science from mere superstition.\nThus Eduard Farber in The Evolution of Chemistry (1952) scorned the\n'mystical' class of alchemical texts as a collection of 'fantastic tales', devoid\nof both art and science, which might interest a psychoanalyst such as Jung\nbut were of no use for the historian of chemistry.20 In similar vein, Maurice\nCrosland wrote in his Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry\n(1962):]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=21\nPages: 21\nprojection of the symbols of 'individuation' onto the elements in the alembic\nas a conscious process:\nAccording to Jung, alchemists were concerned less with chemical reactions than with\npsychic states taking place within the practitioner. The practice of alchemy involved the use\nof 'active imagination' on the part of the would-be adept, which led to a hallucinatory state\nin which he 'projected' the contents of his psyche onto the matter within his alembic... the\nactual substances employed in a process made no difference at all to the alchemist so long as\nthey stimulated the psyche to its act of projection. 4 9\nTo state that the alchemists were 'concerned with psychic states', or that\nthey utilised 'active imagination' - a Jungian psychotherapeutic technique\ninvolving a 'dialogue' between the conscious and unconscious minds implies that they held a conscious understanding of self-transformation as the\ngoal of their Art; according to Jung's theory of projection, the alchemists]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=40\nPages: 40\nMaier's Symbola Aureae Mensae Duodecim Nationum (1617). 126 The whole\nis a treatise on alchemical natural philosophy drawn primarily from medieval\nsources, which Grasshoff concludes with the allegorical Parabola in much\nthe same manner that the Allegor\u00eca Bella is presented as the summation of\nMaier's Symbola Aureae Mensae. As in Maier's allegory, Grasshoff begins\nhis Parabola with a melancholic proclamation of the wretchedness of earthly\nlife before setting off on a quest for the Philosophers' Stone - in this case\nsymbolised by the Lion rather than Maier's phoenix. 127 The alchemical\nallegory was much in vogue in the early modern period; authors of that time\ndrew their inspiration from medieval alchemical allegories such as those of\nDuenech, Maria Prophetissa and Merlin, or mimicked the late antique dreamrevelations of the Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos and the Hermetic\nPoimandres.m Most early modern allegories demonstrate a similar intent to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=238\nPages: 238,239\nl'int\u00e9rieur et tires-en le c\u0153ur: car son \u00e2me est dans son c\u0153ur;\" the saying is attributed by\nZosimos to 'Ostanes'. Budge once argued that the very term 'alchemy' is ultimately\nEgyptian in origin, deriving from an ancient name for Egypt, 'Qemt' - a word meaning\n'black' on account of the dark mud of the Nile's floodplains. According to Greek\nwriters, quicksilver was utilised by Egyptian metalsmiths to separate gold and silver\nfrom the native ore, from which process there was produced a dark powder or substance.\nNot only was this powder believed to possess the individuality of the various metals; it\nwas also identified with the body of Osiris during his journey to the underworld, and was\nheld to possess life-giving powers. From the word 'Qemt' came the Greek 'Khemeia', or\n'preparation of the black powder', to which the Arabs added the article 'al-'. Budge, Sir\nE. A. Wallis. Egyptian Magic. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. Ltd., 1899,\npp. 19-20.\n230\nThe completion of the work]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=222\nPages: 222\nof a comedy. 1 1 8\nNaturally Maier does not mention the fact that, in Homer's tale, Ulysses\nproceeds to the bed of Circe once she releases his men from the bondage of\ntheir swinish forms. Nevertheless, Maier's purpose here is to demonstrate the\nintegral relation of piety to his alchemy, and its relation to the coniunctio\noppositorum. The 'noble body' mentioned in the Rosarium Philosophorum is\nnot only manifested in the preparation of the cathartic iatrochemical cure and\nits operation, but in a life of travelling and hardship, by which the corporeal\nrealm is superseded and we approach divinity. On both cosmic levels the\nPhilosophers' Stone stands in a paradoxical relationship with its opposite,\n\"the abyss of wickedness,\" for as in the black phase of the alchemical\nprocess, so in the seductions and anguish of the body new life and wisdom\nare found.\nEven if Maier found wisdom in the Great Work that was his life, it would]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=193\nPages: 193\nwork of alchemy, in which the human soul descends into the darkness of\nmateriality - the putrefactio or black phase of the work - and returns again to\nits heavenly origins. The 'goodness of God' is evident in things transitory as\nwell as eternal because the present world is a sign pointing to the realm to\ncome, an 'open book' teaching the nature of this life and the next.15 These\nideas are a central element of Maier's spiritual alchemy, and may be broadly\ncharacterised as gnostic, echoing as they do the ancient Gnostic descent into\nphysis of the divine scintilla. Thus in the course of his exposition Maier\ncryptically remarks that the heart is a \"little eye\" which possesses \"the light\nof heaven\" - an intimation that our own souls possess something of divine\nperception, by which we may behold the cosmic harmonies instituted by God\nat the Creation. 16 In the Hymnosophia Maier also referred to the \"little eye of\n13]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=144\nPages: 144\nhe considers himself to be a member of that Order of German Blood' which\nis ushering in the new age. As once the wise men of Athens worked under the\nfigure of the Owl, so in Maier's time the \"true investigators of Nature, known\nand unknown\" are denoted by that same hieroglyph; 79 and amongst these true\nscientists are numbered not only the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, but Maier\nhimself. For the Jocus Severus is a game that he plays in the nocturnal hours,\nin order to \"escape the silence of Vulcan's work\" and to \"obey his soul,\"\nrather than for the purpose of publishing his knowledge and exposing it to the\ncommon folk. 80 Thus we can envisage Maier patiently sitting before the\nfurnace in the late hours of the night, scratching at a manuscript with his quill\npen whilst the chemical processes within the vessel take their course. In\ndefence of such a nocturnal lifestyle, Maier invokes the authority of\nAvicenna, who writes in his commentary on Aristotle's De Anima\u00b7.\n75\n76\n77\n78\n79\n80]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=78\nPages: 78,79\nconstituerim: Testor igitur hoc meo libro, hactenus omnia quae legi, quae vidi, cum\nauthoribus omnibus et singulis (de veris, non ficticiis loquor) si non verbis, at rebus\noptime convenire, et a me hyemem, ver et aestatem, anni tempora absoluta, autumnum\nvero propter calumnias vicinorum et injurias, quas quotidie passus sum, non attigisse:\nQuamvis autem haec quarta pars sit opus mulierum et ludus puerorum, ac merito requies\na philosophis dicatur, respectu praecedentium laborum, in quibus manibus et oculis,\nGebro teste, opus est.\" The reference to \"women's work and child's play\" is a standard\nmedieval alchemical allusion to the processes of 'cooking' and 'washing' by which the\nalchemical subject is purified. The phrase is attributed to Geber in the Rosarium\nPhilosophorum, but appears in the seventeenth dictum of the Turba Philosophorum from\nthe mouth of 'Socrates'; see also the third and twenty-second emblems of Maier's\nAtalanta Fiigiens.\n70\nBohemia and England]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=142\nPages: 142\nescaped Maier; but if by 'playing the game' he might promote his own\ninterests, then he was more than willing to do so.\nAccordingly, we find a double meaning in Maier's words; for the word\nfama possesses not only the connotation of the English 'fame' with which it\nhas been translated, but also that of 'rumour' or 'common talk' - an\nambiguity not lost to the manifesto's creator. In this sense the Fama might\ndeceive because truth withers away upon exposure to the vulgar and ignorant\nmasses; thus Maier states that the anonymous members of the Fraternity are\nthemselves like the Owl, because they shun the light of fame to avoid\nexposing the secrets of the Hermetic arts. And whilst it has been their custom\nto lead lives of anonymity,71 as the 'evening of the world' rapidly approaches\n70\nMaier, Jocus Severus, p. 10: \"Omnibus Verae Chymiae Amantibus, per Germaniam\nnotis et ignotis, et inter hos, nisi nos Fama fallat, ILLI SANGUINIS GERMANICI]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=138\nPages: 138,139\nTalem vero jam esse, nondum mihi persuaserunt, tum quia nimis vel temeraria, vel\nhumilia etiam proferunt.\"\n130\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nThe crux of this passage is contained in its clear equation of the 'concourse of\nintellects' brought together by the manifestos with the 'society' itself; for it is\nclear from Andreae's words that what is ingenious about the 'game' is that a\nRosicrucian society of sorts had indeed been constituted by those inspired to\nthe defence of the Fraternity by Andreae's Utopian vision - or would have\nbeen constituted, if there were not so many vulgar opinions amongst those\nthat flooded the printing presses in response to the manifestos. In this sense\nthe manifestos did not simply constitute an invitation to the learned of Europe\nto eventually build a society akin to that outlined in the manifestos, but\nalso formed a very present and cogent virtual arena for the furtherance of\na Hermetic Protestant ideology. In light of this fact, Waite's misleading]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=138\nPages: 138\nthirteenth dialogue between Admirator (an admirer), Contemptor (a despiser)\nand Aestimator (an appraiser according to the intrinsic value of a thing).\nAndreae as Aestimator gives the following revealing assessment of the furore\nprovoked by the Brethren:\nThe more I inquire into this fraternity, the more ingenious the game appears to me. For it\npossesses such a sum of human desires, that it inspires the appetite in pre-eminent intellects to obtain those things for which they have long exerted themselves. And truly, by\nthis coming together of intellects, or by this society, if it consisted of the most select and\nperspicacious men, it would be possible to produce things which surpass our comprehension.\nThat it is indeed such a kind of society, they have not yet persuaded me, because they proffer\nup too much imprudence, or indeed baseness. 61\nnitatem expectetis: fabula peracta est. Fama astruxit: fama destruxit. Fama ajebat: fama\nnegat...\"\n59\n60\n61\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 79.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=225\nPages: 225\nquest in Europe (earth), travels through America (water) to Asia (air) and\nfinally arrives in the deserts of Africa (fire) - for \"air may not come from\nearth except by the mediation of water, and fire may not come from water\nexcept by the mediation of air.\"129 Whilst Andreae's Chymische Hochzeit is\nreplete with an intensely surreal imagery, Maier's allegory is permeated with\na veritable cornucopia of bizarre facts drawn from history, astronomy, botany\nand zoology, each of which possesses a microcosmic or macrocosmic\ncorrespondence to laboratory process.\nMaier begins his allegory with an explanation of the origins of his quest\nfor the phoenix. Having spent the greater part of his life in the study of\nrefined literature and the liberal arts, and having conversed with men of\ngreater wisdom than the common folk, his contemplation of the masses had\nled him to the conclusion that they prefer ostentation, carnality and lust to\n127\n128]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=277\nPages: 277\nde Rola, Stanislas Klossowski. The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth\nCentury. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1988.\nDebus, Allen G. \"Chemists, Physicians, and Changing Perspectives on the Scientific\nRevolution,\" History of Science Society Distinguished Lecture, Isis, Vol. 89, No.l,\nMarch 1998, pp. 66-81.\n\u2014 The English \u03a1aracelsians. London: Oldbourne, 1965.\nDictionary of National Biography. Vol. 1. London: Smith and Elder, 1885.\nDobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. \"Newton's Commentary on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes\nTrismegistus: its Scientific and Theological Significance.\" In Merkel, Ingrid and Allen G.\nDebus (eds.). Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in\nEarly Modern Europe. Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1988, pp. 182-191.\n\u2014 The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.\nEco, Umberto. Das Foucaultsche Pendel. M\u00fcnchen: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1989.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=142\nPages: 142,143\nnotis et ignotis, et inter hos, nisi nos Fama fallat, ILLI SANGUINIS GERMANICI\nORDINI, adhuc delitescenti, at Fama Fraternitatis et Confessione sua admiranda et\nprobabili, in genere manifestato, asscribo, dico et dedico.\" It is noteworthy that de Rola\nomits 'ILLI SANGUINIS GERMANICI ORDINI in his rendering of this passage; de\nRola, Stanislas Klossowski. The Golden Game: Alchemical\nEngravings\nof the\nSeventeenth Century. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1988, p. 62.\n71\nIbid.\u00b7. \"Cum enim tantus Dei Thesaurus ab iis, quibus oblatus est, nulli prostitu\u00ed aut\nmanifestari debeat, hinc authores ipsi quasi Deo dicati, mundoque abrogati, Deo sibique\nviventes rarissime agnosci uni aut alteri, nunquam vero vulgo voluerunt.\"\n134\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nthe Brethren - like the Owl - emerge from their diurnal concealment to\nmanifest the truth of the coming age:\n...Now there arises that profession of divine and human matters, which like a fanfare of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=219\nPages: 219\nbiographers believe that Maier died at Magdeburg in 1622, but I do not. I believe that\nMaier felt the time was ripe to disappear for political and philosophical reasons, and this\nmay well be why his last treatise (1624) was given out as posthumous.\" The idea of\n'disappearing' may also stem from Yates; to be fair to de Rola, he rightly admits that this\nis \"an unsubstantiated feeling.\" See de Rola, The Golden Game, p. 106.\n110\nMaier, Cantilenae Intellectuales, pp. A4-A5: \"Mei, quia Holsatus sim patria, quam ob\nstudia Hermetica penitus absolvenda et apud exteros in diversis regionibus et populis\nexantlanda, ante 14. annos reliqui lubens et volens, non, ut spes est, in perpetuum, sed ad\ntempus, prout Deo et principi meo placuerit, aliquando reversurus: Meos autem, qui\nqualesque fuerint, non solum tota Nobilitas Holsata, sed et parens tuus, avusque Divae\nmemoriae, quibus i Hi, quoad vixerunt, servitio fidelissimo astricti fuerunt, optime\nnoverunt.\"\n111\nDe Rola, The Golden Game, p. 106.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=179\nPages: 179\nquoque quis sit nimis curiosus in indagando, videndum erit: Non enim hoc utile est sciri\nab omnibus, sed sufficit si a solis confoederatis et electis agnoscatur: in Utopia non est,\nut opinor, nec apud Tartaros aut Lappones, sed forte in umbelico Germaniae, cum\nEuropa forma virginem, et Germania in ea ventrem referre dicatur: Non convenit\nvirg\u00edneos sinus patefacere vulgo, ne meretrix potius, quam virgo, vidatur: Satis est scire,\nearn non esse infoecundam, sed in utero suo (ut Themis ex love) hanc Eunomiam\nconcepisse, aut hos Palycos fratres, tanquam ignotos et ex terra natos, (ut Thalia ex\neodem) protulisse: Venter hic quidem virgineus est, at permultas artes et scientias, ante\nincognitas, edidit, GERMANIAM dico et intelligo, quae germinai nunc perpetuo ROSIS\nET LILI1S, quae nec hyemem nec aestum ignis reformident, et in Philosophicis hortis\nseu Rosetis conservantur, ne petulca manus tenellos flosculos laedat aut carpai.\"]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=219\nPages: 219,220\nnoverunt.\"\n111\nDe Rola, The Golden Game, p. 106.\nUlysses and the death of Maier\n211\nOdysseus, or Roman Ulysses - reflects the ideals and self-perception of a\nman who is nearing the end of a long journey. Following the method of his\nArcana Arcanissima, Maier portrays the figure of Ulysses as a hieroglyph,\nbehind which lies veiled a higher truth - wisdom in the face of suffering. This\nwisdom takes the form of a paradox, as ill fortune and poor health may be\ntransformed through the power of the intellect:\nNobody is happy, I believe, unless they are wise, and nobody unhappy or foolish, unless they\ndo not skilfully use the intellect; for while good and evil things depend on fortune, they do\nnot define a man or determine the boundary of happiness and unhappiness, since bad may be\ntransformed into good for a man, and good into bad. I am willing to say the same concerning\nfavourable or odious circumstances of the body, because they do not truly deliver happiness]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=226\nPages: 226\nfirmioris iudicii partim assidua lectione, partim ipso rerum usu acquisiuisse mihi viderer,\ncepi mecum considerare acutius varias hominum actiones, plaerumque vel ad pompam et\nlibidinem aliis praedominandi et in honoribus anteferri, aut gulam et luxuriem corporis\npromovendam, aliaue eiusmodi enormia vitia spectantes, et quod plaerique per fas et\nnefas solis fere diuitiis cumulandis, omni conscientiae respecta, pietatis aut virtutis zelo\nposthabito, praeoccupati essent; Unde diu anceps et incertus haesitavi, an Democritico\ncachinno, an Heracletio fletui eandem ob causam subscriberem, an vero cum Ecclesiastico, Omnia vanitates vanitatum pronunciarem...\" See Ecclesiastes 1.2.\n133\nIbid., p. 562: \"...Verum pensiculatis singulis tandem ad me reversus, post Dei Opti.\nMax. agnitionem, ex Fontibus Israelis seu sacris Bibliis haustam, nihil melius, prius\naut antiquius inveni, quam rerum abditarum in natura existentium, hominique maxime]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=167\nPages: 167\nMaybe there are some who name themselves Brethren, whilst not being at all in harmony\nwith our choir. Such an impostor some time ago spread the most deceitful rubbish amongst\nthe peoples of the lands between Innsbruck and Vienna. That purse-thief was exposed, and\npaid a bitter price by being suspended on a cross. Another such meddler was similarly caught\nin the city of Augsburg, and he lost his earlobes with the lash. 1 6 5\nIt must be remarked that, authentic or otherwise, any 'Rosicrucians' found\npeddling their ideologies or alchemical wares in Austria - at that time a seat\nof the Counter-Reformation - could expect short shrift from the authorities.\nHowever, B. M. I. himself gives a clue that the true Fraternity was rather\nmore virtual than tangible when - in a somewhat cryptic aside - he\nadmonishes such impostors not to \"throw our gaming-board (alveolus) into\nconfusion.\" 166 Here we have another allusion to the game or 'serious jest' set\nin motion by Andreae.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=107\nPages: 107,108\nvirtues of gold and the production of a 'golden stone' which, like natural\ngold, contains the opposing sulphuric and mercuric principles in equal part\nand restores the balance of humours in the intemperate body. If Maier was\nfortunate enough to meet with Moritz prior to his departure for England, it\nwould have been the allure of this iatrochemical goal that he would have\n111\nIbid., p. 50 recto.\nOn this subject, see Karpenko, Vladimir. \"Between Magic and Science: Numerical\nMagical Squares,\" Ambix, Vol. 40, No. 3, November 1993, pp. 121-128; Stapleton, H. E.\n\"The Antiquity of Alchemy,\" Ambix, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1953, pp. 9-15.\n113\nIbid.\n114\nKooij, Pleun van der and Carlos Gilly (eds.). Fama Fraternitatis: Das Urmanifest der\nRosenkreuzer Bruderschaft. Haarlem: Rozekruis Pers, 1998, pp. 98-100.\n112\nA journey to England\n99\nplayed upon, and the notion of maintaining health and piety in the body\npolitic - matters close to the heart of a Calvinist prince such as Moritz.\n7. A journey to England]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=230\nPages: 230\nonce willing and unwilling, with the unwavering and preconceived hope that the sought\nmedicine will eventually be found through the benevolence of God. As any queen appears to\nher king, or a beautiful bride to her bridegroom, so this medicine is pleasing to me before all\ngood things in the world, and with a certain magnetic power it enchants and draws my mind\ntowards it, so that I might be willing to forego life, friends and family if I could hold it. 1 4 6\nMaier also defends his quest by stating that 'sweat' comes before virtue and\nfame, and \"rest from labour will be reached through the earth\": 147 another\nindication that his purifying peregrination through the world mirrors both the\ntransmutation in the vessel and the action of the cathartic Medicine itself.\nHaving gained no useful information concerning the phoenix in Europe,\nMaier travels to the Canary Islands where he witnesses a royal wedding\nvaguely akin to that portrayed in Andreae's Chymisches Hochzeit.148 From]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=145\nPages: 145\nThe words that you have uttered, which fill the air with droning, do not help at all; if you\ntake away the body from the light, the shadow is lost. And if you do not rage with anger\nabout the blind habits that your parents teach you and your offspring, you are being deceived\nand are in want of reason, courage and fairness. If that is the crime of your forefathers, do not\ntake it up yourself. 8 3\n81\nIbid., p. 5: \"Ego hoc totum, inquit, didici frequenter legende, el parum dormiendo, et\nparum comedendo et minus bibendo, et quantum expenderunt sodi mei in lumine ad\npotandum vinum de nocte, tantum ego expend\u00ed ad vigilandum et legendum de node in\noleo, et quantum expendebant in comestione, amplius expendebam ego in lumine ad\nvigilandum et discendum de node: Et nisi hoc facerem, non scirem de magisterio.\"\n82\nIbid., p. 14: \"Sub nomine actoris ex vulgo imperiti, qui causas rerum non attendit, sed ex\nalterius praeiudicio de Chemia, in qua ne tantillum expertas est, iudicat. Argumentum]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82\nis the sun, his mother is the moone, the wind bore it in her belly. The earth is his nurse. The\nfather of all the perfection of this world is here. His force and power is perfect, if it be turned\ninto earth. Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the thinne from the thicke, and\nthat gently with great discretion, ft ascendeth from the Earth into Heaven: and againe it\ndescendeth into the earth, and receiveth the power of the superiours and inferiours: so shalt\nthou have the glorie of the whole worlde. All obscuritie therefore shall flie away from thee.\nThis is the mightie power of all power, for it shall overcome every subtile thing, and pearce\nthrough every solide thing. So was the worlde created. 19\nThere exists in the alchemical corpus no more succinct expression of the\ncorrespondence of the alchemical work to the cosmogony, or of the place of\nthe divine life force in both. That the wind should bear this power 'in her]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=65\nPages: 65\nof the world to man, lest he should grow old amidst the smoke and dung of the house altar.\nTo the birds the entire sublunary region of the air lies open, and to man it is the terrestrial\nglobe. I might look to the sky itself, and to the great wayfarer, the sun, and see how it\nrejoices in continual motion and warms, illuminates and governs all the creatures of the earth\nand heavens. Likewise I will direct my mind to the human breast, and to the heart itself, and\nsee how it is driven by this perpetual motion for as long as life remains; for life ends when\nthe motion is taken away, damaged or hindered- It is natural therefore for man to move from\nplace to place, from region to region, until he can see into himself, above himself and around\nhimself. 91\nFor Maier the peregrinatio that is our earthly existence has been prefigured\nin the life of Christ, and is the complement of the heavenly existence to\ncome; therefore we should travel onwards through the regions of the earth,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=158\nPages: 158,159\ngladiis sibi regna quaerit aut tuetur, quam primo redeat, relictis mundanis, unice\noptamus.\" Sesostris (1878-1841 BCE) was an Egyptian pharoah who according to\nHerodotus (Histories 2.102-110) sacrificed two of his own sons in an act of cowardice,\nyet set up obelisks across the lands of Egypt to demonstrate his own power (and placed\nfemale genitalia upon them to signify the cowardice of those who did not resist his\ndominion).\n127\nAccording to Frick, in Maier's time the character from Plautus' play had also become a\nliterary symbol for the archetypal braggart; see his introduction to the Symbola Aureae\nMensae Duodecim Nationum. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1972, p.\nxi.\n128\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 306: \"Decern probatissimis viris dicitur collegium\nadhuc auctum. Hostis interim Pyrgopolynices irarum materiam ruminans aegreque\nconcoquens apud sese, ubi silentium fieri animadvertit, in hunc erupit modum.\nArgumentum Adversarii contra Chemiam...\"\n150]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=233\nPages: 233\nwith Aristotelian properties given in the Theses Summam Doctrinae de\nTemperamentis Corporis Humani).159 Upon his arrival Maier makes his way\ntowards Asia Minor, and to the place where Jason was said to have obtained\nthe Golden Fleece. Coming to the field of Mars, which was the site of\nthe palace of Jason's father-in-law \u00c4etes (a descendant of the Sun), Maier\nmeets an old man of venerable countenance with whom he strikes up a\nconversation. As this senex is clearly a wise and experienced man, Maier asks\nhim if the stories related in poems and histories concerning Jason and his\nGolden Fleece are in fact true, or vain and false; for as facts they detract from\nfaith, but as fictions they may at least represent moral expositions. 160 To this\nquestion the old man suddenly cries \"Behold, I am Jason!\", and proceeds to\nrelate the story of his quest for the Golden Fleece, which had been 'gilded' by\nMercury and hung in the grove of Mars by \u00c4etes. As a dragon had been set to]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=144\nPages: 144\nhe considers himself to be a member of that Order of German Blood' which\nis ushering in the new age. As once the wise men of Athens worked under the\nfigure of the Owl, so in Maier's time the \"true investigators of Nature, known\nand unknown\" are denoted by that same hieroglyph; 79 and amongst these true\nscientists are numbered not only the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, but Maier\nhimself. For the Jocus Severus is a game that he plays in the nocturnal hours,\nin order to \"escape the silence of Vulcan's work\" and to \"obey his soul,\"\nrather than for the purpose of publishing his knowledge and exposing it to the\ncommon folk. 80 Thus we can envisage Maier patiently sitting before the\nfurnace in the late hours of the night, scratching at a manuscript with his quill\npen whilst the chemical processes within the vessel take their course. In\ndefence of such a nocturnal lifestyle, Maier invokes the authority of\nAvicenna, who writes in his commentary on Aristotle's De Anima\u00b7.\n75\n76\n77\n78\n79\n80]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=142\nPages: 142\nescaped Maier; but if by 'playing the game' he might promote his own\ninterests, then he was more than willing to do so.\nAccordingly, we find a double meaning in Maier's words; for the word\nfama possesses not only the connotation of the English 'fame' with which it\nhas been translated, but also that of 'rumour' or 'common talk' - an\nambiguity not lost to the manifesto's creator. In this sense the Fama might\ndeceive because truth withers away upon exposure to the vulgar and ignorant\nmasses; thus Maier states that the anonymous members of the Fraternity are\nthemselves like the Owl, because they shun the light of fame to avoid\nexposing the secrets of the Hermetic arts. And whilst it has been their custom\nto lead lives of anonymity,71 as the 'evening of the world' rapidly approaches\n70\nMaier, Jocus Severus, p. 10: \"Omnibus Verae Chymiae Amantibus, per Germaniam\nnotis et ignotis, et inter hos, nisi nos Fama fallat, ILLI SANGUINIS GERMANICI]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=78\nPages: 78,79\nconstituerim: Testor igitur hoc meo libro, hactenus omnia quae legi, quae vidi, cum\nauthoribus omnibus et singulis (de veris, non ficticiis loquor) si non verbis, at rebus\noptime convenire, et a me hyemem, ver et aestatem, anni tempora absoluta, autumnum\nvero propter calumnias vicinorum et injurias, quas quotidie passus sum, non attigisse:\nQuamvis autem haec quarta pars sit opus mulierum et ludus puerorum, ac merito requies\na philosophis dicatur, respectu praecedentium laborum, in quibus manibus et oculis,\nGebro teste, opus est.\" The reference to \"women's work and child's play\" is a standard\nmedieval alchemical allusion to the processes of 'cooking' and 'washing' by which the\nalchemical subject is purified. The phrase is attributed to Geber in the Rosarium\nPhilosophorum, but appears in the seventeenth dictum of the Turba Philosophorum from\nthe mouth of 'Socrates'; see also the third and twenty-second emblems of Maier's\nAtalanta Fiigiens.\n70\nBohemia and England]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=167\nPages: 167\nMaybe there are some who name themselves Brethren, whilst not being at all in harmony\nwith our choir. Such an impostor some time ago spread the most deceitful rubbish amongst\nthe peoples of the lands between Innsbruck and Vienna. That purse-thief was exposed, and\npaid a bitter price by being suspended on a cross. Another such meddler was similarly caught\nin the city of Augsburg, and he lost his earlobes with the lash. 1 6 5\nIt must be remarked that, authentic or otherwise, any 'Rosicrucians' found\npeddling their ideologies or alchemical wares in Austria - at that time a seat\nof the Counter-Reformation - could expect short shrift from the authorities.\nHowever, B. M. I. himself gives a clue that the true Fraternity was rather\nmore virtual than tangible when - in a somewhat cryptic aside - he\nadmonishes such impostors not to \"throw our gaming-board (alveolus) into\nconfusion.\" 166 Here we have another allusion to the game or 'serious jest' set\nin motion by Andreae.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=138\nPages: 138,139\nTalem vero jam esse, nondum mihi persuaserunt, tum quia nimis vel temeraria, vel\nhumilia etiam proferunt.\"\n130\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nThe crux of this passage is contained in its clear equation of the 'concourse of\nintellects' brought together by the manifestos with the 'society' itself; for it is\nclear from Andreae's words that what is ingenious about the 'game' is that a\nRosicrucian society of sorts had indeed been constituted by those inspired to\nthe defence of the Fraternity by Andreae's Utopian vision - or would have\nbeen constituted, if there were not so many vulgar opinions amongst those\nthat flooded the printing presses in response to the manifestos. In this sense\nthe manifestos did not simply constitute an invitation to the learned of Europe\nto eventually build a society akin to that outlined in the manifestos, but\nalso formed a very present and cogent virtual arena for the furtherance of\na Hermetic Protestant ideology. In light of this fact, Waite's misleading]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=195\nPages: 195\nPhilosophorum, in which 'Aristotle' declares:\nMake a circle out of a man and a woman, derive from it a square, and from the square a\ntriangle: make a circle [again] and you will have the Philosophers' Stone. 23\nsed igneae naturae, calidos et siccos, motu contractionis et dilatationis, quos deinde\nmittit per arterias car\u00f3tidas in cerebrum, ut ibi frigiditate et humiditate cerebrim retiformi\ncomplexu temperentur et fiant spiritus animales sensibus omnibus et motibus causandis\nin corpore aptis: ita Sol sive ex puriore aere, sive alias, fabricat essentias subtilissimas,\nquibus insunt Lumen, Calor, et Virtus, antea dicta, easque transmittit ad stellas omnes\ncircumcirca in coelo sitas, hoc est, errantes et fixas.\"\n21\nMaier, De Circulo Physico, Quadrato, p. 6: \"Mobiiis hic orbis punctus, stipante corona/\nErrantum incedit Duxque caputque Facum./ Sic COR et humani dominatur corporis\nAula/ Proque suo nutu subdita membra trahit./ Illud spiritibus venas, vegetoque tepore,/]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=142\nPages: 142,143\nnotis et ignotis, et inter hos, nisi nos Fama fallat, ILLI SANGUINIS GERMANICI\nORDINI, adhuc delitescenti, at Fama Fraternitatis et Confessione sua admiranda et\nprobabili, in genere manifestato, asscribo, dico et dedico.\" It is noteworthy that de Rola\nomits 'ILLI SANGUINIS GERMANICI ORDINI in his rendering of this passage; de\nRola, Stanislas Klossowski. The Golden Game: Alchemical\nEngravings\nof the\nSeventeenth Century. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1988, p. 62.\n71\nIbid.\u00b7. \"Cum enim tantus Dei Thesaurus ab iis, quibus oblatus est, nulli prostitu\u00ed aut\nmanifestari debeat, hinc authores ipsi quasi Deo dicati, mundoque abrogati, Deo sibique\nviventes rarissime agnosci uni aut alteri, nunquam vero vulgo voluerunt.\"\n134\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nthe Brethren - like the Owl - emerge from their diurnal concealment to\nmanifest the truth of the coming age:\n...Now there arises that profession of divine and human matters, which like a fanfare of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=138\nPages: 138\nthirteenth dialogue between Admirator (an admirer), Contemptor (a despiser)\nand Aestimator (an appraiser according to the intrinsic value of a thing).\nAndreae as Aestimator gives the following revealing assessment of the furore\nprovoked by the Brethren:\nThe more I inquire into this fraternity, the more ingenious the game appears to me. For it\npossesses such a sum of human desires, that it inspires the appetite in pre-eminent intellects to obtain those things for which they have long exerted themselves. And truly, by\nthis coming together of intellects, or by this society, if it consisted of the most select and\nperspicacious men, it would be possible to produce things which surpass our comprehension.\nThat it is indeed such a kind of society, they have not yet persuaded me, because they proffer\nup too much imprudence, or indeed baseness. 61\nnitatem expectetis: fabula peracta est. Fama astruxit: fama destruxit. Fama ajebat: fama\nnegat...\"\n59\n60\n61\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 79.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=225\nPages: 225\nquest in Europe (earth), travels through America (water) to Asia (air) and\nfinally arrives in the deserts of Africa (fire) - for \"air may not come from\nearth except by the mediation of water, and fire may not come from water\nexcept by the mediation of air.\"129 Whilst Andreae's Chymische Hochzeit is\nreplete with an intensely surreal imagery, Maier's allegory is permeated with\na veritable cornucopia of bizarre facts drawn from history, astronomy, botany\nand zoology, each of which possesses a microcosmic or macrocosmic\ncorrespondence to laboratory process.\nMaier begins his allegory with an explanation of the origins of his quest\nfor the phoenix. Having spent the greater part of his life in the study of\nrefined literature and the liberal arts, and having conversed with men of\ngreater wisdom than the common folk, his contemplation of the masses had\nled him to the conclusion that they prefer ostentation, carnality and lust to\n127\n128]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=219\nPages: 219,220\nnoverunt.\"\n111\nDe Rola, The Golden Game, p. 106.\nUlysses and the death of Maier\n211\nOdysseus, or Roman Ulysses - reflects the ideals and self-perception of a\nman who is nearing the end of a long journey. Following the method of his\nArcana Arcanissima, Maier portrays the figure of Ulysses as a hieroglyph,\nbehind which lies veiled a higher truth - wisdom in the face of suffering. This\nwisdom takes the form of a paradox, as ill fortune and poor health may be\ntransformed through the power of the intellect:\nNobody is happy, I believe, unless they are wise, and nobody unhappy or foolish, unless they\ndo not skilfully use the intellect; for while good and evil things depend on fortune, they do\nnot define a man or determine the boundary of happiness and unhappiness, since bad may be\ntransformed into good for a man, and good into bad. I am willing to say the same concerning\nfavourable or odious circumstances of the body, because they do not truly deliver happiness]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=65\nPages: 65\nof the world to man, lest he should grow old amidst the smoke and dung of the house altar.\nTo the birds the entire sublunary region of the air lies open, and to man it is the terrestrial\nglobe. I might look to the sky itself, and to the great wayfarer, the sun, and see how it\nrejoices in continual motion and warms, illuminates and governs all the creatures of the earth\nand heavens. Likewise I will direct my mind to the human breast, and to the heart itself, and\nsee how it is driven by this perpetual motion for as long as life remains; for life ends when\nthe motion is taken away, damaged or hindered- It is natural therefore for man to move from\nplace to place, from region to region, until he can see into himself, above himself and around\nhimself. 91\nFor Maier the peregrinatio that is our earthly existence has been prefigured\nin the life of Christ, and is the complement of the heavenly existence to\ncome; therefore we should travel onwards through the regions of the earth,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=107\nPages: 107,108\nvirtues of gold and the production of a 'golden stone' which, like natural\ngold, contains the opposing sulphuric and mercuric principles in equal part\nand restores the balance of humours in the intemperate body. If Maier was\nfortunate enough to meet with Moritz prior to his departure for England, it\nwould have been the allure of this iatrochemical goal that he would have\n111\nIbid., p. 50 recto.\nOn this subject, see Karpenko, Vladimir. \"Between Magic and Science: Numerical\nMagical Squares,\" Ambix, Vol. 40, No. 3, November 1993, pp. 121-128; Stapleton, H. E.\n\"The Antiquity of Alchemy,\" Ambix, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1953, pp. 9-15.\n113\nIbid.\n114\nKooij, Pleun van der and Carlos Gilly (eds.). Fama Fraternitatis: Das Urmanifest der\nRosenkreuzer Bruderschaft. Haarlem: Rozekruis Pers, 1998, pp. 98-100.\n112\nA journey to England\n99\nplayed upon, and the notion of maintaining health and piety in the body\npolitic - matters close to the heart of a Calvinist prince such as Moritz.\n7. A journey to England]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=277\nPages: 277\nde Rola, Stanislas Klossowski. The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth\nCentury. New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1988.\nDebus, Allen G. \"Chemists, Physicians, and Changing Perspectives on the Scientific\nRevolution,\" History of Science Society Distinguished Lecture, Isis, Vol. 89, No.l,\nMarch 1998, pp. 66-81.\n\u2014 The English \u03a1aracelsians. London: Oldbourne, 1965.\nDictionary of National Biography. Vol. 1. London: Smith and Elder, 1885.\nDobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. \"Newton's Commentary on the Emerald Tablet of Hermes\nTrismegistus: its Scientific and Theological Significance.\" In Merkel, Ingrid and Allen G.\nDebus (eds.). Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in\nEarly Modern Europe. Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1988, pp. 182-191.\n\u2014 The Foundations of Newton's Alchemy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.\nEco, Umberto. Das Foucaultsche Pendel. M\u00fcnchen: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1989.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=229\nPages: 229,230\nQuod quaeris, dicebant, nusquam invenies, ac quod invenies, non est, quod quaeris:\nDeceptus es ab aliis, qui te, quod non est, indagare impulerunt: Parce labori, sumptui et\ninquisitioni vocalis sine pondere bombi, qui velut Echo te Narcissum proprii ingenii\nadmiratorem sequitur et ad omnia vocata, prout videntur, apta respondet, ad rem vero,\nquam inquir\u00eds, ineptissima: Nonnulli eorum, haec est res abstrusior et intricatior, aiebant,\nquem ut tibi, tuisque studiis conveniat: Demus enim, esse eiusmodi Medicinam ex\nPhoenice petendam, at hominis vita per se admodum brevis perit, antequam i n d a g e t e . \"\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n221\nEven if truly I may not possess such great gifts, nevertheless I do not know by which\nbeckoning or command (surely divine, I believe) I am being swept into these troubles, at\nonce willing and unwilling, with the unwavering and preconceived hope that the sought]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=323\nPages: 323,326\nby the fact that the orbit of Mars does not intersect with the solar orbit.\n315\n25. \"Make a circle out of a man and a woman, derive from it a square,\nand from the square a triangle: make a circle [again] and you will have\nthe Philosophers' Stone.\" Atalanta Fugiens, emblem 21.\n316\n26. The Defenestration of Prague.\n317\nC O M E T A\nO R I \u0395\nTALIS,\n\u039d-\ncfcrc i t w n a te g n e f \u00f3 r r . ff o m r t e n / f o\nim$\u00ecc>\n\u00bbtntixr cej? abgclauffcncu i \u00bf i 8 .\ni t i C r i f t i \u00ed / o \u00ed v r ge^m\n2tuff\u00e2ang Oer Sonnen allait tr (\"\u03c6 im en l tm\u00f6 Pon miti\nmgficfj gcfc^atrcor\u00f6ot.\n2\u00edtt|] \u00edt>ar\u00ed>afffrn a f h r o f o g f f \u00f3e n \u00ed r n b i j t f t o r i f c f t r n\n\u00ae\u00ab\u0399\u03a4\u03c6\nM \u00bb G o t h a r d u m A r t h u f i u i n D a n t i i c a n u m , P.C.Hiftot.\n&\u00bf Pliilo-Mathcm. j\u00ab Jrantffurt am 2p?apn,\n\u00a1Mr Vi '\u03af\u039b\"\u03b0~':\nHH\n2. T\u00ecmith.j,\nInftabunt tempora pcricul\u00fc\u00edi.\nS m m f furt a r o \u00bb \u00e7 n / \u039d @fe>frownWVMcm<\n\u03c0\n/yh-J\n\u00b7 cm. n e . X I V\n27. The comet of 1618, as depicted in Gotthard's Cometa Orientalis]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=289\nPages: 289\n84, 111, 144\u03b7., 145,233-234,236,253\nDee, John, 70, 108n., 172, 237\nDefenestration of Prague, 193 ,flg. 26\nde Jong, \u0397. \u039c. E., 97, 187, 235-236\ndella Porta, Giambattista, 38, 164\nde Meung, Pseudo-Jean, 78\ndemocracy, 203, 204, 217n.\nDemocritus, 139,217\nde Rola, Stanislas Klossowski, 133n., 210\nd'Espagnet, Jean, 240, 245n.\nde Strada, Octavio, 79\nDeucalion, 167-168, 223\nDevil, see Satan\nDiana, Greek deity, 170, 172\nDigby, Sir Kenelm, 241n.\nDiodorus Siculus, 84, 253\nDionysus, 84\nDioscorides, 218n.\ndistillation, 40, 72, 86, 195, 216n.\ndivine spark, see scintilla\nDobbs, B. J. T., 6-8, 10, 16\nDora, Gerhard, 12, 16, 23, 73n., 252\ndove, 4 0 - 4 1 , 6 6 , 2 3 1 , 2 3 2\nDragon's Blood, 100, 111\ndreams, 4, 24, 31\ndropsy, see cedema\nDruids, 120, 165,253\nDuchesne, Joseph, 61n., 233\nDuenech, 31, 143\ndung, 66, 95-96\neagle, as alchemical symbol, 77-78, 221,\nfig 30\nEaster, 65, 68, 108, 146, 205\nEcho, 220\nEcker und Eckhoffen, Hans Heinrich von,\n123 ff.\nEco, Umberto, 18, 237n.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=220\nPages: 220\nnisi intellectu dextre non utens, aut insipiens: Nam quae bona et mala a fortuna\ndependent, hominem non definiunt aut ad finem beatitudinis aut infelicitatis non\ndirigunt, cum ilia mala in bonum, et bona in malum virum transferri possint: Eadem de\ncorporis accidentibus favorabilibus, aut odiosis dicta velim; quod nec ilia vere felicem,\nhaec miserum reddant hominem: In potiore hominis parte, mente, situm esse debet, a\nquo denominatio ejus beati vel contra petenda sit: Quae mea sententia liceat stoam\nduriorem primo aspectu praese ferat, veritati tamen Academicae neutiquam adversatur,\nsed proxime ad earn accedit: Hoc etsi paradoxon paradoxotaton haberi possit, tamen\nfaxo, ut teneris etiam auribus non ingratum, nisi fallor, accidat.\"\nIbid., p. 30: \"Ulysses itaque est sapientiae absolutae (humanae) symbolum, quae omnes\nalios supergreditur mortales, seque in aethereas exaltat domos, nunquam humi repens aut\nbestialia exercitia quaerens, sed sublimia, vere intellectualia et homini propria.\"]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=158\nPages: 158,159\ngladiis sibi regna quaerit aut tuetur, quam primo redeat, relictis mundanis, unice\noptamus.\" Sesostris (1878-1841 BCE) was an Egyptian pharoah who according to\nHerodotus (Histories 2.102-110) sacrificed two of his own sons in an act of cowardice,\nyet set up obelisks across the lands of Egypt to demonstrate his own power (and placed\nfemale genitalia upon them to signify the cowardice of those who did not resist his\ndominion).\n127\nAccording to Frick, in Maier's time the character from Plautus' play had also become a\nliterary symbol for the archetypal braggart; see his introduction to the Symbola Aureae\nMensae Duodecim Nationum. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1972, p.\nxi.\n128\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 306: \"Decern probatissimis viris dicitur collegium\nadhuc auctum. Hostis interim Pyrgopolynices irarum materiam ruminans aegreque\nconcoquens apud sese, ubi silentium fieri animadvertit, in hunc erupit modum.\nArgumentum Adversarii contra Chemiam...\"\n150]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=219\nPages: 219\nbiographers believe that Maier died at Magdeburg in 1622, but I do not. I believe that\nMaier felt the time was ripe to disappear for political and philosophical reasons, and this\nmay well be why his last treatise (1624) was given out as posthumous.\" The idea of\n'disappearing' may also stem from Yates; to be fair to de Rola, he rightly admits that this\nis \"an unsubstantiated feeling.\" See de Rola, The Golden Game, p. 106.\n110\nMaier, Cantilenae Intellectuales, pp. A4-A5: \"Mei, quia Holsatus sim patria, quam ob\nstudia Hermetica penitus absolvenda et apud exteros in diversis regionibus et populis\nexantlanda, ante 14. annos reliqui lubens et volens, non, ut spes est, in perpetuum, sed ad\ntempus, prout Deo et principi meo placuerit, aliquando reversurus: Meos autem, qui\nqualesque fuerint, non solum tota Nobilitas Holsata, sed et parens tuus, avusque Divae\nmemoriae, quibus i Hi, quoad vixerunt, servitio fidelissimo astricti fuerunt, optime\nnoverunt.\"\n111\nDe Rola, The Golden Game, p. 106.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=145\nPages: 145\nThe words that you have uttered, which fill the air with droning, do not help at all; if you\ntake away the body from the light, the shadow is lost. And if you do not rage with anger\nabout the blind habits that your parents teach you and your offspring, you are being deceived\nand are in want of reason, courage and fairness. If that is the crime of your forefathers, do not\ntake it up yourself. 8 3\n81\nIbid., p. 5: \"Ego hoc totum, inquit, didici frequenter legende, el parum dormiendo, et\nparum comedendo et minus bibendo, et quantum expenderunt sodi mei in lumine ad\npotandum vinum de nocte, tantum ego expend\u00ed ad vigilandum et legendum de node in\noleo, et quantum expendebant in comestione, amplius expendebam ego in lumine ad\nvigilandum et discendum de node: Et nisi hoc facerem, non scirem de magisterio.\"\n82\nIbid., p. 14: \"Sub nomine actoris ex vulgo imperiti, qui causas rerum non attendit, sed ex\nalterius praeiudicio de Chemia, in qua ne tantillum expertas est, iudicat. Argumentum]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 149 to page 167 out of a total of 334:\nPages 149:\n140\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nsuccinctly by the gathered alchemists. And whilst the phoenix was the chief\njudge of the avian court in the Jocus Severus, in his dedication Maier invites\nCount Ernst himself to act as arbiter of the dispute.94\nAccording to Waite, Maier's Symbola Aureae Mensae marks the first\nusage of the denomination Collegium Philosophorum Germanorum de\nR. '. C. '., or 'College of German Philosophers R.\u00c9. C . . ', which was propagated\nin the nineteenth century amongst certain esoteric initiatory societies.95 The\npassage in the Symbola Aureae Mensae concerning the Rosicrucian Brethren\noccurs in the midst of the sixth chapter, which is dedicated to the German\nalchemists, and in particular to the great German scientist and theologian\nAlbertus Magnus (c.1200-1280), who is said by Maier to have \"produced the\nphoenix,\" and was moreover the first to perfect the Art after the Arabs. 96 In\nthe course of this chapter Maier launches into a nineteen-page discourse on\nthe subject of the Brethren, which is placed within the wider context of the\ntransmission of the alchemical Art from the Arabs to the Germans. In so\ndoing he establishes not only alchemy but Rosicrucianism itself as the heir of\nthe wisdom of the great Egyptian sage, Hermes Trismegistus.\nWhilst discussing Paracelsus as a compatriot of Albertus, Maier states\nthat the \"hitherto unknown\" Brethren have given favourable testimony\nconcerning this man - a reference to the Fama Fraternitatis, in which it is\nstated that although he led a free and careless life and preferred to mock\nrather than peaceably confer with his peers, Paracelsus had nevertheless\ndiligently read the Fraternity's treasured work, the Liber M..91 Using this\nreference as a bridge to the topic of Rosicrucianism, Maier describes how the\nBrethren profess 'occult medicine' and the operation of 'astral properties' properties to which he, too, has recourse in his work. 98 He goes on to present\ntwo of his chief arguments for the Fraternity's reality and legitimacy:\nSince indeed we may recall that in ancient times there were instituted diverse and solemn\nphilosophical colleges by experts in the Art of chymia, would it not be marvellous if this\nkind of college should at some time have come to pass in our most populous German\nnation, which has been divided into so many peoples and regions? For as [these Brethren],\nbeing authors of truth, and having obtained the goals of the Art by their own faculty of\ninvention, or alternately by communication, have spoken of and exhibited compassion and\nphilanthropic service to humankind, and pious prayer to God; so it is lawful that they\nmaintain silence and ill-will against the undeserving... 99\n94\n95\n96\n97\n98\n99\nIbid., p. vi.\nWaite, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, p. 324.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 236, 248.\nIbid., p. 286; Kooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, pp. 79-81.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 288.\nIbid., pp. 288-289: \"Cum vero antehac diversorum collegiorum philosophicorum\nsolennitatumque antiquitus ab artis Chymicae gnaris institutarum meminerimus, quid\n\nPages 150:\nAn invitation to Rosicrucians\n141\nThe first argument implied here, and elaborated upon at length in the\nSilentium post Clamores - that it is not unreasonable to suppose a secret\nFraternity exists in Germany, given the existence of similar 'philosophical\ncolleges' in other countries - might seem spurious to the contemporary\nreader. Nevertheless, Maier makes sporadic mention of such societies\nthroughout the Symbola Aureae Mensae and the Arcana Arcanissima, which\nhe reiterates succinctly in the fifth chapter of the Silentium post Clamores.\nHis aim is to demonstrate the oral transmission of chemical arcana since the\ntime of Hermes Trismegistus, the 'Viceroy' of the Virgin Queen Chemia; and\nif a direct lineage cannot always be traced, one may in any case account for\nthe congruency of arcane teachings throughout the millennia simply because\ninsight into Nature will always give rise to the same unvarying truths. Thus\nMaier allows that the Brethren may have perfected the Art either \"by their\nown faculty of invention\" or by \"communication;\" and thus he interprets the\nLiber M. of the Brethren as the liber mundi, which having been codified by\nthe Arabs was passed on to Germany, but which nevertheless is universally\navailable to those with eyes to see. In answer to those critics of the Fama\nFraternitatis who argue that Paracelsus could not have read the Liber M , as\nthe tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz had been sealed some nine years before\nhis birth, Maier goes on to state that it is irrelevant whether Paracelsus had\nread a particular book of the Brethren, as the Liber M. is in fact \"the book of\nthe world, or of things existing in the world, and of their properties; or\nindeed, the book of natural magic.\" 100\nThe second argument set forward in the Symbola Aureae Mensae follows\na theme of the preface to the Jocus Severus: that the silence of the Fraternity\nis lawful, as their arcana are a gift from God and should not be exposed to the\nundeserving rabble. Such silence does not imply the non-existence of the\nBrethren, which was an oft-heard accusation given their failure to answer the\nmany enthusiastic replies and entreaties for admittance provoked by the\npublication of the manifestos. 101 It might be deduced from these arguments\nthat Maier was convinced of the existence of an organised secret Fraternity\nlying behind the manifestos, and was thus victim rather than perpetrator of a\nmirum, si huiusmodi in natione Germanica populosissima, inque tot gentes et regiones\ndivisa olim hunc usque contigerit? Nam ut artifices veri, qui ex propria inventione vel\nalterius communicatione finem artis consecuti sunt, Deo votum pietatis, hominibus\nofficium humanitatis et commiserationem dicant et praestant, ita licet silentium et\ninvidiam contra indignos obtineant...\"\n100\nIbid., pp. 294-295: \"Per librum M librum mundi seu rerum in mundo existentium,\nearumque proprietatum, aut Magiae naturalis, intelligo: Talem librum Arabes habuerunt,\nqui cum descriptus fuerit in Germaniam allatus est: sive igitur hunc ipsum aut ei similem\nParacelsus legerit perinde est, nihilominus constat eum in hoc libro versatissimum\nextitisse.\"\n101\nIbid., p. 289.\n\nPages 151:\n142\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nludibrium, as later generations of writers were to describe him. Nevertheless,\nwe find certain discrepancies and ambiguities in Maier's account which bring\nsuch a judgment into question. The first of these occurs shortly after the\npassage cited above:\nLest we the rearguard remain too long unbelieving, we declare: that praiseworthy German\nsociety, however many they are and wherever they may lie hidden amongst the living, are\ninvited, called together, and led to this our Table, named Golden because of its golden\nguests, provided that they will be satisfied with quite simple dishes, which are the only\ncourses we have to offer here (for the cook has been seized during his preparation by a\nhostile fever, sometimes cold, sometimes hot, and his breathing has been agitated, wherefore\nhe is unable to serve up more splendid and opulent dishes of oxen). 1 0 2\nIt is clear from his words that Maier considers himself to be amongst a\n'rearguard' (post principia) of a similar ilk to the Protestant Hermeticists\nportrayed in the manifestos; by inviting the Fraternity to the Golden Table he\nis calling upon those of his own persuasion to join together in face of their\ncritics. The words 'too long unbelieving' might indicate Maier was still\nuncertain concerning the status of the author of the manifestos; nevertheless,\nit seems that he did not go to any great length to investigate the matter, given\nthat he might have followed the same route that Friedrich Grick had taken to\nuncover Andreae's identity - the Frankfurt Book Fair. Like other Rosicrucian\napologists, Maier constructed his Rosicrucian writings as a rallying point for\nhis own ideas, and a call to realise an already-existing but dispersed and\ndisorganised brotherhood in Christ and Hermes. In this sense the words of the\nSymbola Aureae Mensae are not unlike the invitation that the manifestos\nthemselves form.\nIt is also evident that Maier's 'invitation' to the Fraternity is an attempt to\ndemarcate the boundaries of true Rosicrucianism in accordance with his own\nproclivities; for those who would not be satisfied with the dishes served at the\nGolden Table are those with no interest in the practical labour of alchemy and\nthe production of iatrochemical cures. Thus the puzzling allusion to the\nfeverish cook refers to the labours of the alchemist, and the dishes he serves\nare the fruits of those labours. This allusion rests in part upon the traditional\ndepiction of the alchemical process as a feverish man, to be found in the\nmedieval Allegory of Merlin reprinted seven years prior to the Symbola\n102\nIbid.\u00b7. \"Ne itaque et nos, post principia, nimis diu increduli remaneamus, constituimus\nLAUDABILEM ILLAM SOCIETATEM GERMANICAM, QUOTQUOT ET UBI\nLATEANT APUD VIVOS, AD HANC NOSTRAM MENSAM, AUREAM DICTAM\nOB AURATOS CONVIVAS, invitare, convocare et adducere, si modo vulgaribus sint\ncontenti missibus, (coquus enim certe dum in hac praeparatione tota occupatus fuit,\nquartano hoste nunc frigidum nunc calidum expirante agitatus lautiores bovis epulas\napponere nequit) quos hic solos offerimus.\"\n\nPages 152:\nAn invitation to Rosicrucians\n143\nAureae Mensae, or the strange tale of the melancholic duke dosed with\nsudorifics presented by the Allegory of Duenech and referred to in the\ntwenty-eighth discourse of Maier's Atalanta Fugiens.103, But Maier also\nclearly states that he himself is the 'cook' at the Golden Table; for this entire\npassage appears under the curious marginal heading, \"The author has been\nfighting with the disease for four days (as the guests fought with\nPyrgopolynices).\" 104 As the 'hostile fever' suffered by the cook is the\nquartan, there can be no doubt that Maier was sick at the time of writing, a\nfact that underscores his very personal involvement with his Work. Just what\nMaier is cooking up at the Golden Table is made evident by omission, when\nhe states that the feverish cook is unable to serve the guests \"opulent dishes\nof oxen.\" This is not only a warning that those who wish to engage with the\npleasures of the senses will not find their appetites satisfied at the Golden\nTable, but also an oblique reference to the temperance-imparting Universal\nMedicine, which is the 'only course' on offer.\nNevertheless, in the following pages of the Symbola Aureae Mensae Maier\nplayfully reverses notions of piety and desire when he presents ten short\nenigmas to the Brethren; in a typically obscure allusion, it is said that he\noffers these enigmas to the Fraternity at the Golden Table just as philothesia\nwas offered up to the table guests during the Saturnalia.105 Although the word\nphilothesia is not to be found in any of the major Latin lexicons, from\nanother reference to this term made by Maier in the fourth epigram of the\nAtalanta Fugiens we may identify it as a love potion (figure 18).106\n103\n104\nSee \"The Allegory of Merlin.\" British Library, MS Sloane 3506, pp. 74-75; also\n\"Merlini Allegoria profundissimum Philosophici Lapidis arcanum perfecte continens.\"\nIn Artis Auriferae. Vol. I. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1610, pp. 252-254. The Duenech\nallegory is to be found in the Theatrum Chemicum. Vol. 3. Ursel: Zetzner, 1602, pp.\n756-757; Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 28: \"Duenech itaque a Pharut in\nLaconicum introducitur, ut ibi sudet, et tertiae concoctionis foeces per poros excernat:\nEst autem hujus regis affectus melancholicus seu atrabilarius, unde omnibus aliis\nprincipibus in minori authoritate et precio est habitus, dum Saturni morositate et Maitis\ncholera seu iracundia fuerit taxatus: Ipse igitur aut mori aut curari voluit, si id possibile\nsit.\" Maier explains the allegory in terms of the purification of both human and metallic\nbodies.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 289: \"Authoris cum morbo (uti convivarum cum\nPyrgopolynice, conflictu) quarto quoque die.\"\n105\nIbid., p. 291: \"Denique nostri conatus ad Minervae Aenigmata, prout ilia in mentem\nmanumque venerint, eidem Collegio Germanico studiose, ceu philothesia in Saturnalibus\npropinamus hoc est, discumbentes inservientibus pro temporis ratione.\"\n106\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, epigram 4: \"Non hominum foret in mundo nunc tanta\npropago,/ Si fratti conjunx non data prima soror./ Ergo lubens conjunge duos ab utroque\nparente/ Progenitos ut sint foemina masque toro./ Praebibe nectareo Philothesia pocla\nliquore/ Utrisque, et foetus spem generabit amor.\" In the German translation of the\nepigram in the Atalanta Fugiens \"der Lieb Becher mit s\u00fcssem Reben Safft\" is given, i.e.\n\"the love goblet with the juice of the vine;\" there is the possibility that this is a\n\nPages 153:\n144\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nAccording to Maier's letter of Christmas greetings to Prince Henry of\nEngland, the Saturnalia was a midwinter Roman festival which marked a\nbrief return to the conditions of the Golden Age; 107 significantly for Maier's\nreference to 'serving' the Brethren his enigmas, during this festival the roles\nof master and slave were reversed and moral restrictions were relaxed. Thus\nMaier appears impishly to question whether the Brethren are in fact masters\nor servants at the Golden Table. However, it is not simply Maier's penchant\nfor riddles that motivates this strange portrayal of the purveying of love\npotion to the chaste Brethren, or his depiction of the Golden Table as a feast\nin honour of Saturn, symbol of old age, decay and the deep materiality of\nlead. Rather, it is his concern with the coniunctio oppositorum, and the\nparadoxical relationship in his alchemy of corporeality to the divine.\nOn first inspection the ten enigmas composed by Maier give the impression that their solutions may well have died with their author; and as draughts\nserved up to the Fraternity they would have proved less than potable, even to\nthe author of the enigmatic manifestos. Nevertheless, they furnish us with\ninteresting clues concerning Maier's perspective on the Rosicrucian affair.\nThe first nine enigmas are dedicated to the Muses; and in the ninth enigma\ndedicated to Urania, the Muse of astronomy, Maier ponders over the number\nof 'Brethren' brought together by the manifestos and their message:\nAs I consider the eternal signs of your house R. C.,\nand ponder the number of our allies united in one troupe,\na man from the common people passes by.\nHe asks eagerly, how many have I counted in my sum total;\nMight it be five times fifty? For seemingly I had so much.\nIn reply I declare: that number which I have gathered,\nif just so many is increased by half,\nand this by a sixth part moreover,\nthen there would be given just so many as you say.\nBut he was unable to deal with this complicated addition. 1 0 8\nDeckname for an actual herbal medicament employed by Maier, as philothesia may be\nderived from the Greek \u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd (originally, 'temple of Theseus') denoting a parasitic\nplant known as the bastard toad-flax, Thesium linophyllum.\n107\nSrigley, Images of Regeneration, p. 101.\n108\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 301: \"Vestrae signa domus R. C. perennia/ Dum\nlustro, numerosque ex sociis agens;/ Unito agmine, praeterit/ Quidam de populi grege./\nHie quarens cupida mente, quot egerim/ In summam num\u00e9ros, anne ea quinquies:/\nQuinquaginta referrent?/ Tot namque esse viderier./ Quem contra asservi: Quot numeri\nmihi:/ Collecti, totidem si fuerint adhuc,/ Atque hoc dimidio auctum, et Sexta hoc parte\nsit insuper;/ Tunc, quot dicis, erunt hinc numeri dati:/ Extricare sed his plexibus\nimpotens...\"\n\nPages 154:\nAn invitation to Rosicrucians\n145\nWhilst this enigma may have confounded the common folk of Maier's time,\nthe solution is roughly 142.857; and if we might consider this to be a\nnonsense, at the end of the enigma we are reminded by Maier that it is not our\nplace to guess the number of those whom God has chosen to bring together.\nNevertheless, it would seem from his words that the Fraternity is formed not\nonly by the authors of the manifestos but by all those \"German chemical and\nphilosophical authors, unknown and anonymous, lying hidden under the\nsymbol of R. C.\" 109 In Maier's eyes the letters R. C. form a Deckname or\nhieroglyph under which alchemists across Germany are working; and the\nsignificance of that hieroglyph is dealt with in the tenth and final 'twofold\nenigma', dedicated to Apollo, god of the Sun:\nFor me R. refers to the sea,\nIn which fish are being hunted at three different times:\nThe first when Cancer thrust forth his claws,\nThe second under the righteous judgement of Libra,\nThe third when Aquarius pours forth wet waves:\nTell me, of which fish do I speak, and of which waves of the sea? 1 1 0\nThe reference here to fish in a sea appears to be an allusion to the well-known\nalchemical allegory concerning \"the little round fish in our sea\" to be found\nin the enigmas of the Visio Arislei.lu In the context of this allegory, the sea\nmay be understood as the Mercurial Water, a universal solvent used to extract\nthe 'miraculous power' from the base metals or primary subject (the 'fish')\nwithin the alchemical vessel. In the twenty-second discourse of his Atalanta\nFugiens Maier follows Paracelsus in referring to the alchemical fish as trout,\nas it was believed that trout hold within themselves traces of the river gold\nthey swallow (and hence, according to Maier's alchemical cosmology, they\nare a model for the divine power of the Sun, the seed of gold, lying at the\nheart of all metals). 112 A good emblematic depiction of the alchemical sea\nand its fish is to be found in Lambsprinck's De Lapide Philosophico Libellus\n(see figure 19), which Maier mentions a little prior to the enigmas in his\nSymbola Aureae Mensae.113\n109\nIbid., p. 289: \"Germani authores Chymici et philosophi, incogniti et anonymi, latentes\nsub symbolo R. C.\"\n110\nIbid., p. 302: \"R. mihi adest aequor, pisces captantur in ilio/ Tempore tres vario, primus\ncum brachia Cancer/ Exerit, atque alter sub iusto examine Librae,/ Tertius humentes cum\nfundit Aquarius undas:/ Dicite, quos pisces statuam quas Aequoris undas?\"\n111\n\"Aenigmata ex Visione Arislei Philosophi.\" In Artis Auriferae.\nPernam, 1572, p. 162. Reprinted in 1610.\n112\nOn this subject see de Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, pp. 179-180.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 272. De Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, p.\n6, discusses the relationship of Lambsprinck's emblems to those of the Atalanta Fugiens.\n113\nVol. 1. Basel: Petrum\n\nPages 155:\n146\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nIt follows that the \"three different times\" at which the fish are hunted\nrepresent three different phases of solution in the lengthy alchemical process,\nas dictated by astrological law; the first when the sun is in Cancer (from June\n22), the second in Libra (from September 23) and the third in Aquarius (from\nJanuary 20). These signs of the Zodiac correspond to summer, autumn and\nwinter, giving spring as the time of the work's completion - and perhaps\nEaster, in accordance with Maier's first alchemical experiment detailed in the\nDe Medicina Reg\u00eca, although it must be said that the threefold solution given\nin the enigma does not correspond to any of the disparate procedures alluded\nto elsewhere by Maier.\nWhilst the details of Maier's laboratory practice are impossible to reconstruct, these enigmatic allusions again confirm the importance of practical\nalchemical work to his Rosicrucian ideal. Peuckert once remarked that\nMaier's Rosicrucian works do not completely reflect the attitude of the\nFama Fraternitatis and the Confessio Fraternitatis, because \"gold is always\nas valuable as sophia to him,\" and whilst alchemy forms a part of the\nmanifestos' message, \"for Maier it was everything.\" 114 Whilst it is true that\nMaier's emphasis on alchemy is at variance with that of the manifestos,\ndivine wisdom and laboratory process are not counterposed in his work, as\nthe Hermetic doctrines of sympathy and correspondence stipulate that the\ndivinely instituted laws at operation in the alchemist's vessel are mirrored in\nthe various tiers of the cosmos. Thus it is said in the second half of the tenth\n'twin' enigma that C. refers to the \"sublime laws of a fortress\":\nC. gives you the sublime laws of a fortress; and there is\nNo other bird that has more power with threatening wings and eyes\nThan the winged being thought to be yours.\nBy that bird's command a nest has been constructed in a tree,\nWhich some time ago produced a series of gold-born chicks. 115\nOn one hand we may understand the fortress to be the alchemical vessel\nitself; it is analogous to the nest of the bird of the Rosicrucians, which, from\nthe references given in Maier's fifth enigma, we may identify as his beloved\nphoenix. 116 From its nest, unassailable in the heights of an oak-tree, new life\n114\nPeuckert, Pansophie (1936 edition), p. 152.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 302: \"C. vobis Castri sublimia iura dat, et non/ Inter\naves est, quae valeat pernicibus alis/ Aut oculis ante hanc volucrem, quae vestra putatur,/\nEt cuius nutu est constructus in arbore nidus,/ Qui pridem Aurigenos produxit in ordine\npullos.\"\n116\nThe fifth enigma, dedicated to the muse of Tragedy, Melpomene, describes the nest of\nthe Phoenix built high in a gnarled oak where it rears its chicks; the bird is to be found in\nthe remote Arabian forests of Sheba, where it prepares for its long flight through all the\nworld: \"lovis volucris olim/ Quercu plicasset alta/ Nidos, suos penates,/ Pullos ut\n115\n\nPages 156:\nAn invitation to Rosicrucians\n147\nis born through a process of fiery destruction (the black phase of the work)\nand re-creation. On the other hand, the 'nest' and 'fortress' possess a\nsignificance beyond the vagaries of laboratory work. They are also a symbol\nfor Protestant Germany, the heart of the spiritual regeneration of Europe, and\nthe womb that has brought forth the generations of the Fraternity, as Maier\nputs it in his Themis Aurea.117 Thus in Maier's preamble to the enigmas, he\ntells us that \"the defences of the high wall\" have been built around the \"place\nof truth\" - and although the wall crumbles before those that assail it,\nnevertheless the 'artisans' within rush forward to build it up again, \"in order\nthat, by the command of God, the threats may cease.\" 118 These words are\nreminiscent of the famous emblem printed in Daniel M\u00f6gling's Speculum\nSophicum Rhodo-Stauroticum ('Sophical Rosicrucian Mirror,' 1618), in\nwhich the dwelling-place of the Fraternity is depicted as a fortress of God's\ntruth prevailing against its detractors - the most pernicious of whom, in the\neyes of the Rosicrucian apologists, were the Jesuit calumniators and other\nagents of the papal yoke.\nHow far was Maier implicated in the religious strife of his day by his\ninvolvement in the Rosicrucian affair? Evidence for the depth of hostilities\nharboured by the Jesuit camp is to be found in Father Fran\u00e7ois Garasset's La\nDoctrine Curieuse des Beaux Esprits de ce Temps, ou Pretendus Tels (1623),\na polemical tract appearing in Catholic France a year after Maier's death the same year that hysteria was created in Paris with reports of the entrance\nof the 'invisible' Brethren into that city. In this tract Garasset names Maier as\nthe 'secretary' of the Fraternity, which he portrays as a \"pernicious company\nof sorcerers and magicians\" whose doctrine stems from Satan and the \"Turks\nand cannibals\" of the Middle East.119 According to Garasset, Maier's books\neducaret:/ Rerum feracitate/ Estque apta visa sedes./ Quod cum Sabae remotis/ Sylvis eo\npropinquans/ Phoenix videret, inquit,/ Hie est quies parata/ Volatuum labori,/ Qui factus\nest per annos/ Tot, integrum per orbem...\" Ibid., p. 299.\n117\nMaier, Themis Aurea (1624 edition), pp. 123-124: see n. 212 below.\n118\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 291: \"Mina muri extant. Minas extare alti alicuius\nmuri cum ipsis fatemur, ex quarum lapsu concursuros opifices ad eas erigendas, at ita\nerigent, ut minae esse desinant, ex Dei nutu: Nul lus enim timor aut minae apud veritatis\namantes locum inveniunt...\"\n119\nGarasset, Fran\u00e7ois. La Doctrine Curieuse des Beaux Esprits de ce Temps, ou Pretendus\nTels. Contenant Plusieurs Maximes pernicieuses \u00e0 l'Estat, \u00e0 la Religion, et aux bonnes\nMoeurs. Combattue et Renversee par le P. Fran\u00e7ois Garassus de la Compagnie de\nJESUS. Paris: Sebastien Chappelet, 1623, pp. 86-87: \"Les Freres de la Croix des Roses\nparlant de ce venerable enlumin\u00e9 leur fondateur, disent deux choses, de ses estudes, 1.\nInter Turcas maxime profecit, inde doctrinam suam hausit, il profita grandement en\nTurquie, c'est de l\u00e0 qu'il apprist les secrets de sa doctrine, et j e ne me puis persuader que\nles fondateurs de cette cabale d'impi\u00e9t\u00e9 ayent appris les horribles blasphemes qu'ils\nprononcent insolemment contre Iesus-Christ, que parmi des Turcs ou Cannibales, je\n\nPages 157:\n148\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nare \"as enigmatic as Lycophron,\" 120 and he and his fellow conspirators\n(Rudolph Goclenius and Adam Haslmayr are mentioned by name) pose a\nthreat to the church, to the secular state and to good morals. Consequently, he\nwrites that no torture would be great enough for these men, whom he\ncondemns as Sodomites and perverters of youth.121 It seems the Jesuits also\nhad a theory concerning the true significance of the Fraternity's name.\nGarasset relates that a wreath of roses was hung in the German drinking halls,\nwhere the Fraternity's heresies were inspired by \"the warmth of the wine;\"\nand when the Fama Fraternitatis states that the Order's founder was from a\npoor background, so Garasset concurs, stating that Father C. R. was a barfly\n(moucheron de cabaret) who found illumination in his beer. 122 Given the\nemphasis on temperance to be found in Rosicrucian writings, these passages\nare clearly designed to offend Protestant sensibilities (indeed, in his Verum\nInventum Maier argues specifically against inspiration through the\nconsumption of alcohol). It is also clear that the polemical description of\nMaier as 'secretary' of the order cannot be taken seriously. Nevertheless,\nGarasset's tract reveals that Maier and his writings assumed a central place\nwithin the Rosicrucian controversy, at least from the perspective of the\nFraternity's detractors.\nAs for Maier's actual commitment to Protestant political or religious\ngoals, it is important to state that his writings portray the Brethren first and\nforemost as good alchemists, opposed by those ignorant in the ways of the\nArt. Thus we have seen in the tenth enigma of the Symbola Aureae Mensae\nthat Maier again depicts the enemies of Rosicrucianism as the cantankerous birds of the Jocus Severus, assailing the phoenix of the Brethren.\nFurthermore, Maier clearly states in the oft-quoted passage from the final\nchapter of his Themis Aurea that the Brethren do not confess a universal\nreformation with the goal of one empire and one religion - an answer on\nthe one hand to Jesuit accusations that the Rosicrucians sought world\ndirais, qu'ils les ont appris des Diables, s'ils ne m'enseignoient eux mesmes par les\nmaximes de leur creance, qu'ils ne croyent ny Dieu ny Diable.\"\n120\nA Greek poet known for the extreme obscurity of his erudite style.\n121\nIbid., pp. 91-92: \"Je conclus que si ces Freres de la fraternit\u00e9 de Roses sont coulpables,\nmeschans et condamnez par arrest en qualit\u00e9 de Sorciers et d'une meschante conjuration\nde faquins pr\u00e9judiciable \u00e0 la Religion, aux Estats seculiers et \u00e0 la doctrine des bonnes\nmoeurs, quoy qu'ils ayent en apparence quelque attrait de piet\u00e9, je ne voy point de\nsupplices assez grands pour nos dogmatisans, qui n'ont en leurs parolles que blasphemes\net impietez, en leurs actions que brutalitez et Sodomies, en leurs escrits que trophe\u00e9s de\nleurs impudicitez, en leur hantise, que corruption de jeunesse, en leur visage\nqu'impudence, en leur ame que trahison, en leur corps que les marques de leurs sueurs,\ndont ils se vantent eux-mesmes par leurs livres imprimez, a fin que personne n'en\npretende cause d'ignorance.\"\n122\nIbid., pp. 84, 86.\n\nPages 158:\nAn invitation to Rosicrucians\n149\ngovernment through a pact with Islam, and on the other to those \"Anabaptists\nand Enthusiasts\" who, acting under the good name of the Fraternity, disturb\n\"all order and law\" with their foolish dreams.123 Maier only concedes that\nsome years in the past a Reformation had indeed been necessary, which has\nalready been effected by Father C. R., as by Erasmus, Luther, Melanchthon,\nParacelsus, Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. 124 It is only within God's power to\nchange the hearts of individuals and turn the Papists towards the true Church\nof God, a task the Brethren do not presume to take on themselves. 125 This\nhaving been said, however, Maier immediately launches into a tirade against\n\"the seven-hilled city\" which oppresses the \"German Eagle,\" i.e. the\nDeutsches Reich and her princes, from whose labour and blood Rome\nacquires her glory.126 Given these sentiments of Maier's, perhaps we may see\nin the arch-villain of the Symbola Aureae Mensae, the Roman centurion\nPyrgopolynices (literally, 'tower-town-taker'), an allusion to the Rome of\nMaier's day and the Protestant-Hermetic 'fortress' standing against it.127\nThus Maier ends his discourse with the remark that the Fraternity has\nrecently been augmented by ten men; on hearing this fact, Pyrgopolynices\n\"digests the matter with difficulty\" before he \"bursts forth\" with another\ntirade against the good alchemists seated at the Golden Table. 128 In any case,\nit seems the cardinals of the Sacred Congregation of the Index in Rome were\nable to decipher enough of Maier's enigmatic references to inspire their\n123\nMaier, Themis Aurea (1624 edition), p. 233. These sentiments lie in accord with the\nFama Fraternitatis, which rails against all \"enthusiasts, heretics and false Prophets.\"\n124\nMaier, Themis Aurea, p. 234.\n125\nIbid., p. 235.\n126\nIbid., p. 234: \"Tyrannidem in religione occupatam et tanti temporis praescriptione\npossessam illi, qui Septicollem falso sibi asscribit urbem, Aquilae Germanicae\nsubjectam, Regum cervices (instar superbissimi illius Sesostridis Aegyptii) calcare\nsolitus et regna ad se transferre verbis, quasi alieno labore et sanguine partam gloriam, ut\nThraso apud Comicum, non excepero, sed ut in veram Christi ecclesiam, quae non\ngladiis sibi regna quaerit aut tuetur, quam primo redeat, relictis mundanis, unice\noptamus.\" Sesostris (1878-1841 BCE) was an Egyptian pharoah who according to\nHerodotus (Histories 2.102-110) sacrificed two of his own sons in an act of cowardice,\nyet set up obelisks across the lands of Egypt to demonstrate his own power (and placed\nfemale genitalia upon them to signify the cowardice of those who did not resist his\ndominion).\n127\nAccording to Frick, in Maier's time the character from Plautus' play had also become a\nliterary symbol for the archetypal braggart; see his introduction to the Symbola Aureae\nMensae Duodecim Nationum. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1972, p.\nxi.\n128\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 306: \"Decern probatissimis viris dicitur collegium\nadhuc auctum. Hostis interim Pyrgopolynices irarum materiam ruminans aegreque\nconcoquens apud sese, ubi silentium fieri animadvertit, in hunc erupit modum.\nArgumentum Adversarii contra Chemiam...\"\n\nPages 159:\n150\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nwrath, as the Symbola Aureae Mensae was banned by papal decree on\nDecember the 12th, 1624.129\n6. Uncovering the true Brethren\nMaier's was only one amongst a number of possible interpretations of the\nmanifestos, each of which gave their own emphasis to the broad Protestant\nand Hermetic contours portrayed there, be it theological, theosophical,\nalchemical, astrological or chiliastic. Indeed, in the decade following the\nfirst publication of the Fama Fraternitatis in 1614 over four hundred\n'Rosicrucian' apologies and opposing Kampfschriften appeared, and many of\nthe former were composed under the name of the Fraternity itself.130 In the\nSymbola Aureae Mensae Maier gives us some intriguing clues concerning the\nRosicrucian literature he had encountered by 1617, and the form of\nRosicrucianism he found most pleasing. At the end of his discourse on the\nRosicrucians, he sets out a condensed version of the Order's history given in\nthe manifestos. 131 He goes on to depict in list form the membership of the\nOrder through three centuries and generations, each being composed of 8\nBrethren; the first two generations (of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries)\nare reconstructed in accordance with the members' initials given in the Fama\nFraternitatis - those given in the main narrative of the text, as well as those\ninscribed in the parchment book found clasped in the hands of the perfectly\npreserved corpse of Father Christian Rosenkreutz. It is unlikely that any of\nthese initials refer to historical personages - for example, we are told that\nBrother I. O., who \"cured a young Earl of Norfolk of leprosy,\" did not live to\nsee the death of Father C. R. in 1484; yet there were no Earls of Norfolk in\nthe fifteenth century, nor were there any cases of leprosy amongst the\nMowbray and Howard families who held the duchy of Norfolk during this\n129\n130\nMoller, Johannis. Cimbria Literata, sive Scriptorum Ducatus Utr\u00ecusque Slesvicensis et\nHolsatici, Quibus et Alii vicini quidam accensentur, Historia Literaria Tripartita. Vol. 1.\nHavniae: Orphanotrophius, 1744, p. 378. Apparently the books prohibited by this decree\nwere included as an appendix to the Index of prohibited books originally published at the\ndirection of Pope Clement VIII in 1596.\nIn the course of his research Carlos Gilly has collated over 700 printed works and\nmanuscripts relating to the Rosicrucian affair appearing in the years 1610-1660; see\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 76; also Gilly, Carlos. \"Iter Rosicrucianum: Auf der\nSuche nach Unbekannten Quellen der Fr\u00fchen Rosenkreuzer.\" In Das Erbe des Christian\nRosenkreutz:\nVortr\u00e4ge gehalten anl\u00e4\u00dflich des Amsterdamer\nSymposiums\n18.-20.\nNovember 1986. Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 1988, p. 63.\n131\nThe bulk of this history is derived from the Fama Fraternitatis, with the exception of the\ndates of the birth and death of Father C. R. (1378-1484), which are taken from the\nConfessio\nFraternitatis.\n\nPages 160:\nUncovering the true Brethren\n151\nperiod. 132 Be that as it may, it is the third generation of the Order given by\nMaier - that of the seventeenth century - that interests us here:\nTertius ordinis et seculi\nmoderni.\n1.\n2.\n3. Tertius in ordine, qui Wetzlariae, A. C. 1615. se fratrem ore est confessus et multis\nmodis demonstravit.\n4.\n5.\n6.\n7. B. M. I. qui Haganosae scripsit quaedam impressa, A. C. 1614. Sept. 22.\n8. N. N. bonus Architectus; casu aperuit fornicem sepulchri Fr. R. C. A.C. 1604 aut\ncirciter.\nDecern probatissimis\nviris dicitur collegium adhuc\nauctum,133\nMention of the eighth member, Brother N. N., who \"by chance opened the\nvault of the sepulchre of Father C. R. in 1604 or thereabouts,\" may be found\nin the account given by the Fama Fratern\u00ectatis.m\nHowever, Maier's\nreference to the third member from Wetzlar (a town in the Calvinist state of\nNassau-Dillenburg bordering Hessen-Kassel) is derived from Georg\nMolther's Gr\u00fcndtliche Relation von einer frembden Mannsperson, Welche\ninn j\u00fcngst verflossenem M. DC. XV. Jahr durch de\u00df H. Reichs Statt Wetzslar\ngerei\u00dft ('Thorough Report of a foreign man, who in the recently elapsed year\nof 1615 travelled through the town Wetzlar of the Holy Roman Empire').\nMolther was a court physician to Count Johann of Nassau-Dillenburg, a close\nally of Moritz the Learned and Friedrich V of the Palatinate. Whilst\nbiographical records on Molther are exceedingly scanty, the fact that he\nmoved close to the inner circles of Rosicrucianism is made clear by the\ninclusion of his theses in the Disputationes Chymico-Medicae presided over\nby Johannes Hartmann - the personal physician to Moritz of Hessen-Kassel\nwho, as we have mentioned, was both an acquaintance of Maier and an early\ndistributor of the Fama Fraternitatis in manuscript form. 135 The Gr\u00fcndtliche\n132\nNor have there been any subsequent cases of leprosy in those families - kind information\nof Dr. John Martin Robinson, Librarian to Major-General His Grace the Duke of\nNorfolk.\n133\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 306.\nKooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, pp. 89 ff.\nThat Molther was a student of Hartmann's may be gathered from the twelfth disputation\nconcerning \"the obstruction of the liver,\" appearing under the respondent name of Georg\nMolther of Gr\u00fcnberg in Disputationes Chymico-Medicae: Pleraeque sub Praesidio Joh.\nHartmanni, Med. D. et Chymiatriae in Academia Marpurgensi Professoris Publici, ab\naliquot Medicinae Candidatis et Studiosis, ibidem censurae publicae\nexpositae...\n134\n135\n\nPages 161:\n152\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nRelation, addressed in the preface to Count Johann, first appeared in a Latin\nedition of 1616, and was reprinted in German translation as an appendix to\nthe 1617 Frankfurt am Main edition of the Fama Fraternitatis}7'6 It describes\nMolther's strange encounter in the town of Wetzlar with a wonder-working\nnaturopath, who not only described himself as a 'brother of the Order of the\nRosy Cross', but also demonstrated an astonishingly multi-faceted skill and\nlearning. Although most researchers in the field of early Rosicrucianism have\nneglected this tract, testimony to its importance was given by Schick when he\ndescribed Molther as \"defender and chief witness for the existence of real\nRosicrucians.\" 137\nAccording to Molther's 'report', a citizen was tending his hops garden one\nday in early May of 1615 when he spied a poorly dressed stranger passing by,\ncollecting herbs and roots by the way to put in his sack. Striking up a\nconversation, the citizen inquired as to the purpose of his activity, to which\nthe stranger replied that he could cure many diseases with these plants and\nwith \"the assistance of God.\" 138 The stranger went on to cure the citizen's\nwife of a respiratory problem, charging no fee for his services (in accordance\nwith the first law of the Order given in the Fama Fraternitatis); whereupon\nhe was taken to a patient of Molther's, who was suffering from breast cancer,\nand was laid low with pain. Although he could not cure the disease on\naccount of its advanced state, he nevertheless delivered a precise prognosis in\naccordance with astrological principles - a prognosis that, according to\nMolther, proved to be entirely accurate.139\nMarburg: Paul Egenolph, 1614, pp. 301-310. The town of Gr\u00fcnberg lies some 40\nkilometres from Wetzlar. For Hartmann as a distributor of the manuscript Fama\nFraternitatis,\nsee Gilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica,\np. 29; Kooij and Gilly, Fama\nFraternitatis, pp. 13, 15 n. 6.\n136\nMolther, Georg. De quodam peregrino, qui anno superiore MDCXV\nimperialem\nWetzslariam transiens, non modo se fratrem R. C. confessus fuit verum etiam multiplici\nrerum scientia, verbis et factis admirabilem se praestitit. Frankfurt am Main: Johann\nBringer, 1616; Molther, Georg. \"Von einer frembden Mannsperson/ Welche inn j\u00fcngst\nverflossenem M. DC. XV. Jahr durch de\u00df H. Reichs Statt Wetzslar gerei\u00dft/ und sich\nnicht allein f\u00fcr ein Bruder de\u00df Ordens de\u00df Rosen Creuzes au\u00dfgegeben/ sondern auch\ndurch vielf\u00e4ltige Geschickligkeit/ unnd allerhand Sachen Wissenschafft/ mit Worten\nunnd Wercken sich also erzeigt hat/ da\u00df man sich ab ihme verwundern m\u00fcssen/\nGr\u00fcndtliche Relation.\" In Fama Fraternitatis, oder Entdeckung der Bruderschafft de\u00df\nl\u00f6blichen Ordens de\u00df Rosen Creutzes... Sampt dem Sendtschreiben Iuliani de Campis,\nund Georgii Moltheri Med. D. und Ordinarli zu Wetzlar Relation/ von einer di\u00df Ordens\ngewissen Person. Frankfurt am Main: Johann Bringer, 1617. Molther also composed a\nRosicrucian tract under the title E. D. F. O. C. R. Sen., Antwort, der Hochw\u00fcrdigen und\nHocherleuchten Br\u00fcderschafft de\u00df RosenCreutzes. N.p: n.p., 1617.\n137\nSchick, Das Altere Rosenkreuzertum, p. 69.\n138\nMolther, \"Von einer frembden Mannsperson,\" p. 90.\n139\nIbid., pp. 91-92, 98-99.\n\nPages 162:\nUncovering the true Brethren\n153\nWord of these miraculous powers spread through Wetzlar, and Molther\nmet the stranger, who confirmed the physician's suspicion that he was indeed\na Brother of the Rosy Cross, and (breaking his oath of silence a second time,\nas we may note) divulged the meeting place of the Fraternity.140 Being the\nthird admitted into the latest generation of the Order (as Maier faithfully\nrecords in his membership list), the Brother stated that there were yet two\nothers from the Order visiting the region. By Molther's reckoning, the\nBrother was a wretched looking man, with poor farmer's clothes, a medium\nstature and a cropped beard; and although he confessed to being 81 years old,\nhe had no grey hair or imperfections on his teeth - the tell-tale signs, as we\nmay recall, of the application of a chemical medicine such as that purportedly\npossessed by Maier. 141 He spoke all the languages of the world, and it is\ncryptically stated that he accommodated his speech to certain \"hieroglyphical\nfigures.\"142 His cures were effected not only by means of the influence of the\nstars, but also through his remarkable knowledge of the Bible, which he was\nwont to cite whilst administering his herbal remedies; and such was his\ndevout faith that Molther believed no man could possibly accuse him of\npurveying \"an ungodly Black Art.\" 143 Through his knowledge of astrology he\npredicted to Molther the coming of a great cold spell at Pentecost, which did\nindeed fall deleteriously at that time. 144 He was well-versed in alchemical\npreparations, as well as certain magical procedures - for instance, he knew\nhow to drive mice out of the house with a bull-whip, or drive moles out of a\nfield; how to attract fish from a distance, \"that they make their way in great\nnumbers, and are happy to be caught;\" and how to fend off lightning bolts by\nmeans of laurel leaves, seal fur and eagle skin.145 Indeed, it seemed to\nMolther that this man was \"blessed by all the counsel of Nature,\" and that all\n140\n141\n142\n143\n144\n145\nIbid., p. 97.\nIbid., pp. 96-97: \"Ganz deutlich unnd rundt bekannte er/ da\u00df er der dritte in der Ordnung\nder Fratrum R. C. were/ und da\u00df noch zweene von der Fraternitet fast in gleichem gradu\nsich in derselben Gegent auffhielten/ Er were vor Zeiten ein M\u00fcnch gewesen/ und\njetzund ein unnd achtzig Jahr alt/ hette auch keinen Mangel an den Z\u00e4hnen/ denn er\ndieselbigen noch alle frisch und vollkommlich hatte/ Item da\u00df er hette sieben Probierjahr\nund etliche Tage m\u00fcssen au\u00dfstehen. Viel andere Sachen dergleichen mehr sagte er/ als\nden Ort seiner Geburt/ seiner Reise/ unnd ihrer Zusammenkunfft.\" For the properties of\nMaier's medicine, see above, chapter III, pp. 103-104.\nIbid., p. 97.\nIbid.\nIbid., p. 100.\nIbid., p. 102: \"Wie man sonsten erfehret von den Lorberzweigen/ Seehunden/ und\nAdlersh\u00e4uten/ da\u00df sie den donnerstrahl verh\u00fcten.\" Apparently the 'Brother' was also\nwont (rather impiously) to perform mischiefs which would lead to the persecution of\nGypsies: \"wie man ein Feuwer auff einem Bauschen Stro/ oder anderm/ das gerne\nbrennt/ machen solle/ da\u00df man sonsten meynt/ es geschehe durch de\u00df losen Gesindlins/\nder Ziegeuner Zauberey/ unnd es nicht weiter/ als man wil/ vom Feuwer verletzt werde.\"\n\nPages 163:\n154\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nthe things that occurred in the world were known to him. Nevertheless, the\nBrother did not allow the details of his remarkable skills to be noted down on\npaper, and he assured Molther that were he to record his knowledge against\nhis will, the words would thereafter be either unreadable or their sense\nunintelligible. 146 With this admonition he declared that he would make his\nway to a \"wild forest\" to collect more herbs and roots, as he would not suffer\nto spend more than two nights at the same location for fear of detection. 147\nWriting in 1942, Schick appears to have been undecided as to whether this\ndocument is in fact a real report of events \"or only the literary form of such a\nreport,\" although he seemed to favour the former possibility when he\ndescribed the anonymous Rosicrucian as \"der Schwindler von Wetzlar\" - i.e.\nhe believed that Molther's story was a genuine relation of fact, but that the\naccount given by the 'wonder-working' naturopath concerning his powers\nand coll\u00e9gial affiliations was not. 148 Likewise, Waite (an advocate of the\nexistence of an organised secret Fraternity) cites Molther's tract as proof that\n\"impostors were thought and known to be about.\" 149 Nevertheless, there are\ngood reasons to favour the latter possibility proposed by Schick - that the\n'imposture' was Molther's, and not that of a roaming charlatan.\nIn themselves, the strange powers of the 'Brother' related by Molther may\nnot arouse our suspicions concerning the veracity of his report, as they are\nnot unlike certain of the magical procedures related in the works of Maier.\nThere, too, we may find the medicinal employment of minerals, herbs and\nvarious animal parts, amalgamated with theories of astral influence. In his\nThemis Aurea Maier identifies the herb utilised by Molther's brother as\nbryony, a powerful cathartic and diuretic which causes a very painful death in\ncases of overdose; he goes on to state that the gathering of medicinal herbs\naccording to the alignment of the constellations of the Zodiac may indeed\neffect cures for dangerous diseases.150 It is clear that Maier would have found\nmuch in agreement with the stranger of Wetzlar, given his devout Protestant\nleanings and iatrochemical prowess. Considering his sympathies with the\n146\nIbid., pp. 103-104: \"Was denckwiirdiges er etwa redete/ wolte er nicht leiden/ da\u00df es\nnotirt und inn Schreibtaffeln uffgezeichnet w\u00fcrde: j a er betheurte es/ da\u00df/ wann wir\netwas von seinen Sachen wider seinen Willen uffnotiren w\u00fcrden/ wirs entweder nicht\nlesen/ oder doch nicht w\u00fcrden k\u00f6nnen verstehen...\"\n147\nIbid., p. 104.\n148\nSchick, Das Altere Rosenkreuzertum, p. 69.\n149\nWaite, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, p. 236.\n150\nMaier, Themis Aurea (1624 edition), pp. 183-185; according to this testimony, one\nsource of Maier's knowledge of herbal lore was Bartholomaeus Carrichter, the\n'Kr\u00e4uterdoktor'\nresident at the imperial court of R u d o l f s predecessor Maximillian II,\nwho described various herbal cures as well as the Zodiac signs under which their healing\npowers thrive in his Kr\u00e4utterbuch des Edelen und Hochgelehrten Herzen\nDoctoris\nBartholomei Carrichters. Stra\u00dfburg: Antony Bertram, 1609.\n\nPages 164:\nUncovering the true Brethren\n155\nreligious and natural philosophical outlook of Molther's 'Brother', there was\nno reason for Maier to be concerned that he was lending credence to a literary\ncreation in compiling his list. On this count, any observant reader may\nidentify the simple narrative devices Molther employs in the course of his\nreport and the logical inconsistencies they entail; for example, the Rosicrucian Brother divulges to Molther both his membership in the Fraternity\nand its meeting place, although by Molther's own reckoning they had\nconversed together for only \"one or two hours.\" 151 Such a divulgence would\nhave raised the suspicion of anyone remotely acquainted with the laws of\nthe Fraternity published in the Fama Fraternitatis; and with knowledge of\nthe Fraternity's meeting-place, there would be no reason for Molther to\nlament the Brother's unfulfilled promise that he would one day renew their\nacquaintance. 152 The fact that Molther finds it so hard to recall the details of\nhis conversation, as if confirming the mysterious warning of the Brother that\nit is simply impossible to record the words he utters, is rather difficult to\nswallow. 153 And finally, Molther protests a little too much when he states that\nno honourable man could suspect that he would lie to his very own patron, as\nwe can well imagine that Johann of Nassau-Dillenburg was an insider to the\nentire jocus severus.154 The concluding words of the Gr\u00fcndtliche Relation\nseem to be those of someone who has a stake in promulgating the myth of a\nRosicrucian Order:\nIn this way there should be some Brethren, just as one would wish them to be, no matter\nwhether they really exist in the world or not; in order that we may know it for sure, everyone\nshould make the greatest efforts and try to find out. 1 5 5\nThe seventh Rosicrucian Brother given in Maier's list is derived from the\nAssertio Fraternitatis R. C. ('Vindication of the Fraternity R. C.,' 1614), a\nrelatively early Rosicrucian publication written by a certain B. M. I., who\n151\nMolther, \"Von einer frembden Mannsperson,\" p. 106.\nIbid., p. 105.\n153\nIbid.\n154\nIt is difficult to say if there is any significance in the dating of the dedication to Johann April 1 st . The expression \"jemand in den April zu schicken\" first occurs in the literature\nin Germany in 1618, suggesting this sixteenth century custom was well and truly current\nat the time of Georg Molther's little tract. Nevertheless, it seems likely the custom\nprevailed primarily in Catholic areas. See Meyers Lexikon. Vol. 1. Leipzig:\nBibliographisches Institut, 1924, pp. 718-719; also Meyers Grosses Universal Lexikon.\nVol. 1. Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1981, p. 502.\n155\nMolther, \"Von einer frembden Mannsperson,\" p. 108: \"Dergleichen seyn sollen etliche\nR. C. Fratres, wie es zu w\u00fcnschen were/ als ob sie in der Welt seyen oder nicht/ damit\nwirs gewi\u00df erfahren m\u00f6gen/ soll sich billich ein jeder uffs fleissigste bem\u00fchen/ unnd\ndarnach forschen.\"\n152\n\nPages 165:\n156\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nclaims to be one of the Order.156 This tract emanated from the same publisher as the Griindtliche Relation\u00b7, Peuckert attributed its authorship to the\nReformed theologian and alchemist, Raphael Eglinus, whom Moran suggests\nplayed a key role in the promulgation of Rosicrucianism at the court of\nMoritz of Hessen-Kassel. 157 Whilst the Assertio Fraternitatis is a short work\nand does not contain such exorbitant detail as Molther's Griindtliche\nRelation, it again offers us a picture of the form of Rosicrucianism Maier\nsupported.\nThe tract is addressed on the title page to \"whosoever harbours doubts\nconcerning the Order of the Brothers of the Rosy Cross;\" it promises the\nreader that \"the verses having been read through, you will be certain.\" 158 We\nare informed that during his third peregrination B. M. I. was held up by the\nrain at 'Hagenoa' - possibly the monastery town of Haina in Hessen-Kassel where he decided to pass his time by writing these Latin verses.159 The clues\nhe gives as to the nature of the Fraternity's dwelling, Father C. R.'s 'House of\nthe Holy Spirit', further embellish those given in the Fama Fraternitatis\u00b7, for\nwhereas the third law given in the manifesto states that the Brethren must\nassemble there on a certain day of each year, B. M. I. states that their House\nof the Holy Spirit is a permanently inhabited monastery lying in the midst of\nGermany, not far from a city of great reputation, amidst woods and fields\nthrough which a splendid river runs.160 Moreover, the building's inhabitants\n156\nB. M. I. (Raphael Eglinus?). Assertio Fraternitatis R. C. Quam Roseae Crucis vocant, a\nquodam Fraternitatis eius Socio Carmine expressa. Frankfurt am Main: Johann Bringer,\n1614. Bringer published a number of Rosicrucian tracts apart from the Griindtliche\nRelation and the Assertio Fraternitatis, including the 1615 Frankfurt am Main edition of\nthe Fama Fraternitatis.\n157\nPeuckert, Die Rosenkreuzer, p. 171;Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court,\npp. 98ff. Gilly also supplies evidence that Eglinus was privy to the contents of the\nmanuscript Fama Fraternitatis from an early stage: Gilly, Cimelio Rhodostaurotica, p.\n29.\n158\nB. M. I., Assertio Fraternitatis, title page: \"Quisqu\u00eds de Roseae dubitas Crucis ordine\nFratrum:/ Hoc lege, perlecto Carmine certus eris.\"\nIbid., p. 3 recto: \"Tertia perficitur mihi nunc Apodemia, meque/ Urbs non incelebris\nnunc Hagenoa tenet.\" 'Hagenoa' resembles 'Hagena' or Haina given in Graesse, Johann\nGeorg Theodor. Orbis Latinus. Berlin: Schmidt, 1922. Another possibility is 'Haganoa',\ni.e. the town of Gro\u00dfenhain in Saxony; it must be remarked that the references to events\nin Austria in the Assertio Fraternitatis, and the fact that 'Hagenoa' may refer to\n'Hageno' or Gendorf bei Baldramsdorf in Austrian Carinthia, may suggest a more\nsoutherly origin of the tract, although the fact that the town is said to be \"non incelebris\"\nmitigates against this possibility.\n159\n160\nWe may wonder if the 'House of the Holy Spirit' has some relation to the monastery of\nHaina in B. M. I.'s eyes, and that the nearby \"town of great reputation\" is Marburg lying\nsome 25 miles to the northeast. B. M. I., Assertio Fraternitatis, p. 3 verso: \"Ordo latet\nnoster media Germanide terra.../Arboribus nemorum cum nostris cingimur arvis,/\n\nPages 166:\nUncovering the true Brethren\n157\nare well-known to the local people, who daily beat on the monastery doors\nand go away loaded with abundant gifts; the Brethren also use their healing\npowers to cure illnesses amongst them, for which reason they do not betray\nthe Fraternity to its enemies.161 Here the Assertio Fraternitatis gives clear\nexpression to the sectarian sentiments presaging the coming conflagration of\nthe Thirty Years War: for although the Brethren are currently spared \"the\nPapist yoke,\" the Jesuits plot against them and search for their dwellingplace night and day. In the course of the tract imprecations are made to God\nto protect the Fraternity from the jaws of these 'wolves'. 162 But we are\nalso ominously informed that an army - presumably sympathetic to the\nRosicrucian cause - is encamped near the House of the Holy Spirit, although\n\"for important reasons\" \u0392. M. I. does not betray its position. 163 In similar\nfashion to Maier's portrayal of the Protestant-Hermetic 'fortress', the author\nof the Assertio Fraternitatis is warning that although the Brethren may pray\nfor divine intervention, they nevertheless have recourse to the very tangible\npower of Calvinist Germany and its allies.\nThe Assertio Fraternitatis also inveighs against certain men posing falsely\nas Rosicrucians, and seeks thereby to establish the true inheritors of the\nRosicrucian mantle created by the manifestos. This invective is evidence that\nvarious streams of thought and practice had grown up within the Rosicrucian\nmilieu from an early stage of its development, as the Assertio Fraternitatis\nwas published within the same year as the Fama Fraternitatis itself. In his\nThemis Aurea Maier also sought to demarcate true Rosicrucianism from false\nby identifying certain 'impostors' who write and act in the name of the\nBrethren; 164 and just as Maier railed against the charlatanism of the vulgar\ngold-makers in his Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum, so the relation in\nthe Assertio Fraternitatis of the sorry fate of a certain 'purse-thief is\nsuggestive of alchemical Betr\u00fcgerei and the \"gold-making rogues\" censured\nin the Fama Fraternitatis\u00b7.\nPraeterit et tacitis nobile flumen acquis./ Nec procul a nobis urbs inclyta fama\nhabitatur...\"\n161\nIbid., p. 3 recto: \"Quotidie puisant tarnen ostia nostra rogantes,/ Qui larga semper stipe\nonerati abeunt./ Quin etiam duris afflicti in corpore morbis,/ A nobis Medica saepe\nlevantur ope;/ Unde favet nobis circum vicinia tota,/ Nec quisquam nostras laedere vellet\nopes.\"\n162\nIbid., pp. 4 verso- 5 recto\u00b7. \"Insidias etiam tendit Jesu\u00edtica turba/ Sedibus et nostris nocte,\ndieque inhiat./ Ut fauces horum fugiamus et ora luporum/ Multa jubet cautos dissimulare\ndies./ S\u00e1nete Deus nostrum conserva et protege caetum,/ Si te rite colit, si tibi grata\nfacit./ Et prohibe saevos furiati pectoris hostes,/ Ne possint ulla parte nocere probis.\"\nIbid., p. 3 recto: \"Pene locum dixi, quo nostrum considet agmenJ Nomen at ob causas\nprodere cesso graves.\"\n163\n164\nMaier, Themis Aurea (1624 edition), p. 233.\n\nPages 167:\n158\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nAnd nor do I disguise the fac\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 149 to page 167 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=148\nPages: 148,149\nChamaeleon versipellis nullo modo imitari aut exprimere possit.\"\n140\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nsuccinctly by the gathered alchemists. And whilst the phoenix was the chief\njudge of the avian court in the Jocus Severus, in his dedication Maier invites\nCount Ernst himself to act as arbiter of the dispute.94\nAccording to Waite, Maier's Symbola Aureae Mensae marks the first\nusage of the denomination Collegium Philosophorum Germanorum de\nR. '. C. '., or 'College of German Philosophers R.\u00c9. C . . ', which was propagated\nin the nineteenth century amongst certain esoteric initiatory societies.95 The\npassage in the Symbola Aureae Mensae concerning the Rosicrucian Brethren\noccurs in the midst of the sixth chapter, which is dedicated to the German\nalchemists, and in particular to the great German scientist and theologian\nAlbertus Magnus (c.1200-1280), who is said by Maier to have \"produced the\nphoenix,\" and was moreover the first to perfect the Art after the Arabs. 96 In]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=40\nPages: 40\nMaier's Symbola Aureae Mensae Duodecim Nationum (1617). 126 The whole\nis a treatise on alchemical natural philosophy drawn primarily from medieval\nsources, which Grasshoff concludes with the allegorical Parabola in much\nthe same manner that the Allegor\u00eca Bella is presented as the summation of\nMaier's Symbola Aureae Mensae. As in Maier's allegory, Grasshoff begins\nhis Parabola with a melancholic proclamation of the wretchedness of earthly\nlife before setting off on a quest for the Philosophers' Stone - in this case\nsymbolised by the Lion rather than Maier's phoenix. 127 The alchemical\nallegory was much in vogue in the early modern period; authors of that time\ndrew their inspiration from medieval alchemical allegories such as those of\nDuenech, Maria Prophetissa and Merlin, or mimicked the late antique dreamrevelations of the Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos and the Hermetic\nPoimandres.m Most early modern allegories demonstrate a similar intent to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=148\nPages: 148,149\nred and one snow-white, the colours of the sun (gold) and moon (silver) - a\n'hieroglyph' to warn the guests of the legitimacy of the alchemical work in\nquestion, and that no \"colour-changing chameleon\" can possibly imitate the\ncolours of the true alchemical phases.93 However, also presiding at the table\nis the troublesome guest Pyrgopolynices, the braggart centurion from the\nMiles Gloriosus of Plautus; in Maier's work he represents Queen Chemia's\nadversary, whose objections to her laws are at each opportunity refuted\n9\n'\n92\n93\nIbid.\nIbid.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 3: \"Erat autem mensa haec instar Orbis rotunda, ex\nduabus Hemicycliis compacta, quarum una ruberrimi coloris, altera nivei visa est;\nnullam aliam ob causam, quam ut hoc quasi Hieroglyphico Convivae assidentes admonerentur, hos inprimis colores esse veros et leg\u00edtimos, Lunae et Solis proprios, quos\nChamaeleon versipellis nullo modo imitari aut exprimere possit.\"\n140\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture']","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=123\nPages: 123,124\nduring which a contingent of 200 English mercenaries with 60 cannons refused to retreat\nand was routed - the reason, no doubt, for the currency of the rumours Maier heard in\nEngland. The role played by occult powers in the conflict seems to have been confused\nin these rumours, as it was Sidan who eventually wrested control of Morocco back from\nhis brother Abdela some five months after his defeat through the good advice of his\nsoothsayers (see chapter 17 of the True Historicall\nDiscourse).\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 290: \"[Fama de Fr. R. C. ad exteros transiti.] FAMA\nILLA dictae FRATERNITATIS, quae hie in plurimorum auribus oreque iampridem\nperstrepuit, adque exteras oras circum circa vagata latissimas regiones pervolavit, mihi\nquoque tum in Anglia agenti, reique Chymicae unice invigilanti, obscuris quibusdam\nIllness and a chance encounter\n115\nthe two years that followed the chance encounter at the Frankfurt Book Fair]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=224\nPages: 224,225\nab ipso patitur, qui vero animi vel ingenii audacia fretus ejus aenigmata dissolvere\nconetur, nisi id faciat, excidium sibi parat, hoc est, dolorem cordi et damnum rebus suis\nex errore in hoc opere.\"\nIbid., discourse 9: \"Hominem, quod rejuvenescere faciat, nihil est, nisi mors ipsa et\nsequentis aeternae vitae initium.\"\n125\nThe work's full title runs as follows: \"Mensae Secundae seu Bellaria, Hoc est, Allegoria\nBella, Vice recapitulationis aut conclusionis summariae totius operis posita, plurimum et\nperspicuae utilitatis et iucundae meditationis lectoris menti exhibens.\"\n126\nSee above, chapter I, n. 131.\n216\nThe completion of the work\nthe Symbola Aureae Mensae. That work describes the journey of Christian\nRosenkreutz, the legendary founder of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross,\nwho sets out to attend a mysterious royal wedding. His seven-day journey\nsymbolises seven stages of the alchemical work, whilst the wedding itself]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=236\nPages: 236\nEusebius, from whom Maier quotes when introducing the Sibyl.\n171\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 598: \"Arabia felix, eique adjacens Aegyptus\nantiquitus hac gaudebat volucri, cuius collum aureus fulgor, reliquum corpus purpureus\ncolor in pennis cinxit: In capitibus crista, coronae instar, visa est: Soli sacra avis vivit\nannos 660 ad quam aetatem cum pervenerit senescens, casia thurisque surculis construit\nnidum, quem odoribus replet, conquassatisque ad solis radios alis flammam excit\u00e2t, qua\ncomburitur in cinerem: Ex hoc deinde prodit vermiculus et inde pullus, qui priori ceu\npatri lunera iusta reddens, totum nidum defert in urbem Aegypti Heliopolim Soli sacram,\nalias Thebas dictam, ibique in ara deponit. Hoc, qui pro fabula omnino habent, pueri et\niniqui rerum aestimatores videntur, qui pro historia, ut verba sonant, facta, et illi\nfalluntur suo iudicio. Hieroglyphica enim sunt haec et menti potius dictantur, quam]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=151\nPages: 151\nSymbola Aureae Mensae are not unlike the invitation that the manifestos\nthemselves form.\nIt is also evident that Maier's 'invitation' to the Fraternity is an attempt to\ndemarcate the boundaries of true Rosicrucianism in accordance with his own\nproclivities; for those who would not be satisfied with the dishes served at the\nGolden Table are those with no interest in the practical labour of alchemy and\nthe production of iatrochemical cures. Thus the puzzling allusion to the\nfeverish cook refers to the labours of the alchemist, and the dishes he serves\nare the fruits of those labours. This allusion rests in part upon the traditional\ndepiction of the alchemical process as a feverish man, to be found in the\nmedieval Allegory of Merlin reprinted seven years prior to the Symbola\n102\nIbid.\u00b7. \"Ne itaque et nos, post principia, nimis diu increduli remaneamus, constituimus\nLAUDABILEM ILLAM SOCIETATEM GERMANICAM, QUOTQUOT ET UBI\nLATEANT APUD VIVOS, AD HANC NOSTRAM MENSAM, AUREAM DICTAM]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=191\nPages: 191\nAlchemical World of the German Court, pp. 105-106, suggests that this document was\namongst the earlier testimonies to Maier's alchemical knowledge sent to Moritz in 1611\n- an impossibility given the timeline of Maier's involvement with Rosicrucianism.\n6\nIbid., p. 285 verso.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 578: \"Ibi enim mulleres fere viros et hi illas\nrepraesentant; et adulteria sunt adeo frequentia, maritatarumque foeminarum, in secretis\nlupanaribus se aliis, ex laenarum nutu, prostituentium tanta multitudo impunita, ut\nincredibile sit auditu: In quibus civitatibus liberi aut potius spurii habentur communes,\ntanquam in Republ. quadam Platonica, cum fere et uxores communes habeantur: Adhaec\nindecorum putabant, ut ille sexus, qui propter ingenii imbecillitatem animique\ninconstantiam ad patiendum sit natus, omnium actiones regeret et gubernaret.\"\nMaier, Michael. De Circulo Physico, Quadrato: Hoc est, AURO, Eiusque\nvirtute]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=150\nPages: 150\nthe tomb of Christian Rosenkreutz had been sealed some nine years before\nhis birth, Maier goes on to state that it is irrelevant whether Paracelsus had\nread a particular book of the Brethren, as the Liber M. is in fact \"the book of\nthe world, or of things existing in the world, and of their properties; or\nindeed, the book of natural magic.\" 100\nThe second argument set forward in the Symbola Aureae Mensae follows\na theme of the preface to the Jocus Severus: that the silence of the Fraternity\nis lawful, as their arcana are a gift from God and should not be exposed to the\nundeserving rabble. Such silence does not imply the non-existence of the\nBrethren, which was an oft-heard accusation given their failure to answer the\nmany enthusiastic replies and entreaties for admittance provoked by the\npublication of the manifestos. 101 It might be deduced from these arguments\nthat Maier was convinced of the existence of an organised secret Fraternity]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=149\nPages: 149,150\nmaintain silence and ill-will against the undeserving... 99\n94\n95\n96\n97\n98\n99\nIbid., p. vi.\nWaite, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, p. 324.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 236, 248.\nIbid., p. 286; Kooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, pp. 79-81.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 288.\nIbid., pp. 288-289: \"Cum vero antehac diversorum collegiorum philosophicorum\nsolennitatumque antiquitus ab artis Chymicae gnaris institutarum meminerimus, quid\nAn invitation to Rosicrucians\n141\nThe first argument implied here, and elaborated upon at length in the\nSilentium post Clamores - that it is not unreasonable to suppose a secret\nFraternity exists in Germany, given the existence of similar 'philosophical\ncolleges' in other countries - might seem spurious to the contemporary\nreader. Nevertheless, Maier makes sporadic mention of such societies\nthroughout the Symbola Aureae Mensae and the Arcana Arcanissima, which\nhe reiterates succinctly in the fifth chapter of the Silentium post Clamores.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=243\nPages: 243\nachieve something of a moral transformation in his patients through the\napplication of his cathartic, purgative medicine; more importantly, however,\nit was precisely the hopeless quest for the Philosophers' Stone that formed\nthe black phase of the work that was Maier's life, a peregrination in search of\nthe arcana in which a finer spirit was distilled through the trials and\nseductions of earthly existence. In this sense Maier's thought conforms to the\nethos of the later German Romantics, who utilised the alchemical symbol of\nthe blue flower to signify an elusive wisdom that withers away before it can\nbe grasped. Herein lies the most profound expression of the alchemical\n3\n4\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 572: \"Cur vero hune ordinem suscipiendi itineris de\nuna parte in aliam transeundi, animo praeconceperim, haec causa sufficiens mihi visa est,\nquod naturalem elementorum seriem, qua ilia ex crassis in subtilia, ex ponderosis in levia\nmigrant, imitari debeam.\"]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=156\nPages: 156\nthe 'secretary' of the Fraternity, which he portrays as a \"pernicious company\nof sorcerers and magicians\" whose doctrine stems from Satan and the \"Turks\nand cannibals\" of the Middle East.119 According to Garasset, Maier's books\neducaret:/ Rerum feracitate/ Estque apta visa sedes./ Quod cum Sabae remotis/ Sylvis eo\npropinquans/ Phoenix videret, inquit,/ Hie est quies parata/ Volatuum labori,/ Qui factus\nest per annos/ Tot, integrum per orbem...\" Ibid., p. 299.\n117\nMaier, Themis Aurea (1624 edition), pp. 123-124: see n. 212 below.\n118\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 291: \"Mina muri extant. Minas extare alti alicuius\nmuri cum ipsis fatemur, ex quarum lapsu concursuros opifices ad eas erigendas, at ita\nerigent, ut minae esse desinant, ex Dei nutu: Nul lus enim timor aut minae apud veritatis\namantes locum inveniunt...\"\n119\nGarasset, Fran\u00e7ois. La Doctrine Curieuse des Beaux Esprits de ce Temps, ou Pretendus]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=239\nPages: 239\ncosmology, and where the locals had actively denied Mercury's presence\nrather than disowning any knowledge of the matter. 179\nHaving received instructions from Mercury (about whose visage nothing\nis said), the time is ripe for the fulfilment of Maier's destiny as it was\nprefigured in the augury of his birth. However, when he finally arrives at the\nabode of the phoenix, he finds it has \"gone abroad\" for a few weeks, and so\n176\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 600-601.\nSee above, p. 42.\n178\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 603: \"Atque sic Septem ex ordine Nili ostiis\nperlustratis, quem quaesivi, cum non offenderim, deceptum me a Sibylla arbitratus sum,\nquae saltern in hosce labyrinthos iniecerit, ut animum falsa spe lactatum circumduceret,\nforte ex invidia aut odio erga al\u00edenos praeconcepto.\"\n179\nIbid.: \"Verum cum singula, quae contigerant in itinere, revolverem; me forte ab]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=158\nPages: 158,159\ngladiis sibi regna quaerit aut tuetur, quam primo redeat, relictis mundanis, unice\noptamus.\" Sesostris (1878-1841 BCE) was an Egyptian pharoah who according to\nHerodotus (Histories 2.102-110) sacrificed two of his own sons in an act of cowardice,\nyet set up obelisks across the lands of Egypt to demonstrate his own power (and placed\nfemale genitalia upon them to signify the cowardice of those who did not resist his\ndominion).\n127\nAccording to Frick, in Maier's time the character from Plautus' play had also become a\nliterary symbol for the archetypal braggart; see his introduction to the Symbola Aureae\nMensae Duodecim Nationum. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1972, p.\nxi.\n128\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 306: \"Decern probatissimis viris dicitur collegium\nadhuc auctum. Hostis interim Pyrgopolynices irarum materiam ruminans aegreque\nconcoquens apud sese, ubi silentium fieri animadvertit, in hunc erupit modum.\nArgumentum Adversarii contra Chemiam...\"\n150]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=232\nPages: 232,233\nEx surculo seu ramulo unius arboris et trunco alterius illi, non huic similem arborem, ex\nfloribus certis coloribus mistis, alios flores coloratos, ex Tinctura seu pulvere metallico\nruberrimo cum argento vivo in igne mixto, aurum, quae nec huic, nec illi per oina est\nsimile, et sic de aliis censendum.\"\n155\n156\n157\nThe work Maier cites is the Historia Medicinal\nIndias Occidentales. Seville: Escrivano, 1574.\n158\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 583-584.\nde las cosas que se traen de\nnuestras\n224\nThe completion of the work\nMaier sails on towards Asia on a ship with a white unicorn at its prow - a\nmedieval symbol for Christ - and by and by makes a landing in the Persian\nGulf. On account of the moistness and warmth of this region Maier associates\nit with the element of air, and speaks of it as the mediator between hot and\ndry Africa and the frigid north (a slight variation on the association of regions\nwith Aristotelian properties given in the Theses Summam Doctrinae de]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=261\nPages: 261,262\nLeiden: E.J. Brill, 1990, pp. 239-244.\nBeyer, Das Lehrsystem des Ordens der Gold- und Rosenkreuzer, p. 21.\nMcintosh, \"Alchemy and the Gold- und Rosenkreutz,\" pp. 241-243.\nMcintosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, p. 52.\nThe historiography of alchemy\n253\nGreeks, Brahmans, Druids et. al., and there Maier is named next to the\nantique authors Macrobius and Diodorus Siculus as an authority on\nmythology and the mystery cults, as well as being noted for his Rosicrucian\napologies. 76 In the main body of the text particular attention is directed\ntowards the Symbola Aureae Mensae as a source for information on medieval\nalchemical authors, 77 and as a guide to alchemical procedure itself.78 On this\ncount the Allegor\u00eca Bella is cited concerning the most astrologically\npropitious moment for the commencement of the work, i.e. \"when the moon\nand sun are in the sign of Aries near the head of the Dragon.\" 79 The Atalanta\nFugiens is referred to concerning the nature of certain Decknamen,as\nwell]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=155\nPages: 155,156\nitself; it is analogous to the nest of the bird of the Rosicrucians, which, from\nthe references given in Maier's fifth enigma, we may identify as his beloved\nphoenix. 116 From its nest, unassailable in the heights of an oak-tree, new life\n114\nPeuckert, Pansophie (1936 edition), p. 152.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 302: \"C. vobis Castri sublimia iura dat, et non/ Inter\naves est, quae valeat pernicibus alis/ Aut oculis ante hanc volucrem, quae vestra putatur,/\nEt cuius nutu est constructus in arbore nidus,/ Qui pridem Aurigenos produxit in ordine\npullos.\"\n116\nThe fifth enigma, dedicated to the muse of Tragedy, Melpomene, describes the nest of\nthe Phoenix built high in a gnarled oak where it rears its chicks; the bird is to be found in\nthe remote Arabian forests of Sheba, where it prepares for its long flight through all the\nworld: \"lovis volucris olim/ Quercu plicasset alta/ Nidos, suos penates,/ Pullos ut\n115\nAn invitation to Rosicrucians\n147]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=267\nPages: 267\ncum ratione et experientia convenientes, rerum naturalium causae exponuntur et\ndemonstrantur, f\u00ecguris cupro incisis singulis diebus adjectis. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas\nJennis, 1620.\nSilentium post Clamores, hoc est, Tractatus apologeticus, quo causae non solum\nclamorum seu revelationum Fraternitatis Germanicae de R.C. sed et silentii, seu non\nredditae ad singulorum vota responsionis, una cum malevolorum refutatione, traduntur\net demonstrantur. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1617.\n\"Subtilis Allegoria super Secreta Chymiae.\" In Museum Hermeticum Reformatum et\nAmpliflcatum. Frankfurt am Main: Sande, 1678, pp. 701-740.\nSymbola Aureae Mensae Duodecim Nationum. Hoc est, Hermaea seu Mercurii Festa ab\nHeroibus duodenis selectis, artis chymicae usu, sapientia et authoritate paribus\ncelebrata, ad Pyrgopolynicem seu Adversarium ilium tot annis iactabundum, virgini]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=235\nPages: 235\nand accompanied by the caption, \"it is a living thing that dies no more, for\nit is endowed with everlasting increase.\" 169 Maier's Ortus represents the\n166\n1 Corinthians 13.12.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 594: \"Cum in Africain appulissem, integro exacto\nanno et eo amplius, iam Sol iterum Leonem ingressus fuerat, Luna tenente Cancrum sui\ndomicilii fastigium, quod magnam mihi spem optimi augurii fecit.\"\n168\nIbid., pp. 594-595: \"Ibidem iuxta Erythraeum mare fera quaedam visa est, ORTUS\nnomine, cuius caput rubeum lineis aureis ad cervicem usque pertinentibus, oculi nigri et\npedes, praesertim priores, albi, posteriores nigriores, os usque ad genas candidum, fuere:\nCuius exterioris formae consideratione dum detineor, occurrit, philosophi Avicennae\ndictum, quod de consimili animali videtur intelligi; nempe, Res, cuius caput rubeum est,\net pedes albi et oculi nigri, quid est? Hoc est magisterium.\"\n169\nSalomon Trismosin. Splendor Solis. Trans. Joscelyn Godwin, with an introduction and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=158\nPages: 158\nchange the hearts of individuals and turn the Papists towards the true Church\nof God, a task the Brethren do not presume to take on themselves. 125 This\nhaving been said, however, Maier immediately launches into a tirade against\n\"the seven-hilled city\" which oppresses the \"German Eagle,\" i.e. the\nDeutsches Reich and her princes, from whose labour and blood Rome\nacquires her glory.126 Given these sentiments of Maier's, perhaps we may see\nin the arch-villain of the Symbola Aureae Mensae, the Roman centurion\nPyrgopolynices (literally, 'tower-town-taker'), an allusion to the Rome of\nMaier's day and the Protestant-Hermetic 'fortress' standing against it.127\nThus Maier ends his discourse with the remark that the Fraternity has\nrecently been augmented by ten men; on hearing this fact, Pyrgopolynices\n\"digests the matter with difficulty\" before he \"bursts forth\" with another\ntirade against the good alchemists seated at the Golden Table. 128 In any case,]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 167 to page 184 out of a total of 334:\nPages 167:\n158\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nAnd nor do I disguise the fact, that certain writings less esteemed by us have been published\nin the name of the Brethren. Which writings one will easily recognise, because they are not\nin agreement with our Fama, as anyone who reads it with an attentive mind will realise.\nMaybe there are some who name themselves Brethren, whilst not being at all in harmony\nwith our choir. Such an impostor some time ago spread the most deceitful rubbish amongst\nthe peoples of the lands between Innsbruck and Vienna. That purse-thief was exposed, and\npaid a bitter price by being suspended on a cross. Another such meddler was similarly caught\nin the city of Augsburg, and he lost his earlobes with the lash. 1 6 5\nIt must be remarked that, authentic or otherwise, any 'Rosicrucians' found\npeddling their ideologies or alchemical wares in Austria - at that time a seat\nof the Counter-Reformation - could expect short shrift from the authorities.\nHowever, B. M. I. himself gives a clue that the true Fraternity was rather\nmore virtual than tangible when - in a somewhat cryptic aside - he\nadmonishes such impostors not to \"throw our gaming-board (alveolus) into\nconfusion.\" 166 Here we have another allusion to the game or 'serious jest' set\nin motion by Andreae.\nGiven this reference, we may take B. M. I.'s account of life within the\nFraternity as another portrait of the ideal collegium, and a Rosicrucian vision\nof which Maier approved. Thus the Brethren of the Assertio Fraternitatis are\nconcerned first and foremost with the procurement of iatrochemical remedies;\nin accordance with the statement of the Fama Fraternitatis, gold-making to\nthem is a mere parergon or ornament. B. M. I. also makes a point of refuting\nallegations of Satanic involvement in their Art, levelled at that time not only\nby the Jesuits but also by many Protestant theologians:\nHe who has defamed us lately on account of the magic arts, errs and is ignorant of our way. I\ndo not deny that we often achieve stupendous things, but they are achieved by the silent\nmeans of nature. That in which we excel in skill is the matter of chemia\u00b7, every day it\nemploys our furnaces. If somebody imagines this Art is performed by a contract with Satan,\nwoe to me, how totally wrong he is! For this our chief cure derives from chaste minds and\nhands, duly and at the leisure of God. Our whole life is spent in the fear of God, and likewise\nin obliging duty to all humanity. 1 6 7\n165\nB. M. I., Assertio Fraternitatis, p. 4 verso: \"At neque dissimulo, quod fratrum nomine\nquaedam/ Vulgantur, nobis scripta probata minus./ Quae facile agnoscet, nostrae quia\ndissona fama e,/ Attenta quisqu\u00eds talia mente legit./ Forsitan et Fratrem se quis de nomine\nfingit,/ Cum tarnen a nostro sit procul ille choro./ Qualis deceptor pridem per Norica\nrura,/ Sparserat ad populum plurima vana rudem./ Donee convictus quod fur, quod\nmanticulator,/ De cruce suspensus triste pependit onus:/ Qualis item ardelio Augustana\nprensus in urbe,/ Verberibus caesus perdidit auriculas.\" Norica refers to the region in\nAustria between the Wienerwald to the east, the River Inn to the west, the Danube to the\nnorth and the River Drau to the south.\n166\nIbid., p. 4 verso: \"Alveolos nostros turbare omittite fuci.\"\nIbid., p. 4 recto\u00b7. \"Qui nuper Magicas nos diffamavit ob artes,/ Errat et est nostrae nescius\nille viae./ Non Ego diffiteor, patramus saepe stupenda,/ Naturae tacitis cuncta sed illa\n167\n\nPages 168:\nUncovering the true Brethren\n159\nThus \u0392. M. I. states that the Brethren are guided by the contemplation of\nNature, but to the greater glory of God and not of Satan - a reiteration of the\ndistinction between natural and diabolical magic adhered to by Maier and the\nmagi of the Italian Renaissance. They tend to the body in accordance with the\nlaws of Nature, \"from whence flows good health and long life;\" and those to\ncome will wonder at the lofty goals that will be achieved by this means. 168 To\nthis end the Brethren scour the lands of Europe in search of new knowledge a custom in which the medieval Christian ethic of holy pilgrimage meets the\nnatural philosophy of Paracelsus, who once stated, \"he who wishes to explore\nNature must tread her books with his feet... one land, one page.\" 169 Maier's\nlife of wandering suggests this was an ideal that he too held dear.\nOn account of the Brothers' journeys \u0392. M. I. informs us that \"there is\nnothing that occurs on the soil of Europe that is not noted precisely by our\nluminaries\" - and this includes the publication of learned tracts with which to\ncomplement the Fraternity's \"abundant library.\" 170 Indeed, every day at a\nfixed hour the prefect of the Order calls together the Fraternity, and each\nBrother has the opportunity to tell what he has \"seen, read, meditated and\nheard.\" 171 Here \u0392. M. I. is elaborating upon the statement of the Fama\nFraternitat\u00ecs that the Brethren travelled widely in order that their axiomata\ncould be scrutinised more keenly, and also because \"they wished to inform\neach other if in one land or another some error came to light through\nobservation.\" 172 According to B. M. I.'s elaboration, each item of knowledge\nbrought back to the House of the Holy Spirit by the Brethren - when\nmodis./ Qualia chemiae sunt quae praestamus ab arte:/ Exercet nostros quotidie ilia\nfocos./ Quae si quis Satana fieri putat astipulante,/ Hei mihi quam tot a fallitur ille via!/\nHaec etenim nobis est cura potissima, puris/ Mentibus et manibus rite vacante Deo./ Vita\nagitur nobis Divino piena timore,/ Et simul in cunctos officiosa homines...\"\n168\nIbid., p. 4 recto: \"Corpora curamus naturae convenienter,/ Inde valetudo, vitaque longa\nfluit...\"; p. 4 verso\u00b7. \"Grandia molimur, sua quae mirabitur aetas/ Quaeque seipsa probent\nutilitate sua.\"\n169 Pagel, Paracelsus, p. 56.\n170\n\u0392. \u039c. I., Assertio Fraternitat\u00ecs, p. 3. verso: \"Discendi cupidi sumus, atque ut multa\nsciamus,/ Venamur tacite quicquid ubique boni./ Sic nihil Europa rerum geritur prope\nterra,/ Quod non exacte Lumina nostra notent./ Quicquid librorum profertur ubique\nnovorum,/Ad nostras curat Bibliopola manus.\"\n171\nIbid.: \"Quotidie certis praesul nos convocai horis,/ Ponereque in medium cognita\nquemque iubet./ De quibus in partem mox disceptatur utramque,/ Vera probant cuncti,\nfalsaque rejiciunt./ Tunc sibi quid visum, quid lectum, quid meditatum,/ Auditumve\nrefert ordine quisque suo.\" Note that the term 'prefect' or praesul is used here rather than\nthe eighteenth century Rosicrucian denomination o f ' c o m m a n d e r ' or imperator.\n172\nKooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitat\u00ecs, p. 82: \"...wie es gleichs anfangs verglichen ward,\ntheileten sie sich in alle Land, damit nicht allein ihre axiomata in geheimb von den\nGelehrten sch\u00e4rffer examiniret w\u00fcrden, sondern auch sie selbst, da in einem oder anderm\nLand einige observation ein Irrung br\u00e4chte, sie einander m\u00f6chten berichten.\"\n\nPages 169:\n160\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\napproved as factual - is entered into a special book for the sake of future\ngenerations. Every philosopher, physician and professor of the Holy Scripture\nacquainted with the powers of alchemy is being watched by the Fraternity;\nand \u0392. M. I. states that if he would make the names of those men known, the\nbook would become monstrously large.173 We are also told that the ranks of\nthe Fraternity have recently been increased with ten \"great men skilled in the\nArt\" 174 - a fact that roused Pyrgopolynices' ire at the Golden Table of the\nSymbola Aureae Mensae.175\n7. Defining Rosicrucianism: the Silentium post Clamores and\nthe Themis Aurea\nThe two tracts that Maier devotes exclusively to the defence of the Order, the\nSilentium post Clamores ('Silence after the Clamour,' 1617) and the Themis\nAurea ('Golden Themis,' 1618), are dedicated generally to the reading public\nrather than to patrons or friends of Maier. The Silentium post Clamores deals\nwith the silence of the Fraternity in face of the furore provoked by the\nmanifestos; it sets itself the task of explaining this lack of response from the\nFraternity, as well as refuting those malevolents who have impersonated or\nattacked the Order in print. In his preface to the reader, Maier states that the\nFraternity prefer to bring the slanderers back to repose and a sounder state of\nmind, rather than stir up more passion by composing tedious responses - and\ntrue to his medical training, he uses the analogy of a doctor placating a\ndelirious patient simply by displaying tranquillity.176 In order to explain why\nhe does not follow the serene example of the Brethren, Maier justifies his\napology in the following way:\nEven if the Brethren have no need of my protection or service - and I do not expect anything\nfrom them, except the goodwill which the virtuous offer to other good people - nevertheless\nI could not forbear to cast a white stone 1 7 7 on behalf of the truth, lest it might appear that\n173\n174\n175\nB. M. I., Assertio Fraternitatis, p. 5: \"Norunt Philosophi, Medici, Sacramque professi/\nScripturam, Chymicas quique tuentur opes./ Quorum proferre in vulgus si nomina\nvellem,/ Vah mihi quam grandis crescerei inde liber!\"\nIbid., p. 2: \"Nuper is est auctus, quem pauci valde tenebant,/ Ingenio et magnis quinqu\u00e9\nbis arte viris.\"\nSee above, p. 149.\nMaier, Silentium post Clamores, pp. 4-5: \"Sed quia ita mores hominum atque haec aetas\nferunt, maledicos silentio suo potius ad quietem et saniorem mentem (ut Medici\nphreneticos) reducere conantur, quam responsionibus longioribus, quas sine dubio\nver\u00eddicas adferre possent, irritare ad affectum a bile augendum.\"\n177\nThe reference here is to stones used in antiquity for voting; a white one was cast for\nassent or acquittal, a black for denial or condemnation.\n176\n\nPages 170:\nDefining Rosicracianism\n161\ntruth is overwhelmed with malice by the censure of ignorant people, rather than freed with\nrighteousness by the fairness of the intelligent. For that censure is undoubtedly very similar\nto that illiterate commoner, who did not recognise the face of Aristides, the most meritorious\nof the Athenian republic, and on that account followed the others in condemning him for\nbeing too just. But we relegate such people to their ploughs and hoes, not to writing and\njudgment; and we commend you to God, candid reader, who are not amongst them. Vale. 1 7 8\nIn considering this address, Arthur Waite proposed two possible ways of\nreading Maier's words; the first is to consider them as the expression of\nsomeone whose \"congenital credulity\" has led him to an \"a priori belief in\nthe actuality and honesty of the Order, because its claims are, from his\nstandpoint, without offence to possibility.\" 179 From this perspective the\nSilentium post Clamores constitutes an open declaration of Maier's desire for\nadmission into the Order, analogous to the many other entreaties that\nemerged in the wake of the manifestos' publication. The second possible\ninterpretation given by Waite - who, as we may recall, advocated the\nexistence of an organised secret Brotherhood - is that Maier's words\nconstitute \"a defence issued from within the occult circle, which - while\nadvancing what it can on its own behalf - is determined to remain\nanonymous and requires its champions to dissemble.\" 180 Waite in fact opted\nfor the former of these two readings, although he saw in Maier's subsequent\nRosicrucian work, the Themis Aurea, evidence for Maier's entry into \"the\nranks of the Society.\"\nWhilst his remarks concerning Maier's \"congenital credulity\" may not be\nso far wide of the mark, the inadequacy of Waite's underlying paradigm is\nrevealed in the elaborate classical allusions that Maier utilises in the course of\nhis preface to the Silentium post Clamores. We have seen that Maier refers to\nAristides, the just Athenian patriot from the work of Plutarch bearing his\nname, who was ostracised by the citizens of Athens on account of their envy\n178\nIbid., p. 5: \"Interim, etsi nostro patrocinio aut officio non indigeant, nec ego quid ab illis,\nnisi benevolentiam, quam bonis boni ultro offerunt, expectem, tamen intermitiere non\npotui, quin pro veritate calculum non nigellum iacerem, ne illa potius literam quoque\nTheta scribere ignorantium livore oppressa, quam recte sentientium candore absoluta\nvideretur: Permultos enim esse illi cerdoni, qui Analphabetarius Aristidem optime de\nRepub. meritum, nec de facie agnitum, una cum caeteris ideo damnavit, quia nimis\niustus esset, in hoc censu similes, non est dubium: Sed hos ad ligones et aratra, non ad\nliteras et tribunalia destinatos ut novimus, sic relegamus, ac te, Candide lector, ex eorum\nnumero exemptum Deo commendamus. Vale.\"\n179\nAccording to Waite, \"the will to believe was obviously much too predominant in\nMichael Maier for him to see that there was another point from which it might be\npossible to approach the subject, namely, that statements in anonymous documents\nwhich offer no evidence and cannot be checked otherwise can at most be left only as\nopen questions and are certainly not justified by the appeal to an alleged possibility of\nthings.\" Waite, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, p. 321.\n180\nIbid., p. 320.\n\nPages 171:\n162\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nof his fame; during the ballot of ostracism a 'clownish' illiterate approached\nAristides, and, imagining him to be an ordinary citizen, asked him to\nwrite his own name on the ballot-sherd, with which request the disgusted\nAristides complied. Here Maier again expresses his occultist elitism, and his\ndisapproval of certain parties writing under the name of the 'just' Fraternity\nwho have impugned true Rosicrucianism by giving forth \"calumny and\nviperous language.\" 181 Similarly, Maier contends that those who deceitfully\nwrite in the Fraternity's name have brought forth monsters in the manner of\nIxion, who attempted to mate with Juno, the 'goddess of riches'; according to\nthe Greek myth, Jupiter (Zeus) substituted for his wife an image formed of\ncloud, by which Ixion begat the Centaurs. The unhappy fate of the would-be\nadulterer was to be strung to an ever-turning wheel by Jupiter, which might\nbe seen as an appropriate analogy for the seemingly endless dialectic set\nin motion by Andreae. The allusion Maier makes to the myth of Ixion\ndemonstrates at least a partial awareness of the virtual nature of the\nRosicrucian affair, for he tells us that the cloud with which the calumniators\nhave mated is the \"cloud of frenzied opinion\" that has grown up around the\nmanifestos, leaving the true Fraternity of the manifestos as the \"unhappiest of\nparents.\" 182 Maier again refers to the Order as the surrogate parent of a vile\noffspring by comparing the calumniators to Autolycus, the son of Mercury\nwho deceived and robbed his victims by using his inherited ability to\ntransform himself into manifold forms. According to Maier's allusion it is\nMt. Parnassus itself, throne of the Philosophers, that the 'Rosicrucian'\nimpostors have sought to assail with the power they have usurped. 183 It is\nsignificant that the Fraternity is portrayed here as Mercury, who has lent his\nshape-changing power to an unworthy child \u2014 a suggestion that the Order\nitself partakes of a mercurial nature. At the very least, the evidence of\nMaier's preface indicates that his primary interest did not lie in admission to\na secret Order; he was less concerned with the existence of a 'real' secret\nFraternity, and more concerned to distinguish true Rosicrucianism from false\nand establish himself as the chief spokesman of the former.\nIn so doing it is clear that Maier too could be portrayed as an 'Ixion' or an\n'Autolycus'; as Schick notes, without personal acquaintance with the\nT\u00fcbinger circle of Andreae, he stood with \"sovereign supremacy\" above the\ndispute, as if he was completely privy to the secrets of the Rosicrucians on\n181\n182\n183\nMaier, Silentium post Clamores, p. 3.\nIbid.\nIbid.\u00b7. \"Hinc tot in earn Calumniae et viperinae linguae exercentur, quibus pro\ndeceptoribus Ixionibus seu monstrorum, dum cum nube insanae opinionis, vice Iunonis,\nDivitiarum deae, coiverint, parentibus infelicissimis, et Autolycis, qui pr\u00f3xima Parnasso\nloca furtis infestarint, habentur et proclamante.\"\n\nPages 172:\nDefining Rosicrucianism\n163\naccount of his alchemical studies.184 But Schick also states that Maier adopts\na tone in the Silentium post Clamores \"as if the Order already existed\" for Schick regarded the manifestos principally as a plan and invitation to\nestablish an Order, rather than as a very real focal point for the Hermetic\ntendency in German Protestantism, which itself formed a Brotherhood in\nHermes and Christ.\nIn the Silentium post Clamores Maier again stresses the alchemical aspect\nof the manifestos, although when he refers to the godliness of the Brethren he\nis by no means paying mere lip service to contemporary notions of piety, as\nPrincipe and Newman might have it. Rather, piety is a fundamental element\nof his alchemical theory and practice, as the Owl's temperance-imparting\neggs in the Jocus Severus suggest. In Maier's eyes the chief axioms of the\nFraternity are:\nTo owe to God above all things honour and fear, to procure the advantage of humankind, to\nturn away harm, to encourage piety and a frugal life, to destroy demonic work or vexation\n(as in cases of possession), to live satisfied with the least gift of Nature in victuals and\nclothing, and to shrink back from violent impulses and crimes. 1 8 5\nWhilst the Brethren possess the \"most excellent Art of gold-making\"\namongst those gifts granted by the Almighty for the benefit of the human\nrace, it is the Universal Medicine that is the most outstanding of the secrets of\ntheir Fraternity. This medicine has been uncovered through an enquiry into\nthe occult powers of Nature - which enquiry is to be distinguished from\nmagic, necromancy and the work of the Devil, because these things display\nnothing of the 'insignia' or signatures imprinted in Nature. 186 The diabolic\nsense of 'magic' as it is used here is to be distinguished from 'natural magic',\nwhich Maier defended as a deep knowledge of the interconnections of Nature\n- as we have seen in the Symbola Aureae Mensae, in which he describes the\n184\n185\n186\nSchick, Das \u00c4ltere Rosenkreuzertum, p. 250.\nMaier, Silentium post Clamores, p. 41: \"Quorum axiomata sunt, se debere Deum super\nomnia honorare et timere, hominum utilitatem procurare, damnum avertere, ad pietatem\net vitae frugalitatem adhortan, daemonum opera seu vexationes (ut in obsessis) tollere, et\nminimis naturae donis in victu et vestitu contentos vivere, ab affectibus violentis et vitiis\nabhorere.\"\nIbid., pp. 17-18: \"Arcanorum nomine, ne tamen quis existimet compraehendi cuiusque\ninventa sive phantasmata, quae nec in natura, nec in Experientia locum inveniunt, nos\nsolum intelligimus occulta potentialis naturae opera, quae in actum naturalibus mediis\ndeduci possunt; a quibus magica, negromantica, diabolica et somnia ab hominibus\nexcogitata, quae nec caput nec caudam habent, hoc est, quae nulla naturae impressa\ninsignia ostendunt, secludimus et relegamus.\" That Maier understands the insignia to be\nof divine origin is not only demonstrated by their counterposition to the subjects of\ndiabolic magic, but also by the fact they have been 'impressed' or 'imprinted' upon\nNature - without doubt by the Creator.\n\nPages 173:\n164\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nFraternity's Liber M. as \"the book of natural magic.\" 187 This distinction was\nprobably drawn by Maier from his older contemporary, Giambattista della\nPorta (1535-1615), and follows in the long-established tradition of Renaissance magi such as Ficino and Agrippa, who also declared that magia\nnaturalis is \"the most perfect achievement of natural philosophy.\" 188 Whilst\nMaier uses the term insignia rather than the signatura that is so common in\nParacelsian works and the theosophical thought of Boehme, the two words\nappear to be largely synonymous, as both refer to traces of a divinely\ninstituted order present in Nature - the reading of which constitutes a central\nconcern of Maier's natural magic.\nThe main argument Maier employs in his Silentium post Clamores to\nexplain the Fraternity's silence is that knowledge of this natural or 'chemical'\norder should not be prostituted to the common people - therefore those who\nexpect the Fraternity to answer all who have called upon them are simply\nchildish, as the Brethren have without doubt decided to share their science\nwith only a very few from that great number. 189 Indeed, Maier tells us that the\nBrethren follow the same vows of silence concerning their arcana as the\nancient 'philosophical colleges' that have preceded them. Thus the Egyptians\nworshiped the god of Silence, Sigalion, \"or rather an image of Sigalion,\"\nrepresented with the left hand covering the genitalia and the right suppressing\nthe lips; according to Maier, its position at the altar indicated that the sacred\nrites performed there were of an occult nature and should not be imparted to\nnon-initiates. Likewise the Romans revered Angerona, the goddess of Death\nand Silence, whose effigy was depicted with a sealed mouth, and who\nreceived sacrificial offerings on January the 13th of each year.190 True to his\nalchemical inclinations, Maier seems to suggest that the arcana protected by\nthese deities concerned the mysteries of cyclical transformation, as he also\nmentions the Roman worship of Consus (possibly synonymous with Janus)\nwhose festival marked the end of the solar year. Sigalion - or the Egyptian\n187\n188\n189\n190\nSee above, n. 100.\nSchmitt, Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, p. 266; that Maier was\nconversant with della Porta's work is shown by the citations from his Magia Naturalis to\nbe found in the Themis Aurea (1624 edition), p. 112; Maier, Atalanta\nFugiens,\ndiscourses 18, 29.\nMaier, Silentium post Clamores, pp. 53-54.\nIbid., p. 58: \"Hinc Ethnici D\u00e9os silentii produxerunt varios, ut Consum Romani, quasi\nconsiliorum secretorum largitorem, Angeronam deam, quae (teste Plinio lib. 2.) ore\nobligato, obsignatoque Romae simulachrum habuit, eique sacrificatum fuit ad diem 13.\nCalend. Ianuarias: Apud Aegyptios Sigalion seu Harpocrates colebatur, aut potius eius\nsimulachrum, quod sinistram verendis tegendis, dextrae, indicem et medium, d\u00edgitos\nlabris compressis adhiberet, in altaribus ponebatur, ad indicandum, sacra, quae ibi\nperagerentur, esse occulti sensus et silentio premenda.\" In his Historia Naturalis, 3.5.65\nPliny in fact gives January the 12th as the date of the sacrifice of Angerona.\n\nPages 174:\nDefining Rosicrucianism\n165\nHeru-pa-khered, the young Horus - was also a god of the newborn sun,\nalthough it seems unlikely Maier was aware of this fact, as it was the\nGreeks who mistakenly associated Sigalion with their own god of Silence,\nHarpocrates, on account of the Egyptian deity's depiction with a hand\ncovering his mouth.191 It seems more likely, however, that Maier was aware\nof the Greek tradition concerning Cupid's gift of a rose to Harpocrates,\nbestowed in order to ensure his silence concerning the sexual improprieties of\nVenus. As tradition has it, this myth marks the origins not only of the phrase\nsub rosa, denoting something carried out in secrecy, but also of the European\n(and purportedly 'Rosicrucian') custom of hanging roses over tavern tables\nreferred to by Father Garasset.192\nAmongst other 'precursors' of the Rosicrucian Brethren, Maier names\nthe Mauritanians of Fez, the Druids of Britain, the Brahmans of India and\nthe 'Gymnosophists' of Ethiopia - a word deriving from the Greek\n\u03b3\u03c5\u03bc\u03bd\u03bf\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\nor 'naked philosophers', who were in fact the ascetic\nBrahmanic philosophers known to the Greeks through the reports of the\ncompanions of Alexander.193 Elements of Brahmanic lore are present in\nRosicrucianism to this day; and whilst the nineteenth century esotericists\npilloried by Principe and Newman laid particular emphasis on a perceived\nharmony of eastern and western esoteric modes of thought, it is clear from\nthe evidence of the Silentium post Clamores that they were only following in\na syncretic tradition stemming from the Renaissance and firmly established in\nRosicrucian circles by Maier.194 According to Maier, all the occult traditions\nof the world are in agreement, and stem from one author: namely, Hermes\nTrismegistus.195 Thus it was from the Egyptians that Pythagoras derived\nhis magic and knowledge of the arcana, as well as the doctrine of\nmetempsychosis or the transmigration of the soul through reincarnation.196\nAs for the Rosicrucian Brethren, Maier asserts that they follow the custom of\n191\nAccording to another tradition, Harpocrates was a Greek philosopher who enjoined\nsilence concerning the nature of the gods.\n192\nSee p. 148 above; the Swiss Freemasonic Lodge, the 'Loge sub Rosa', draws on a\nRosicrucian significance of the phrase.\n193\nMaier, Silentium post Clamores, pp. 26 ff.\n194\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" pp. 388401.\n195\nMaier, Silentium post Clamores, pp. 40-41: \"Non solum enim ab uno authore, nempe\nHermete, videntur omnes hae coloniae dependere et ab una gente ad aliam, quasi per\nmanus, tradita haec arcanorum cognitio progressa, sed quoque in legibus et regulis, vitae\nmoribusque praefixis pro temporum et religionis ratione consentirne.\"\n196\nIbid., p. 38: \"Pythagoras in Aegypto a sacerdotibus et Babylone a Chaldaeis arcana\nnaturae et magiae una cum Metapsychosi didicit: Eius discipuli facultates omnes in\nunum conferebant, ut omnibus essent communes: Quinquennium totum silebant,\nantequam in collegium et ad praeceptorem admitterentur.\"\n\nPages 175:\n166\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nthe Pythagoreans of Greece and Italy, who maintained a period of five years'\nsilence before being initiated into the higher mysteries of their college.\nLikewise, the Rosicrucian Brethren conduct an intensive inquiry into the lives\nof those they are about to select, and admittance into the Order is only\nallowed after a private ballot cast by the quarter of the Fraternity holding\nvoting rights; then capable members are further tested with at least five\nyears' silence before admittance into the higher secrets.197 Although it is not\nclear from which source (if any) these details concerning voting derive,\nMaier's reference to a grade system appears to stem from Georg Molther's\nGr\u00fcndtliche Relation, in which the wonder-working Brother states that he has\nalmost completed his probationary period of seven years, and that the two\nother Brethren sojourning in the same region are of the same 'grade' as\nhimself. 198 In any case, Schick saw in the grade system mentioned by Maier\nthe \"unmistakeable germs of the organisational units of Freemasonry\ndeveloped some decades later in England under the influence of Rosicrucian\nideas.\" 199\nThe historian of Freemasonry Robert Gould once argued that Maier\nbelieved so firmly in the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross that he endeavoured to\njoin it, but finding this impossible decided to found his own order, and in\nsubsequent writings he \"spoke of it as already existing, going so far even as\nto publish its laws.\" 200 Here he was referring to the Themis Aurea (1618), in\nwhich Maier sets out and elaborates upon the laws of the Fraternity given in\nthe Fama Fraternitatis. However, once the hypothesis of an organised secret\nsociety is dispelled, and hence Waite's suggestion that Maier was physically\nable to \"enter into the ranks of the Society,\" we are left with no other option\nbut to accept Maier's awareness of the virtual nature of the Order when\nconsidering his Themis Aurea. For there Maier does indeed write as if from\nthe 'inside' of the Order, as Waite asserts. This fact in itself demonstrates a\nconclusive shift in Maier's thinking away from the possibility of the\n197\n198\nIbid., pp. 80, 82: \"Sed societas ilia excusari poterit, quod quemlibet associandum sibi,\netiam quo ad doctrinam dignissimum, primum quinquennali silentio (veluti Pythagoras\nsuos disc\u00edpulos) vel etiam longiori probandum habeant, ut potentia suos affectus et freno\nlinguam domare prius discat, quam tantorum arcanorum particeps fiat\"; \"Deinde non\nsolummodo doctrinam respici, inde patet, quod et pictores, aliosque sibi adiunxerint,\nalias morum severitate et silentio probatos: Unde testantur, se longo usu et respectu\nprimum inquirere in vitam illorum, quos electuri sint: Fieri quoque solet eiusmodi\nelectio, ut quarta eius societatis lex habetur, non votis communibus sed uniuscuiusque\nprivatim, quocirca quod a toto sodalitio quis non sit acceptas, id illi imputari non debet,\nsed ei, a quo gratiam illam accipere potuit et non accepit.\"\nMolther, \"Von einer frembden Mannsperson,\" p. 97.\nSchick, Das Altere Rosenkreuzertum, p. 252; on this subject see also Buhle, Ueber den\nUrsprung der Orden der Rosenkreuzer, p. 207.\n200\nGould, The History of Freemasonry, p. 92.\n199\n\nPages 176:\nDefining Rosicrucianism\n167\nexistence of an organised secret Order - for if he had still entertained such a\npossibility, he could only have hoped to provoke the ire of the Fraternity as\nan outsider usurping their very laws.\nRather than being an attempt to found a secret order or evidence of\nMaier's membership in such an entity, the Themis Aurea is in fact dedicated\nto defining for the reading public the true alchemist and Rosicrucian brother\nwith recourse to the laws of the Fraternity. In order to facilitate his\nexploitation of the platform granted him by the appearance of the manifestos,\nMaier produced both a Latin and a German edition of the work in the course\nof 1618.201 The laws of the Fraternity, as set out in the Fama Fraternitatis,\nrun as follows:\n1.\n2.\n3.\n4.\n5.\n6.\nNone of the Brothers should exercise any other profession than to cure the sick, and\nthat without charge.\nNone of the Brothers should be obliged by the Fraternity to wear a particular\nclothing, but should follow the custom of the country they inhabit.\nEvery Brother should present himself once a year upon the day C. at the House of\nthe Holy Spirit, or send a message concerning the cause of their absence.\nEvery Brother should look around for a suitable person who will take his place in\nthe event [it is necessary],\nThe letters R. C. should be their seal, password, and emblem.\nThe Fraternity should remain secret for one hundred years. 2 0 2\nConcerning the first law, Maier's burden in the Themis Aurea is to\ndemonstrate that the true Rosicrucian is concerned primarily with the art of\nhealing, and not with the production of gold or other self-aggrandising\npursuits. This goal is reflected in the title of the work, which is explained in\nthe foreword as Maier relates the myth of Themis, the Greek goddess of law\nand prophecy known to the Romans as Justitia. According to the first book of\nOvid's Metamorphoses, after the Deluge Themis was asked by Deucalion\nand Pyrrha how humankind could again be restored to the earth, to which\nthe goddess replied that they must throw the bones of their mother over\n201\nMaier, Michael. Themis Aurea, hoc est, de Legibus Fraternitatis R. C. Tractatus.\nFrankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1618; Maier, Michael. Themis Aurea, das ist, von den\nGesetzen und Ordnungen der l\u00f6blichen Fraternitet R. C. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas\nJennis, 1618. Here I again cite the Latin edition of 1624.\n202\nKooij and Gilly, Fama Fraternitatis, pp. 82-85: \"Erstlich: keiner solt sich keiner andern\nprofession au\u00dfthun, als Krancken zu curiren und di\u00df umbsonst./ Zum Andern: keiner\nsolte gen\u00f6tigt sein, von der Bruderschafft wegen ein gewi\u00df Kleid zu tragen, sondern der\nLand Arten sich zu gebrauchen./ Zum Dritten: Ein jeder Br\u00fcder soll alle Jahre auff C.\nTag sich bey Sancii Spiritus einstellen oder seines aussenbleibens ursach schicken./ Zum\nVierten: ein jeder Br\u00fcder soll sich umb ein taugliche Person umbsehen, die ihm auff den\nfall m\u00f6chte succediren./ Zum F\u00fcnfften: Das Wort R. C. soll ihr Sigili, Losung und\nCharacter sein./ Zum Sechsten: Die Bruderschafft soll hundert Jahr verschwiegen\nbleiben.\"\n\nPages 177:\n168\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\ntheir heads. Although Pyrrha understood the injunction literally, Deucalion\nrecognised the words of Themis as a reference to the stones of the earth; and\nhaving been thrown, two stones miraculously softened and grew into a man\nand a woman, by which means the earth was repopulated. Drawing on the\nhermeneutic first established in the Arcana Arcanissima, Maier argues that\nthe true significance of this myth lies in the procurement of the Golden\nMedicine, which has the power of unlimited increase and is formed by two\n'stones', feminine Mercury and masculine Sulphur.203 It is this Golden\nMedicine which the Brethren altruistically labour to procure, and through\nwhich they can impart not only physical health but piety, justice and truth to\nthose they treat. 204\nIn the course of his work Maier defines the ideal Rosicrucian in accordance with his own medical practice; thus the Brethren are neither\nScholastics who slavishly follow established opinion without recourse to\nexperimentation, nor are they empiricists who disregard the ancient\nfoundations of medicine in Galen and Hippocrates. Paracelsus was an\neminent physician of great learning, but others must decide whether that gave\nhim the right to trample down the ancient medicine and introduce a new\none.205 On this count Maier censures those Paracelsians who follow their\nmaster in directing coarse diatribes towards their opponents, whilst exhibiting\nnothing of substance in their own works. Disease, we are reminded, is the\ntrue enemy of the physician. 206 Both chemical and herbal remedies have their\nplace in the physician's armoury, and both draw their power and virtues from\nthe influence of the heavenly bodies. 207\n203\n204\n205\n206\n207\nMaier, Themis Aurea (1624 edition), p. 103: \"Unde prima legum promulgatrix Themis\nhabetur, cuius tamen responsio non de hominibus reparandis a vetustissimis Poetis\naccepta fuit, at de duobus lapidibus, masculo et foemina, a quibus multiplicatio\nMedicinae aureae causata est.\"\nIbid., p. 227: \"Denique habent iidem Fratres, nescio quid arcani maximarum virium, quo\nse posse et velie succurrere uni, si quando opus sit, personae, quo pietas, iustitia et\nVeritas superiorem locum obtineant, nec supprimantur a suis contrariis vitiis.\"\nIbid., p. 166: \"Virum doctissimum et singularem in Medicina eum fuisse non est\ndubium: An propterea sat causae habuerit, omnem veterem conculcandi et novam his\nultimis seculis in mundi senio, introducendi Medicinam, aliorum sit radicare.\"\nIbid., p. 168: \"Chymici vel Medici, qui Paracelsi doctrinam sequuntur, utinam nec in\nmores sui magistri degenerarent, et res relictis personalibus tractarent: Multorum hoc\nseculo eius farinae inveniuntur libri, ex quibus si calumniae et canina eloquentia, in\nmedicos exercita, tollantur, quod reliquum est, tantum doctrinae, quantum inania\nstramina frugis, continebunt... Personae maneant intactae, communis hostis est morbus,\neiusque causa et effectus seu symptoma.\"\nIbid:. \"Quod ad medicamenta mere Chymica vel Paracelsica attinet, ea quatenus bona\nsunt, laudamus, sed ita, ne Galenica et dogmatica vituperemus: His et illis alternatim\nutendum erit, innullius praeiudicium aut contemptum;\" ibid., pp. 132-133, 184-185.\n\nPages 178:\nDefining Rosicrucianism\n169\nWith regard to the second law of the Fraternity, Maier states that the\nBrethren are merely following the admirable example set by Nature in\nchanging their attire to suit the country of their dwelling; for just as the\nchameleon changes it colour to suit its surrounds, or the fur of certain hares\nbecomes white in winter (a fact Maier himself observed in Lithuania), so\nthe Brethren are compelled to alter their appearance for the sake of their\nown safety. 208 Their peregrinations are driven by their desire to read the\nliber mundi, and if sometimes they appear to be uneducated empirics (witness\nMolther's somewhat rustic 'Brother'), nevertheless their medicine is drawn\nfrom the \"marrow of the great body\" that is the world. 209 When we consider\nMaier's decidedly folksy analogies and sentiments, it is not altogether surprising that he was once characterised in the Rosicrucian polemics of his time\nas der Deutsche Michael, i.e. as a Bauernt\u00f6lpel or yokel from beyond the\nnorthern borders of the empire. 210 Nevertheless, Maier seems to have found\nsome comfort in the image of the Rosicrucian, particularly as it was set forth\nby Molther: to the genuine Brother of the Rosy Cross - as to the wandering\nMaier - the world is a place of pilgrimage, and he must remain an oft-reviled\nstranger and traveller until he reaches his true heavenly home. 211\n208\n209\nIbid., p. 195.\nIbid., p. 129: \"At hie mox obstrepent nobis illi, qui omnium cupiunt esse primi, et non\nsunt, dicentque, Fratres non esse medicos, at forte Empyricos, qui Medicinam exercere\nsatagant: Verum hi manticam in tergo non vident suam, alienam semper habentes in\nconspectu: Fateor, plerosque fratrum non militasse in eorum castris, ideoque pro\ncommilitonibus haud agnosci: Sed nec id quidem desiderant, cum sub Phoebo, Musis et\nCharitibus omnibus non solum tyrocinia, sed quoque summa officia merverint et\nexercuerint: Medicina, quam faciunt, est illis propria Medulla magni corporis, remotis\nossibus, nucleus dulcissimae nucis rejectis corticibus.\"\n210\nThus the meaning of 'Meier' is 'farmhand' or 'dairy farmer'; Wahrig, Gerhard et. al.\n(eds.). Brockhaus-Wahrig\nDeutsches W\u00f6rterbuch. Vol. 4. Stuttgart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, 1982, p. 634; the reference to der Deutsche Michael occurs in the VII. Miracula\nNaturae (1619) of Hisaias sub Cruce Ath. (aka. Isaac Habrecht); a vindication of Maier\nin face of this slander comes from Habrecht's opponent Irenaeus Agnostus (aka.\nFriedrich Grick) in the Prodromus Fr. R. C. Das ist: Ein Vorgeschmack und beyl\u00e4uffige\nAnzeig der grossen au\u00dff\u00fchrlichen Apologi \u03b5\u03b9\u03c3 \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, welche baldt folgen\nsol, gegen und wider den Zanbrecher, und Fabelprediger Hisaiam sub Cruce. N.p: n.p.,\n1620, p. C4.\n211\nMaier, Themis Aurea (1624 edition), pp. 215-216: \"Cur vero Fratres R. C. latere non\ndebeant in loco et personis, cum in latibulis non semper haereant, sed maxime per\nmundum, ut sapientes, quibus omne solum patria est, versentur? Cur non peregrinentur\nincogniti? An forte, si agnoscerentur, tantum boni expectent, an plus mali? Qui multum\net saepe homines et terras obeunt, multa dicuntur hospitia experiri, pauca candoris\nfoedera, varias blanditias, nullas fere amicitias, ita vere dicendas: Si hoc etiam illis, qui\nortu, nomine et officio agnosci non refugiunt, contingit, nulla est causa, cur se quis totum\naperiat et quantus qualisque sit, omnibus absque discrimine ebuccinetur: Dicunt ne tam\nsacrae quam prophanae literae, nos omnes in hoc mundo esse peregrinos, ac coelum\nappet\u00ec debere pro patria?\"\n\nPages 179:\n170\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nConcerning the third law of the Fraternity given in the Fama Fraternitatis,\nMaier makes two pronouncements in the course of his Themis Aurea that\nbear upon the nature of the 'meeting place' of the Brethren. Firstly, it is\nstated that the House of the Holy Spirit is not in Utopia, but in the middle of\nGermany - for Europe is like unto a virgin (figure 20), and although it is not\nmeet for a virgin to uncover herself, nevertheless she has brought forth the\nhitherto unknown arts and sciences of the Brethren from that secret place.\nIn this way Maier relates the rise of the occult sciences in Germany to a\nmiraculous virgin birth, an allegorical means of depicting the late Renaissance in Germany. This efflorescence of the prisca sapientia will not be\nviolated by its enemies; thus Maier also likens Germany to an alchemical\nrose garden, where roses and lilies secretly grow \"lest wanton hands damage\nor indeed pluck those little flowers.\"212 Here he uses the traditional symbols\nfor the final white and red stages of the work to denote the Brethren or true\nalchemists of Germany, 'known and unknown'. The second reference to the\nHouse of the Holy Spirit given by Maier in the Themis Aurea further\naccentuates his alchemical reading of the manifestos. He tells us that\nalthough he cannot divulge the time or place of the Fraternity's meeting,\nnevertheless he once saw a place he imagined to be the House of the Holy\nSpirit: Mt. Helicon, home of the philosophers, where Pegasus opened a\nperpetual spring with his hooves, and Diana bathed herself with Venus as her\nhandmaid and Saturn as her usher. 213 These words are clearly a cipher for\nprocesses Maier may have observed in the alchemical vessel late one night;\nthus Diana as goddess of the moon represents the white phase of the\nalchemical subject, the 'white lead' which must be purified by 'washing' or\nsolution following the putrefactive black phase. In accordance with the\ngenealogies given in the Arcana Arcanissima, Saturn is her grandfather, or\n212\n213\nIbid., pp. 123-124: \"De Loco huiusce congregationis, aut legum promulgationis ne\nquoque quis sit nimis curiosus in indagando, videndum erit: Non enim hoc utile est sciri\nab omnibus, sed sufficit si a solis confoederatis et electis agnoscatur: in Utopia non est,\nut opinor, nec apud Tartaros aut Lappones, sed forte in umbelico Germaniae, cum\nEuropa forma virginem, et Germania in ea ventrem referre dicatur: Non convenit\nvirg\u00edneos sinus patefacere vulgo, ne meretrix potius, quam virgo, vidatur: Satis est scire,\nearn non esse infoecundam, sed in utero suo (ut Themis ex love) hanc Eunomiam\nconcepisse, aut hos Palycos fratres, tanquam ignotos et ex terra natos, (ut Thalia ex\neodem) protulisse: Venter hic quidem virgineus est, at permultas artes et scientias, ante\nincognitas, edidit, GERMANIAM dico et intelligo, quae germinai nunc perpetuo ROSIS\nET LILI1S, quae nec hyemem nec aestum ignis reformident, et in Philosophicis hortis\nseu Rosetis conservantur, ne petulca manus tenellos flosculos laedat aut carpai.\"\nIbid., p. 201: \"Vidi aliquando Olympicas domus, non procul a fluviolo et civitate nota,\nquas S. Spiritus vocari imaginamur: Helicon est, de quo loquor, aut biceps Parnassus, in\nquo equus Pegasus fontem aperuit perennis aquae adhuc stillantem, in quo Diana se\nlavat, cui Venus ut pedissequa, et Saturnus ut anteambulo, coniunguntur: Intelligenti\nnimium, inexperto minimum hoc erit dictum.\"\n\nPages 180:\nDefining Rosicrucianism\n171\nthe progenitor of all metals; and the 'perpetual spring' is the quintessence or\naqua foetida used in the solution, a powerful spirit \"with the smell of sulphur\nand the grave\" mentioned in the tenth and thirty-seventh discourses of the\nAtalanta Fugiens,214 Maier states that his words will reveal a great deal to the\nintelligent, but nothing to the inexperienced:215 in this way he demonstrates\nan allegorical understanding not only of Greek myth, but of central elements\nof the narrative in the Fama Fraternitatis itself.\nIn the discourse on the initials R. C. given in his Themis Aurea, Maier\nstates that the Egyptians possessed two scripts, one profane and commonly\nknown, the other holy and understood by the priests alone. These latter were\nthe hieroglyphs, symbols of deep wisdom; and although popular belief holds\nthat the letters R. C. refer to rosa and crux, they are in fact just such sacred\nsigns serving to cover the mysteries of the Order. 216 Following this statement,\nFigala and Neumann have suggested an interpretation of the letters as res\nchymicae; but although this interpretation is ingenious and fully in accord\nwith Maier's ethos, it may be futile to attempt to discover one final, definitive\nphrase to which Maier adhered.217 Thus we have seen that Maier gave the\ninitials the significance of 'the sea' and 'the sublime laws of a fortress' in the\ntenth enigma of the Symbola Aureae Mensae\u00b7, likewise the seventh enigma\nspeaks of R. as the 'canine letter', which contains in itself war and the\npugnatrix (she who fights), whilst the eighth enigma speaks of C. as the\nwaning moon:\nLo the half moon is resplendent with rays before you!\nHence it is also consecrated to the C.,\nFor just as the horns of Phoebe foretell the demise of dark and shady night,\nThus also by and by the clouds are put to flight,\nAs your public Confession promises.\nSix companions follow, of whom two times two are making a clamour,\nBut two give forth harmonious speech:\nThis will have been enough to reveal to your judgment. 2 1 8\n214\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 10: \"Est quoque eadem aqua acetum acerrimum,quae\ncorpus fecit merum spiritum... Est autem haec aqua ex Parnassi petita fonte, quae praeter\nnaturam aliorum fontium in vertice montis existit, ab ungula Pegasi, volatilis equi,\nfactus;\" ibid., discourse 37: \"Foetida dicitur, quia foetorem sulphureum de se mittit, et\nodorem sepulchrorum: Haec est ilia aqua, quam Pegasus ex Parnasso ungula sua\npercusso elicuit...\"\n215\nSee above, n. 213.\nMaier, Themis Aurea (1624 edition), pp. 209-211.\nFigala and Neumann, \"Author cui Nomen Hermes Malavici,\" p. 138.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 300-301: \"En mediata vobis/ Luna resplendet\nradiis, hinc quoque C. dicata est,/ Cornua namque Phoebes/ Ceu monent decrescere\nnoctis tenebras opaca e,/ Sic quoque mox fugandas/ Esse nubes, publica confessio vestra\n216\n217\n218\n\nPages 181:\n172\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nHere Maier appears to make another allusion to the processes in the vessel,\nand the 'washing' of the moon we have just discussed. Nevertheless, the\nreference is also to the 'promise' of the Confessio Fraternitatis that God\nis \"turning about the course of Nature,\" as the Lord's Sabbath is almost at\nhand - a cyclical return to the beginning, or a re-establishment of the Golden\nAge through an apocalyptic purification. In the Themis Aurea Maier gives a\nsimilar interpretation of the initial C. as 'the moon'; and in accordance with\nthe 'canine' musings of the seventh enigma in the Symbola Aureae Mensae,\nR. is given as 'rabies' or 'madness'. 219 These references to violence and\nchaos may refer to the fires of the alchemical furnace, by which means the\npurification of the alchemical subject is ultimately achieved. Thus R. is\nreferred to in a second place in the Themis Aurea as 'Pegasus', which struck\nits hooves against Mt. Helicon (the vessel) and opened up the eternal spring\nin which Diana bathed. C. in this second allusion is given as 'Julius' - a\npossible reference to Julius Caesar, who traced his ancestry to the gods via a\nson of Venus; for if we follow Maier's interpretation of the genealogies of the\ngods in the Arcana Arcanissima as the phases to be observed in the vessel,\nthen Caesar is a representation of the completion of the work in which things\nheavenly and worldly coalesce.220\nTentative as these conclusions are, it would seem that Figala and\nNeumann were on the right track when they proposed the significance of res\nchymicae; for although a 'chemical' truth may be both manifested and\nrepresented in different ways, the letters R. C. (in Maier's view) are indeed\nciphers for the all-pervasive alchemical process. In concluding his discourse\non the initials of the Order in the Themis Aurea, Maier gives expression to his\npietist leanings when he says that if the sun mediates between 'rabies' and\n'the moon' a heart is formed, which if it is sincere may be an acceptable\nsacrifice to God. 221 This appears to be a reference to the seal of the Fraternity\nillustrated in the Themis Aurea (figure 21), in which 'S' as sol mediates\nbetween 'R' and 'C' - a symbol apparently of Maier's own invention which\nexpresses universal, occult laws in a manner similar to John Dee's monas\nhieroglyphica. In relation to this seal Maier offers up the phrase \"d. wmml.\nzii, w. sgqqhka. x.,\" and challenges us to understand it if we can. 222\nspondet:/ Sex comit\u00e9s sequuntur,/ Ex quibus clamant duo bis, sed duo consonantem/ Ore\nferunt loquelam:/ Haec satis vestro fiierit iudicio indicasse.\"\n219\nMaier, Themis Aurea (1624 edition), p. 214: \"Hinc canina illius litterae R. rabies et\nmedia illa C. Luna non sunt despicienda Elementa: Si enim Sol illis medius adveniat, cor\nefficiunt, quod primarium est in humanis visceribus, si synceritatem conjunctam habeat,\nsacrificium unicum Deo gratum, quo ad voluntatem existens.\"\n220\nIbid., p. 212.\n221\nC.f.n. 219 above.\n222\nMaier, Themis Aurea (1624 edition), pp. 212-213.\n\nPages 182:\nRegni Christi frater\n173\nUnfortunately, the meaning of this last riddle seems to have passed away with\nits author, as even the key divulged by Borelli is of no avail to us here.\n8. Regni Christi frater. Maier's 'entrance into the Order'\nClearly, then, the riddles of the Themis Aurea are not the work of a member\nof the Rosicrucian Order, at least in the sense of the member of an organised\nsecret society; rather, Maier's efforts to define the virtual entity of\nRosicrucianism seem to have borne some fruit, given Garasset's description\nof him as 'secretary' of the Order, and given the largely alchemical bent of\nlater Rosicrucianism. Furthermore, the fact that Maier chose not to use a\npseudonym when publishing his works must have raised his profile in\nGermany considerably, as we find his tracts are given a good deal of\npublicity in the subsequent debate concerning the true nature of the Order. In\nconcluding this discussion of Maier's relation to early Rosicrucianism, let\nus now turn to two Rosicrucian tracts that make mention of Maier, the\nColloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum ('Rosicrucian Colloquium,' 1621; see figure\n22) and its rejoinder, the Echo Colloquii Rhodo-Staurotici ('Answer to\nthe Rosicrucian Colloquium,' 1622) - this latter work having been cited\nalongside Garasset's claim as evidence for Maier's 'entrance into the\nFraternity'.\nThe Colloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum was first published in a German\nedition of 1621 and is, putatively, a lengthy letter delivered from a certain C.\nV. A. I. B. F. to a certain A. W. B. D. S. F. 223 The latter addresses his\nforeword to \"the theosophical reader,\" and tells us that he had read a number\nof works which had been circulating in the name of the \"highly illumined\nFraternity of the Rosy Cross,\" but which nevertheless did not agree in their\n223\nC. V. A. I. B. F. Colloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum,\nDas ist: Gespr\u00e4ch dreyer Personen/\nvon der vor wenig Jahren/ durch die Famam et Confessionem\netlicher\nmassen\ngeoffenbarten Fraternitet de\u00df Rosen Creuzes; Darinnen zu sehen/ Was endlich von so\nvielen unterschiedlichen in ihrem Namen publicirten Schriefften/ und denn auch von der\nBriiderschafft selbsten zu halten sey. Allen trewherzigen/ und aber durch so vielerhand\nSchreiben irrgemachten Christlichen Lesern zu Heb in druck gegeben. N.p.: n.p., 1621.\nCuriously, the initials C. I. B. F. and A. S. \u039d. B. rather than C. V. \u0391. I. \u0392. F. and A. W.\nB. D. S. F. are given in the Latin version of the work: Colloquium\nRhodo-Stauroticum\ntrium personarum,\nper Famam et Confessionem\nquodammodo\nrevelatum,\nde\nFraternitate Roseae Crucis. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1624. I cannot see any\ngood reason for this discrepancy, although a pointless invention on behalf of the\ntranslator seems unlikely. It is possible that the variant initials of the Latin edition derive\nfrom the Latinisation of the original non-abbreviated forms of these pseudonyms, with\nwhich the translator (who as we shall see was none other than Maier's publisher, Lucas\nJennis) may have been acquainted.\n\nPages 183:\n174\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nfundamentals with the original manifestos issued by the Order. Mentioned\nin particular are the Tintinabulum Sophorum, the Apologia F. R. C. and\nthe Prodromus F. R. C. of Irenaeus Agnostus. It seems that as a result of\nhis reading A. W. B. D. S. F. was in a quandary concerning the true\ninterpretation of the manifestos - and therefore in doubt concerning the\nnature of the genuine brotherhood. Therefore he wrote to C. V. A. I. B. F., \"a\ntrusted friend who can better judge these things than I,\" and asked for his\nopinion on the matter. An answer arrived in the form of a 'colloquium' or\nthree-way conversation between the imaginary characters Tyrosophus,\nQuirinus and Politicus, each participant representing a particular perspective\non the nature of the Order and its beliefs - and Tyrosophus representing a\ntrue Rosicrucianism in accord with the original manifestos. In this way the\nColloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum follows the formula set forward by Andreae\nin the Turris Babel. Having found this 'colloquium' pleasing, A. W. B. D. S.\nF. approached a publisher (who was himself \"a denizen of the citadel of\nwisdom\") and with the permission of the author, C. V. A. I. B. F., it was\npublished for the enlightenment of others on that topic. The foreword is dated\nMarch 1st, 1621.224\nSchick has attributed this work to the personal physician of the Calvinist\nLandgrave Phillip von Hessen-Butzbach, Daniel M\u00f6gling. It appears that\nM\u00f6gling wrote as an apologist for the Rosicrucians under the pseudonyms of Theophilus Schweighardt and Florentinus de Valentia in such works\nas Pandora Sextae Aetatis ('Pandora of the Sixth Age,' 1617), Rosa\nFlorescens ('Blooming Rose,' 1617) and the Speculum Sophicum RhodoStauroticum ('Sophical Rosicrucian Mirror,' 1618). Whilst the Colloquium\nRhodo-Stauroticum did not appear under the names of either Schweighardt or\nde Valentia, Schick has attributed its authorship to M\u00f6gling on the basis of\ncertain thematic and editorial factors, and on the basis of a communication of\n1618 from Landgrave Phillip von Hessen-Butzbach to the Rosicrucian\nKabbalist and prophet, Johann Faulhaber, in which Phillip reveals the identity\nof Schweighardt and de Valentia as that of his own physician.225 According\nto Edighoffer, M\u00f6gling was a personal acquaintance of Johann Valentin\n224\n225\nIbid., 1621, pp. 3-6; the foreword of the 1624 edition, pp. 45-48, gives no date.\nHessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt, Hausarchiv, Abteilung 4, Konv. 72, Fase. 9; see\nSchick, Das Altere Rosenkreuzertum, p. 185. Schick gives the following reasons for his\nattribution: firstly, the Colloquium appears in part to be the continuation of a polemic\nagainst a certain 'Menapius' to be found in M\u00f6gling's (i.e. Schweighardt and de\nValent\u00edas') previous works; secondly, those works display a consonance with the\nColloquium in the style of their titles; thirdly, whilst the author of the Colloquium cites\nmany Rosicrucian authors, including Maier, only the works of Schweighardt and de\nValentia are quoted word-for-word. On this latter point we must note that Schick was\nmistaken, as the Colloquium author also cites Maier word-for-word.\n\nPages 184:\nRegni Christi frater\n175\nAndreae, although I do not know on which authority this claim rests. 226 The\nmatter is thrown into further confusion by Arnold's suggestion that the author\nwriting under the name of de Valentia in the Rosa Florescens was in fact\nAndreae, although again, there are no specific grounds given to support this\nidea.227 Yates completes the chaos by quoting Arnold and stating that both\nSchweighardt and de Valentia \"may be Andreae himself.\" 228 In any case, we\nwill proceed with the working hypothesis that Daniel M\u00f6gling was both the\nauthor of the Colloquium and the true identity behind these pseudonyms,\nwhich seems reasonable on the basis of Schick's arguments.\nWhilst the story of C. V. \u0391. I. B. F.'s letter to A. W. B. D. S. F. given in\nthe Colloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum is clearly a literary invention, the\nparticipants of the colloquium represent genuine ideological threads in the\ntangled web of 'Rosicrucian' apologies and opposing Kampfschriften that\ngrew up around the Fama Fraternitatis and the Confessio Fraternitatis. As\nthe mouthpiece of M\u00f6gling himself, the 'Tyrosophus' of the colloquium\ngives expression to a heterodox Protestantism of a theosophical strain. In the\ncourse of the colloquium Tyrosophus presents a list of books he says are\nhighly recommended by the Fraternity itself; first and foremost is the De\nImitatione Christi of the Rhenish ascetic Thomas \u00e0 Kempis (c.1379-1471), a\nkey work of Christian piety; also named are the Vier B\u00fccher vom wahren\nChristentum (1605-1609) by Johann Arndt, a work influential for later\nPietism that was itself inspired by \u00e0 Kempis and the Rhenish mystic Johann\nTauler (c.1300-61); the Philosophia Mys\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 167 to page 184 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 184 to page 202 out of a total of 334:\nPages 184:\nRegni Christi frater\n175\nAndreae, although I do not know on which authority this claim rests. 226 The\nmatter is thrown into further confusion by Arnold's suggestion that the author\nwriting under the name of de Valentia in the Rosa Florescens was in fact\nAndreae, although again, there are no specific grounds given to support this\nidea.227 Yates completes the chaos by quoting Arnold and stating that both\nSchweighardt and de Valentia \"may be Andreae himself.\" 228 In any case, we\nwill proceed with the working hypothesis that Daniel M\u00f6gling was both the\nauthor of the Colloquium and the true identity behind these pseudonyms,\nwhich seems reasonable on the basis of Schick's arguments.\nWhilst the story of C. V. \u0391. I. B. F.'s letter to A. W. B. D. S. F. given in\nthe Colloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum is clearly a literary invention, the\nparticipants of the colloquium represent genuine ideological threads in the\ntangled web of 'Rosicrucian' apologies and opposing Kampfschriften that\ngrew up around the Fama Fraternitatis and the Confessio Fraternitatis. As\nthe mouthpiece of M\u00f6gling himself, the 'Tyrosophus' of the colloquium\ngives expression to a heterodox Protestantism of a theosophical strain. In the\ncourse of the colloquium Tyrosophus presents a list of books he says are\nhighly recommended by the Fraternity itself; first and foremost is the De\nImitatione Christi of the Rhenish ascetic Thomas \u00e0 Kempis (c.1379-1471), a\nkey work of Christian piety; also named are the Vier B\u00fccher vom wahren\nChristentum (1605-1609) by Johann Arndt, a work influential for later\nPietism that was itself inspired by \u00e0 Kempis and the Rhenish mystic Johann\nTauler (c.1300-61); the Philosophia Mystica, an important compilation of\nParacelsian and Weigelian tracts published in Neustadt in 1618; the\nOjfenbahrung of Paul Lautensack; and the Vom Baum des Wissens Gutes und\nB\u00f6ses of Sebastian Franck (c.l499-c.l542). These latter two authors were\nonce counted amongst the possessors of a \"paradoxical and uncommon\nlearning\" by Andreae. 229 It seems humility demanded that M\u00f6gling place his\nown tracts, Rosa Florescens and Speculum Sophicum\nRhodo-Stauroticum,\ntowards the end of the list of recommendations. 230\nIn the course of his Colloquium M\u00f6gling also makes repeated and\napproving mention of the works of Michael Maier; in particular the\nSymbola Aureae Mensae, the Themis Aurea and the Silentium post Clamores,\nwhich he cites as evidence that knowledge of the lapis philosophorum\nhas been passed to the Brethren quasi de ore ad ora through many\n226\nEdighoffer, Die Rosenkreuzer, p. 14.\nArnold, Histoire des Rose-Croix, p. 113.\n228 Y a t e S ; The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 93.\n229\nGilly, Cimelia Rhodostaurotica, p. 8.\n230\nC. V. A. I. B. F., Colloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum (1621 edition), pp. 110-111: the list is\nconsiderably abridged in the Latin edition of 1624, pp. 140-141.\n227\n\nPages 185:\n176\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\ncenturies.231 It is these references which seem to have inspired the peculiar\nallusions to Maier made in the rejoinder to the Colloquium RhodoStauroticum, the Echo Colloquii Rhodo-Staurotici. The author of this work is\none Benedictus Hilari\u00f3n - and the 'joviality' implicit in his surname should\nimmediately arouse our suspicions concerning the authenticity of the author's\nclaim that the work was issued \"according to the mandate of the superiors\" of\nthe Rosicrucian Order, in imitation of certain passages in the Colloquium. As\nSchick writes, 'Brother' Benedictus Hilari\u00f3n \"banters with the author of the\nColloquium with impish ease, and takes the public for a ride.\" 232\nThe Echo Colloquii Rhodo-Staurotici was first published in a German\nedition in 1622.233 In the opening paragraphs 'Benedictas Hilari\u00f3n' addresses\nthe author of the Colloquium as \"well-known friend Anonymous,\" and states\nthat the identity of this \"well-beloved and highly trusted\" man is in fact\nknown to the Order, as is the fact that C. V. A. I. B. F. and A. W. B. D. S. F.\nare one and the same person. And whilst the members of the \"highly gifted\nOrder\" had knowledge of the Colloquium before it was sent to the press, and\nthus may have intervened to stop its publication, nevertheless they allowed\nthe author to proceed without hindrance for three reasons: 234\nFirstly, in order that you get some good experience, so that in future times of leisure you\nmight spend your time fruitfully rather than in vain. Secondly, in order that the disputation or\nrather dissertation of the fictive persons would not only incite some pious men and good\n231\nIbid., p. 138: \"Si enim ilia incredulis Ethnicis, qui de Deo, neque eius verbo atque\nvol\u00fantate certi aliquid sciverunt, tali modo largitus est, quod etiam, veluti Dominus\nMichael Mayerus, in suo Silentio post Clamores, eius rei meminit, integra Collegia huius\nprofessionis inter ipsos fuerint, in quibus naturae mysteria summo studio agitata, et\nmultis seculis quasi de ore ad ora, posteris suis, quos ex aliis Philosophis elegerunt, ista\nreliquerint.\" On page 93 the author cites Maier to confirm his views on the lapis\nphilosophorum:\n\"Intempestivi autem isti judices in Domini Michaelis Mayeri Symbolis\naureae Mensae legere deberent, quid videlicet, hoc in puncto, pro et contra possibilitatem\nLapidis, inter artis istius assertores, eiusdemque hostes, disputatur, tunc enim, meo\nquidem pro judicio, praeconceptam suam opinionem mox dimissuri essent.\"\n232\nSchick, Das \u00c0ttere Rosenkreuzertum, p. 189.\nBenedictus Hilari\u00f3n. Echo Colloquii Rhodo-staurotici,\nDas ist: Wider-Schall\u038a oder\nAntwort/ auff das newlicher zeit au\u00dfgegangene\nGespr\u00e4ch Dreyer Persohnen,\ndie\nFraternitet vom RosenCreutz betreffendt. N.p: n.p., 1622.\n233\n234\nIbid., pp. 3-4: \"Zu wissen sey dir hiemit/ vielgeliebter unnd hochvertrawter Freund\nAnonyme Wolbekandt/ da\u00df dein selbst gestelletes Colloquium Rhodostauroticum, so\nzwar das ansehen hat,/ als wann es von einem Christiano Ungenandt/ dir zugeschickt\nw\u00e4re/ nach seiner Datirung/ uns Collegianten/ de\u00df hochbegabten Ordens vom\nRosenCreutz/ zeitlichen ist zu H\u00e4nden kommen. Und wir nun wohl/ ehe dann du\ndasselbige sub praelo geben/ deines Vorhabens di\u00dffalls sehr gute Wissenschafft gehabt/\nund demnach solches verbleiben zulassen/ dich gar wol h\u00e4tten berichten k\u00f6nnen: So\nhaben wir jedoch/ folgender Ursachen halben/ dich darmit unverhindert gro\u00dfg\u00fcnstiglichen fortfahren lassen.\"\n\nPages 186:\nRegni Christi frater\n177\ncitizens (of whom quite a few are known to us from time to time) to research us and our\nintentions; but also that they might thereby have reason to behave in their daily life in such a\nway as to show themselves worthy of acceptance into our Society at the given time. Thirdly,\nin order to show all the more clearly the white next to the black... 2 3 5\nFollowing this riposte, 'Benedictas Hilari\u00f3n' goes on to state that the\nFraternity has recently admitted a number of good men into its ranks,\namongst whom are \"P: N. I: A. M: B. I: H. I: B. I: M. I: D: M. I: S. I: D:\nB. G: A. etc.\" - a jesting comment on the inordinate number of initials used\nin the Rosicrucian literature.236 In the course of the Echo Hilari\u00f3n gives some\ndroll advice to those who might die before the prophesised dawning of the\nGolden Age in 1624, and speaks of the great \"Reformation of grammar\"\ninstituted by certain supporters of the Order.237 He also speaks at length\nconcerning the 'Narrosophus' (fool-philosopher) who passes judgment on the\nexistence of the Philosophers' Stone before he has found it, although Hilari\u00f3n\nhimself seems to view the \"extraordinary mysteries of theosophy and\nchemia\" in a favourable light (his work is, after all, an 'echo' of the\nsentiments set forth in the Colloquium).238 Appending the tract is a poem\nconcerning the forthcoming \"eclipse of the entire world,\" 239 as well as a list\nof eleven prophetic and apocalyptic works: and in the copy of the Echo\nresiding at the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam a sarcastic\nseventeenth century reader has penned in a twelfth work - the 'Tintinabulum'\n(a bell on a door to summon attendants) of the \"highly learned and\ncelebrated\" Tilman Eulenspiegel (a semi-mythical medieval jester), dedicated\nto his dear sons, the Brothers of the Rosy Cross, and containing all their\n'Narrosophia' in one short compendium. 240\n235\nIbid., pp. 5-6: \"Erstlichen/ dich hierdurch etlicher massen zu \u00fcben/ damit du zu andern\nhoris subcesivis, unnd Erquickstunden/ nich vergebens/ sondern fruchtbarlichen die Zeit\nvertreiben m\u00f6chtest. Zum Andern/ damit die Disputatio oder vielmehr Dissertatio der\nfingirten Personen/ m\u00f6chte noch manchen frommen Menschen und Biderman (derer uns/\nhin unnd wieder/ sehr viel bekandt) nicht allein erwecken/ uns und unserer Gelegenheit\nferner nachzuforschen: Sondern auch dardurch m\u00f6chte verursacht seyn/ sich in seinem\nt\u00e4glichen Leben/ Thun und Wandel/ dergestalt zuverhalten/ da\u00df Er/ zu seiner zeit/ mag\nw\u00fcrdig sein in unsere Gesellschafft auff und angenommen zu werden. Zum Dritten/\ndamit/ also zu reden/ das Weisse/ neben dem Schwartzen/ desto besser/ und viel eher/\nmag erkandt werden.\"\n236\nIbid., pp. 9-10.\nIbid., pp. 19,31-32.\nIbid., p. 32.\nIbid., pp. 40-45.\nIbid., p. 39: \"Des hochgelerten und Weitberiimpten Vilosophi, Tilman Eiilenspiegels\nTintinabulum, seinen lieben s\u00f6nen, Roseae Crticis Fratribus, dedicieret, darinn alle ihre\nNarosophia in ein kiirtz compendium gebracht ist. Getr\u00fccket zu Quinsai, in der\ngrossesten Stadt der gantzen Welt.\"\n237\n238\n239\n240\n\nPages 187:\n178\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nFor all the Eulenspiegeleien contained in the Echo Colloquii RhodoStaurotici, a certain passage within that work was once taken by Waite\nas evidence for Maier's 'entrance' into the order \"ere he died.\" Whilst\naddressing the author of the Colloquium Hilari\u00f3n states:\nIt is quite accurate that our silence has hitherto made many people crazy, nevertheless only\nthose who cannot wait in patience for the time. However, you should not be counted amongst\nthose people, because you have always been more for than against us, together with some\nother good-hearted people known to us: as you have shown in many ways with your verbal\ndefence against those who, by their great ignorance, have proved to be fall of hatred towards\nus. Being an educated man, Master Michael Maier also did the same in writing, as he proved\nin a worthy and reasonable manner in his Silentium post Clamores, Themis Aurea, Verum\nIriventum, Symbola Aureae Mensae, etc. Which writings from him should not have been\nwritten in vain. 2 4 1\nUnfortunately for Waite's hypothesis, it must be noted that the 1624 Latin\ntranslation from which he quotes elaborates a little on the first German\nedition, stating in tandem with the original that Maier will not have written\nhis defences of the Order in vain, but adding that \"we will deservedly reward\nhim before his death, as much with great honours as with communications of\nsingular mystery.\" 242 That Latin translation was made by Maier's publisher,\n241\nIbid., pp. 7-9: \"Nicht ohn ist es zwar/ da\u00df unser Silentium oder Stillschweigen bi\u00dfhero/\nviel Leuth irre gemacht/ jedoch nur die jenigen/ so der zeit nicht mit Gedult erwartten\nk\u00f6nnen. Unter welche du f\u00fcr deine Person gleichwol nicht solst gezehlet seyn: dieweil\ndu sambt noch etlichen uns wolbekandten feinen guthertzigen/ jederzeit mehr pro als\ncontra nos gewesen. Wie du dann dasselbige mit m\u00fcndlicher Defendirung/ alleweg bey\ndenjenigen/ so uns/ au\u00df grober Unwissenheit/ geh\u00e4ssig/ sehr wol erwiesen. De\u00dfgleichen\ndann auch Herr Michael Mayer/ als ein Gelehrter Mann/ solches Schrifftlich verrichtet\nund gethan hat/ wie dasselbige vern\u00fcnfftig unnd wol au\u00dfweisen/ sein Silentium post\nClamores, Themis, Verum Inventum, Symbola Aureae Mensae etc. Welche Scripta dann\nauch von ihme dem Domino Authore nit umbsonst oder vergebens sollen geschrieben\nseyn.\"\n242\nBenedictas Hilari\u00f3n. Echo Colloquii Rhodo-Staurotici, hoc est: Resolutio sive Responsio\nad nupero tempore editum trium personarum Colloquium Fraternitatem Roseae Crucis\nconcernens. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1624, pp. 167-168: \"Equidem non abs re\nest, quod Silentium nostrum multos hactenus homines in errorem praecipitaverit, illos\ntarnen solummodo, qui tempus patienter expectare minime potuerunt. Inter quos tarnen\nte non numeratum volumus, quod, una cum quibusdam, nobis bene notis piis, benevolis,\nab initio, in hodiernum usque diem semper magis pro, quam contra nos extiteris:\nquemadmodum etiam illud ipsum orali defensione omni tempore apud ipsos, qui, crassa\nex ignorantia, nobis infecti sunt, mascule praestitisti. Quemadmodum etiam Dominus\nMichael Majerus, tamquam vir Clarissimus, illud ipsum scribendo egregie praestitit,\nveluti ejus rei luculentum praebent testimonium, ipsius Silentium post clamores, Themis\naurea, Verum inventum, Symbola aureae mensae, etc: quae scripta etiam a Domino\nAuthore ipso non frustra scripta esse debent, sed ilium, haud immerito, ante mortem\nipsius, tarn ingentibus honorariis, quam non minus singularium mysteriorum communicatione, beabimus.\"\n\nPages 188:\nRegni Christi frater\n179\nLucas Jennis, who included both the Colloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum and the\nEcho Colloquii Rhodo-Staurotici with his publication of the dead Maier's\nUlysses, together with a reprint of the Silentium post Clamores. In his\nforeword to the Ulysses Jennis states that he publishes the four tracts together\npartly out of love for the departed Maier, partly out of Christian duty, partly\nout of politics, and all for the service of humanity; and whilst the Echo may\nbe a \"work of vexation,\" nevertheless it is one which Maier would also have\ncommended. 243 These words seem to indicate that Maier was more closely\nbound up with the origins of the Colloquium and the Echo than Jennis\nreveals: a suspicion which becomes greater when considering Hilari\u00f3n's\nstrange description of Maier as a person who has defended in writing that\nwhich the author of the Colloquium has defended 'verbally'. 244 Furthermore,\nthe name 'Tyrosophus' from the Colloquium seems to be an allusion to\nHiram, the wise king of Tyre who participates in a three-way dialogue with\nSolomon and the Queen of Sheba in Maier's Septimana Philosophica; and\nthe Colloquium also makes mention of the 'feather of the phoenix' as the\nUniversal Medicine in the manner of Maier's Symbola Aureae Mensae.245\nNevertheless, these latter facts may only indicate the influence of Maier upon\nthe author; and it must be said that whilst the theosophical bent of the tract\ndoes not run counter to Maier's ideals, it is out of character with the\nalchemical emphasis in the rest of his printed Rosicrucian works, and\nmitigates against the possibility that Maier himself was the author of the\nColloquium (or, for that matter, the Echo itself).\nWhatever the case may be, it would appear that Jennis was paying his own\nrespects to the memory of Maier when he elaborated upon the German\noriginal of the Echo with his statement that Maier would be 'rewarded' by the\n243\nMaier, Michael. Tractatus Posthumus, sive Ulysses, hoc est, Sapientia seu intelligentia,\ntanquam coelestis scintilla beatitudinis, quod si in fortunae et corporis bonis naufragium\nfaciat, ad portum meditationis et patientiae remigio feliciter se expediat. Una cum\nannexis tractatibus de fraternitate Roseae Crucis. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis,\n1624, pp. 5-6: \"Itaque partim ex amore, erga proximum meum, Christiano, et simul\npolitico, omnibus pro virili inserviendi desiderio (praesertim cum cognoverim, quod\netiam externae nationes de fraterna ista societate jam primum majori Studio inquirere\nincipiant) intermittere nec potui, nec volui, quin res istas hisce simul conjungerem\nColloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum (in quo cunctis de rebus Fraternitatem conceraentibus\ntractatur) et ad illud pertinens Echo. Quae cum nulla alia, quam in vernacula (uti quidem\nrecordor) typis impressa viderim, ea propter ilia, in tui benevoli Lectoris gratiam, in\nRomanam linguam transferri curavi. Quo de meo instituto et jam pro lubitu tuo nunc ipse\njudicare poteris. Pro mea tamen persona commemorata ista opuscula non adeo\ninconcinna mihi videntur, praesertim autem Echo. An vero a Fraternitate forsitan suam\ntrahat originem, vel saltim figmentum, et scriptum vexatorium sit, quorum similia multa\nhactenus sunt edita illud ipsum cuiusvis nunc relinquo judicio.\"\n244\nSee above, n. 241.\n245\nMaier, Ulysses, p. 113; the form tyros may also refer to a 'new recruit'.\n\nPages 189:\n180\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nFraternity before his death. Perhaps the final word on Maier's relation to\nRosicrucianism should be given to Jennis, a man who was in a better position\nthan any of us to understand the true nature of the Rosicrucian Fraternity. In\nhis foreword to the Ulysses he appears to refer to his very own fabrication\nwhen he asks if the reader would be happy to hear that Maier had been\naccepted into the Order before his death. He goes on to write that he does\nnot know if this is true, although he knows very well that Maier has been\nassociated with the Order ad extremum. Furthermore, it is common\nknowledge that Maier was \"a brother of the kingdom of Christ\" (i.e. a Regni\nChristi frater, or 'Brother R. C.')\u00b7 246\n246\nIbid., pp. 7-8: \"Quoniam etiam, peramice Lector, mox ab initio Domini Doctoris Majeri\naliquoties mentionem fecimus, forsitan libenter scires, an videlicet ille ipse Doctor\nMajerus, tanquam dictae Fraternitatis Roseae Crucis Defensor, adhuc ante suum ex\nmortali hacce vita digressum, in ordinem istum receptus fuerit? Ad hoc me illud nescire,\nrespondeo. Hoc tamen minime ignoro, quomodo videlicet ad extremum cum ipso\nquodammodo comparatum fuerit. Etiamsi autem in Roseae Crucis Fratrum societatem\nforsitan non receptus sit, ipsum tamen Religionis Christianae, vel Regni Christi Fratrem\nfuisse, notum est.\"\n\nPages 190:\nV. The completion of the work\n1. The squaring of the natural circle\nHaving examined the consequences of Maier's fateful encounter with the\nRosicrucian manifestos at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1616, let us return to the\ncourse of events in the last five years of his life, and to a consideration of his\nongoing quest for alchemical wisdom. In Maier's time Frankfurt am Main\nwas an imperial city; there the edict of cuius regio, eius religio established by\nthe Peace of Augsburg did not hold, and political authority was vested in the\ncity council, which did not owe its allegiance to a particular prince or\nconfession. 1 Nevertheless, the city was a predominantly Lutheran centre, with\na large population of Calvinist exiles from the Netherlands, and its religious\ncomposition must have made it an attractive place for Maier to settle.2 Whilst\nliving there Maier not only came under the influence of Rosicrucian ideas,\nbut also came still closer to the Calvinist and occult orbit of Moritz the\nLearned and his court - a fact which is reflected in the overtly political\ncontent of some of the works we will shortly consider. Indeed, a major event\nin the life of Frankfurt in 1617 was the Reformation Jubilee, which had been\ninstigated by Friedrich V during a meeting of the Protestant Union as a means\nof drawing together Calvinists and Lutherans in the face of the impending\nconflict with Catholicism. 3 Although Maier spent much of his time attending\na wealthy nobleman by the name of von Riedesel in Stockhausen,4 some forty\nmiles from Frankfurt, it seems likely that he witnessed some of the sermons,\nfireworks and solemn processions of the Jubilee, and judging by his\nwritings during this period he certainly partook of the intense millennialist\nexpectations they expressed.\nMaier's marriage in Frankfurt is an event little remarked, either by Maier\nhimself or by his biographers. The only reference to the fact comes obliquely\n1\n2\n3\n4\nPo-Chia Hsia, R. Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe\n1550-1750.\nLondon: Routledge, 1989, p. 6; Schilling, Heinz. Religion, Political Culture and the\nEmergence of Early Modern Society. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992, pp 171-172.\nSchilling, ibid.\nPo-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation, p. 14.\nVon Riedesel belonged to a prominent noble family with links to Hessen-Kassel and the\ncourt of Moritz; of the four branches of the family, one resided at Hermansburg in the\nenvirons of Stockhausen.\n\nPages 191:\n182\nThe completion of the work\nin the course of a letter to Moritz the Learned dated the 17th of April, 1618, in\nwhich he tells the prince he must break off his stay at Stockhausen with von\nRiedesel and go directly home, as his wife is heavy with child and will give\nbirth at any moment. 5 In the same letter Maier also asks the leave of Moritz\nto name the child after His Highness or His consort Juliana, but at no point\nare we informed of his own wife's name. 6 Nor is there any indication from\nother sources that the birth went as Maier had hoped. Since there is so little\ninformation concerning Maier's own family life, we must satisfy ourselves\nwith the knowledge that Maier held fairly orthodox Lutheran views on the\nsubject of gender, as we may gather from certain comments he makes in the\nSymbola Aureae Mensae. There he states that a republic is liable to become a\ndepraved den of iniquity if it is governed \"by that sex which, on account of\nits inconstant mind and feeble temperament, is born to suffering.\" 7\nAlthough his contacts with Moritz prior to his English journey do not\nseem to have been fruitful, Maier paved the way for his eventual entrance\ninto the court of Moritz by dedicating a book to him in August of 1616\nentitled De Circulo Physico, Quadrato (On the Squaring of the Natural\nCircle).8 In this work we find a comprehensive elaboration of the themes\n5\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 19, 1, p. 285 recto: \"Serenissime,\nillustrissimeque Princeps, Domine Clementissime, post submissam servitii mei\noblationem non possum praeferire, quin ex debito et promisso Celsitudinem Va:m hisce\ninvisam, eamque certiorem hoc proprio tabellarlo, cum alius Ordinarius non occurreret,\nmisso, faciam, me in Stockhausen apud Nobi. Dom: Riedeselium hucusque detineri,\neiusque curationi adhuc vacare, quam, ut spero, propediem, Deo dante, nisi aliud quid\ninterveniat, absoluturus, meque Francofurtum, ubi Uxorem gravidam et partui vicinam\nreliqui, collaturus sum.\" Around this time Maier also sent a manuscript containing four\nmemoranda concerning chemical matters to Moritz; the third memorandum states that\nMaier has already divulged to Moritz that which he knows concerning the 'Philosophers\nR. C.', and that his opinion seems to have been confirmed by reason and experience:\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 19, 1, p. 280 verso: \"Quantum mihi\ncognitum sit de Philosophis R.C. iam ante in aurem Serenituri. V:ae dixi, in qua opinione\na ratione et experientia stabilitus et confirmatus videor.\" It should be noted that Moran,\nAlchemical World of the German Court, pp. 105-106, suggests that this document was\namongst the earlier testimonies to Maier's alchemical knowledge sent to Moritz in 1611\n- an impossibility given the timeline of Maier's involvement with Rosicrucianism.\n6\nIbid., p. 285 verso.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 578: \"Ibi enim mulleres fere viros et hi illas\nrepraesentant; et adulteria sunt adeo frequentia, maritatarumque foeminarum, in secretis\nlupanaribus se aliis, ex laenarum nutu, prostituentium tanta multitudo impunita, ut\nincredibile sit auditu: In quibus civitatibus liberi aut potius spurii habentur communes,\ntanquam in Republ. quadam Platonica, cum fere et uxores communes habeantur: Adhaec\nindecorum putabant, ut ille sexus, qui propter ingenii imbecillitatem animique\ninconstantiam ad patiendum sit natus, omnium actiones regeret et gubernaret.\"\nMaier, Michael. De Circulo Physico, Quadrato: Hoc est, AURO, Eiusque\nvirtute\nmedicinali, sub duro cortice instar nuclei latente; An et qualis inde petendo sit,\nTractatus haud inutilis. Oppenheim: Lucas Jennis, 1616.\n7\n8\n\nPages 192:\nThe squaring of the natural circle\n183\npresented to Moritz in Maier's earlier manuscript communications, and a\nclear statement of the fundamentals of Maier's mature alchemical ideas.\nDrawing on neo-Pythagorean speculation and the numerical mysticism of\nPlato's Timaeus, Maier explains to Moritz in his foreword that there are\ncertain hidden bonds which maintain the harmony of the universe, namely\nthose between God, the sun, the human heart and the hidden power of gold,\nwhich \"correspond to each other in their mutual change.\" 9 Between God and\nthe sun, we are told, there exists an interval of one octave; between the sun\nand gold, there are four intervals; and between the human heart and God\nthere are eight.10 Here Maier takes a leaf from the work of Ficino and the\nRenaissance Neoplatonists, who closely affiliated the Hermetic doctrine of\nmicrocosmic-macrocosmic correspondence with the Pythagorean conception\nthat the universe is an ordered system of interconnected parts bound together\n\"by universally valid numerical principles and harmonic (i.e. proportional,\nmusical) relationships.\" 11 This Hermetic musical philosophy can be traced\nthrough the sixteenth century in the work of Agrippa and Giorgi, and finds\nits most elaborate baroque expression in the fugues, emblems and discourses\nof Maier's Atalanta Fugiens; indeed, references to the De Vita Libri Tres\n(1489) in the sixth discourse of that work raise the possibility that Maier\nwas directly influenced by Ficino.12 Maier's theories of universal harmony\nare not as clearly expounded or sophisticated as those of his contemporary, Robert Fludd (1574-1637); nevertheless, Fludd's major work on the\nmatter, the Utriusque Cosmi Maioris scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica,\nPhysica, atque Technica Historia (1617), offers us a graphic illustration of a\nneo-Pythagorean cosmology very similar to Maier's, with the universe\nrepresented as a double octave reaching from earth to heaven and divided by\nthe sun (figure 23).\nIn Maier's work the sun, gold and the human heart are linked with divinity\nby virtue of a hidden consonance, which is akin to the striking of an octave.\nBut this relation is also illustrated by Maier with recourse to the cyclical\nprocesses in the alchemical vessel; as he writes in the De Circulo Physico,\nQuadrato, the divine virtue or spiritus descends to earth and ascends again to\nheaven through \"the rotation of the circle\":\n\"\nIbid., p. 6: \"Sunt tria, mirificis graduum concordia vinclis/ Harmoniam mundi, quae\nMonumenta docent:/ Nempe COR humanum, SOL coeli atque AUREA virtus,/ In se\ndum vicibus convenienter eunt.\"\n10\nIbid., p. 7: \"Unius Octavae velut intervalla videntur/ Solem interque Deum, si bene\nmente notes:/ Quadrupla sic inter solem numerantur, et aurum,/ Corde sed octuplo\nNumen abest spacio...\"\nMitchell, Kenneth Stephen. Musical Conceptions in the Hermetic Philosophy of Robert\nFludd: Their Nature and Significance in German Baroque Muscial Thought. Doctoral\nthesis, Washington University, 1994, p. 84.\n11\n12\nIbid., p. 91; Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 6.\n\nPages 193:\n184\nThe completion of the work\nGod gives power to the sun, the sun to the gold, this eventually to the human heart, and this\nthrough the rotation of the circle looks back to God, so everything that is created mortal\nstems from God and tends back towards God. This circle fills everything everywhere... As\nthe sun is the image of God, so the heart and gold are the image of the sun, and the gold\nreveals God with everlasting honour; thus also our heart, constant like gold in the fire, will\nlast forever, when the plague of earthly existence is sloughed off. And what is more, the\nmind goes on from the sensible world to that which is forever, and to what will be, though\nnot being seen. Those will last, these will pass away; those are hidden, these are signs, and\nthe goodness of God is evident in both. 1 3\nIn Neoplatonic fashion, Maier proclaims that gold is a sign in the material\nworld pointing towards invisible and eternal divinity; it is \"the mirror of the\nwhole world\" and \"the visible proof of the great heavens as an image.\" 14 And\njust as gold is incorruptible, so our own heart - as the seat of the soul - is\nunchanging like gold in the fire, and will continue on after the trials of earthly\nexistence have ended. For Maier the flow and ebb of Creation is a cosmic\nwork of alchemy, in which the human soul descends into the darkness of\nmateriality - the putrefactio or black phase of the work - and returns again to\nits heavenly origins. The 'goodness of God' is evident in things transitory as\nwell as eternal because the present world is a sign pointing to the realm to\ncome, an 'open book' teaching the nature of this life and the next.15 These\nideas are a central element of Maier's spiritual alchemy, and may be broadly\ncharacterised as gnostic, echoing as they do the ancient Gnostic descent into\nphysis of the divine scintilla. Thus in the course of his exposition Maier\ncryptically remarks that the heart is a \"little eye\" which possesses \"the light\nof heaven\" - an intimation that our own souls possess something of divine\nperception, by which we may behold the cosmic harmonies instituted by God\nat the Creation. 16 In the Hymnosophia Maier also referred to the \"little eye of\n13\nMaier, De Circulo Physico, Quadrato, p. 7: \"Utque Deus Soli, Sol auro, hoc denique\ncordi/ Vim dat, et hoc verso respicit orbe Deum:/ Omnia ab hoc et ad hunc mortalia\ncondita tendunt,/ Circulus hie, quicquid constat ubique, replet.../ Sol, ut imago Dei, sic\nest cor solis et aurum;/ Utque hoc perpetuo monstrat honore Deum:/ Sic quoque cor\nnostrum, constans velut ignibus aurum/ Semper erit, terrae cum sit abacta lues./ Quod\nsuperest, ex sensibilibus Mens pergat ad ilia J Quae sunt, et quamvis non videantur,\nerunt./ Illa manent, abeunt haec, ilia abscondita, sunt haec/ Nota, DEI Bonitas hinc ut et\ninde patet.\"\n14\nIbid., p. 6: \"Subdita nam fulvo sunt haec terrena metallo,/ Hoc speculum mundi totius\nabdit opes./ Hoc patuli succincta soli compendia praebet,/ Et specimen magni monstrat\nimago poli.\"\n15\nSee also ibid., p. 43: \"Quod totus hie mundus apertus liber sit, docens rationales homines\nin genere, quod et qualis sit DEUS, quod haec vita transitara, aliaque aeternae felicitatis\nexpectanda sit, in quo Aurum, qui paginam esse negat, Elleboro indigeat.\"\nIbid., p. 6: \"Sol equidem supera, ceu Rex, regit Arce Planetas,/ In terram radios\ninsinuatque suos:/ Hinc hominum calido vis vivida corde movetur,/ Hinc invicta AURO\n16\n\nPages 194:\nThe squaring of the natural circle\n185\nthe soul\" as the means of perceiving the phoenix, be it in Egypt or in\nGermany - for the mythical bird is not seen with the corporeal eye, but\nconstitutes a hieroglyph concealing an eternal law of death and resurrection,\nmanifested in both the macrocosm of Creation and the microcosm of the\nindividual. 17\nMaier placed theses notions of correspondence and sympathy in the\ncontext of the geo-heliocentric cosmology set forth by Christoph Rothmann\n(1550-1605), mathematicus to Moritz's father, Wilhelm IV of Hessen-Kassel\n(figure 24). Like his contemporary Tycho Brahe, Rothmann offered up\na compromise between the earth-centred Ptolemaic system and the new\nheliocentrism of Copernicus, although Rothmann's cosmology may be\ndistinguished from Brahe's by the fact that the orbit of Mars does not\nintersect with the solar orbit.18 In Maier's work this geo-heliocentric\nmacrocosm corresponds to the microcosm of the human body, or at least to\nMaier's Galenic conception of the human body, as we have found it\ndescribed in the Theses Summam Doctrinae de Temperamentis Corporis\nHumani. All light stems from the sun, which as the homologue of the human\nheart constructs 'subtle essences' from the 'purest air', the homologue of\nblood which surrounds the celestial bodies in Rothmann's system.19 These\nessences inhere in the light, heat and 'virtue' which are transmitted to the\nplanets and fixed stars - the homologues of the organs - thus imparting\nmotion to the universe. 20 The reflected radiance of the planets and fixed stars\n17\n18\n19\n20\nforma decusque venit./ Hie veluti centrum reliquis et Regula motus/ Cernitur, hic coeli\nlumen Ocellus habet.\"\nMaier, Hymnosophia, p. C4 verso: \"Ales ab ingenio natus viget ille Sophorum,/ Nec\nmagis Aegypti, quam nostris, visitur arvis,/ Si modo circum nos animi spectemus\nocellis.\"\nRothmann's 'correction' of the Ptolemaic system may be found in\nChristophen\nRothmanni Bernburgensis Astronomia: in qua hypotheses Ptolemaicae ex hypothesibus\nCopernici corriguntur\net supplentur\net inprimis intellectus et usus\ntabularum\nPrutenicarum\ndeclaratur\net demonstratur.\nLandesbibliothek und Murhardische\nBibliothek der Stadt Kassel, MS Astron. 4\u00b0 11; see Barker, Peter and Bernard R.\nGoldstein, \"Realism and Instrumentalism in Sixteenth Century Astronomy: A\nReappraisal,\" Perspectives on Science, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1998, p. 241.\nOn the subject of Rothmann's system and the air-blood correspondence, see Granada,\nMiguel A. \"Christoph Rothmann und die Aufl\u00f6sung der himmlischen Sph\u00e4ren. Die\nBriefe an den Landgrafen von Hessen-Kassel 1585.\" In Dick, Wolfgang R, and J\u00fcrgen\nHamel (eds.). Beitr\u00e4ge zur Astronomiegeschichte,\nVol. 2. Frankfurt: Deutsch, 1999, pp.\n34-57.\nMaier, Septimana Philosophica, p. 7: \"Virtutem, quam similiter circum se superius et\ninferius diffundit, ad stellas, in primis Planetas, ut per reflexionem quandam ab illis\ncommunicetur rebus nascentibus, cum singuli Planetae suas virtutes temperarint et\nconiunxerint cum solari: ad terram, ubi crescentibus necessaria est omnibus. Et si bene\nrem introspiciamus, penitiusque consideremus, Sol in coelo, ut cor in humano corpore\nprocedit in suis operationibus. Cor ex sanguine puriore fabricat spiritus tenues, aerios,\n\nPages 195:\n186\nThe completion of the work\ncontain specific virtues which influence the individual's temperament at the\nmoment of birth, as well as determining the most propitious moment for\nconducting certain alchemical operations or picking medicinal herbs. In the\ncourse of his preface to Moritz in the De Circulo Physico, Quadrato Maier\nfurther extends the scope of his doctrines of virtue and macrocosmicmicrocosmic correspondence by describing the monarch and his court as\nanother bond in the chain of harmonies linking heaven and earth - an idea\nthat his patron-to-be seems to have appreciated. As the sun directs the motion\nof the planets and warms the metal-bearing womb of the earth with its\nradiation, so the prince rules his subjects and nurtures his princedom, and so\nthe human heart commands the organs of the body, imparting the vital spirit\nor innate heat to the veins, \"from whence flows the flaming torch of life.\" 21\nThe first half of the De Physico Circulo, Quadrato is devoted to a\ntheoretical exposition of the occult qualities of gold. Maier explains that the\n'squaring of the circle' is a problem of natural science as much as it is of\ngeometry \u2014 by which he refers to the mystery of gold, which like the sun and\nthe soul is formed in the image of the perfect figure, the circle, but\nnevertheless contains within itself the quaternity of elements in equal\nproportion. A further paradox Maier refers to is that gold is a homogeneous\nunity, yet at the same time a trinity, containing within itself volatile mercury,\nfixed sulphur and the bond that unites the two - a structure that corresponds\nwith the Holy Trinity.22 Maier also alluded to these 'geometrical' matters in\nthe twenty-first emblem and discourse of the Atalanta Fugiens (figure 25),\nwhere we find the original source of his speculations - the Rosarium\nPhilosophorum, in which 'Aristotle' declares:\nMake a circle out of a man and a woman, derive from it a square, and from the square a\ntriangle: make a circle [again] and you will have the Philosophers' Stone. 23\nsed igneae naturae, calidos et siccos, motu contractionis et dilatationis, quos deinde\nmittit per arterias car\u00f3tidas in cerebrum, ut ibi frigiditate et humiditate cerebrim retiformi\ncomplexu temperentur et fiant spiritus animales sensibus omnibus et motibus causandis\nin corpore aptis: ita Sol sive ex puriore aere, sive alias, fabricat essentias subtilissimas,\nquibus insunt Lumen, Calor, et Virtus, antea dicta, easque transmittit ad stellas omnes\ncircumcirca in coelo sitas, hoc est, errantes et fixas.\"\n21\nMaier, De Circulo Physico, Quadrato, p. 6: \"Mobiiis hic orbis punctus, stipante corona/\nErrantum incedit Duxque caputque Facum./ Sic COR et humani dominatur corporis\nAula/ Proque suo nutu subdita membra trahit./ Illud spiritibus venas, vegetoque tepore,/\nUnde fluit vitae flammea taeda, beat./ Omnibus, in medio Princeps velut imperai Urbis,/\nArtubus hoc vires datque negatque suas.\"\n22\nIbid., pp. 41-42, 45-46.\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, epigram 21 : \"Fac de masculo et foemina circulum rotundum, et\nde eo extrahe quadrangulum, et quadrangulo triangulum; fac circulum rotundum et\nhabebis lapidem philosophorum.\" From \"Rosarium Philosophorum.\" In Artis Auriferae.\nVoi. 2. Basel: Petrus Pernam, 1572, p. 278.\n23\n\nPages 196:\nThe squaring of the natural circle\n187\nThis puzzling pronouncement ultimately pertains to the secret of Creation, in\nwhich the four elements emerge from the 'monad' or unity that is God. In the\nAtalanta Fugiens the square within the circle is again said to correspond to\nthe four elements, whilst the triangle within the square corresponds to \"soul,\nspirit and body.\" Although de Jong takes this to be a reference to the\nParacelsian tria prima, there is no mention in Maier's discourse of salt, the\nthird element Paracelsus added to the traditional sulphur-mercury dyad.24\nIndeed, elsewhere Maier clearly states that there are in reality only two\nprimary elements, sulphur and mercury. 25 Rather, this mention of 'soul,\nspirit and body' is another reference to Aristotle's theory of elemental\ntransmutation: thus according to the Atalanta Fugiens the 'body' is the\nblackness of Saturn or lead, corresponding to earth; the 'spirit' is the white\nphase of the work corresponding to water; and the 'soul' is the 'yellowness of\nthe air'. The final 'redness' of fire is the \"unity and eternal peace\" of the\nPhilosophers' Stone (represented in Maier's emblem by the union of man and\nwoman), which marks the perfection of the work through \"the return to the\nMonad.\" 26 In the De Circulo Physico, Quadrato Maier employs the symbols\nof the trinity and quaternity within the unity to represent gold rather than the\nPhilosophers' Stone, but in both cases he is using an occult geometry to\ndescribe a 'spiritual' body that is the image of divine perfection, uniting\nopposites within itself.\nFor all Maier's paeans to gold as \"the measure of measures\" and \"the\nphysical image of eternity,\" was he looking for gold or the Philosophers'\nStone as the end-product of his laboratory work, the lapis coagulatus of the\n'ultimate goldenness'? As we have discovered in our earlier consideration of\nthe Hymnosophia, in accordance with Maier's medieval sources the virtue or\n'seed' of the sun imparts 'vital sensations' to animals, plants and the metals\n'submersed in the caverns of the earth'; by nurturing this solar seed in the\n24\n25\n26\nDe Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, p. 169.\nMaier, Septimana Philosophica, p. 74: \"Saba: 'Sed alii tria huius subjecti statuunt\nprincipia, veluti et rerum omnium, Sal, Sulphur et Mercurium; Quid tu ad haec?'\nSolomon: 'Sunt sane, qui ex binario binarium deducunt, et unum pro alio accipiunt,\nbinarium materiae, et unitatem formae attribuentes, unde fit Trias compositi ex Monade,\nvel triangulus ex circulo, idque aptissime et vere, sed hos alii imitantes sinistre\ninterpretantur de principiis, quae proprie bina sunt, nempe materia et forma, seu\nMercurius et Sulphur.'\"\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 21: \"Similiter volunt Philosophi quadrangulum in\ntriangulum ducendum esse, hoc est, in corpus, spiritus et animam, quae tria in trinis\ncoloribus ante rubedinem praeviis apparent, ut pote corpus seu terra in Saturni nigredine,\nspiritus in lunari albedine, tanquam aqua, anima sive aer in solati citrinitate: Tum\nTriangulus perfectus erit, sed hic vicissim in circulum mutari debet, hoc est, in\nrubedinem invariabilem. Qua operatione foemina in masculum conversa et unum quid\ncum ipso facto est et senarius primus ex perfectis numerus absolutas per unum, duo, cum\nad monadem iterum redierit, in quo quies et pax aeterna.\"\n\nPages 197:\n188\nThe completion of the work\nalchemical vessel Maier constructs his 'golden' medicine, which imparts its\nvirtue to the human heart, thus fortifying the calor innatus and restoring the\nbalance of the humours. Maier's central concern in the De Circulo Physico,\nQuadrato is to demonstrate that the medical virtue of gold lies hidden under a\nhard husk in the manner of a kernel.27 Although the second half of the tract is\ndevoted to the practical question of obtaining this virtue, Maier speaks in\nvery general terms rather than offering the reader specific recipes. We only\nlearn that the virtue of gold, if made digestible as an aurum potabile, corrects\nintemperance in the human body, even if different organs are suffering from\ndifferent deficits. This is because gold is the temperate metal par excellence;\nits golden bonds unite the 'finest atoms' of the four elements in indivisible\nharmony, just as they hold the four qualities together and bind volatile\nmercury and fixed sulphur in equal proportion. 28 Maier likens these three\nbonds to a \"golden castle surrounded by three walls,\" which remains\nunconquerable in the face of all enemies - unless someone has received the\nkey from \"the master of the castle\" (i.e. the Creator) through long meditation\nand manual labour.29\nNeedless to say, the nature of this 'key' is not divulged to the reader; but\nwe already know that Maier commences his work not with gold but with\nlead, 'the mother of gold', lying in the alchemical vessel. This is reduced\nthrough the black phase of the work to its constituent components - volatile\nmercury and fixed sulphur - which are then reconstituted and united in a\nmore perfect proportion. Thus Maier writes to Moritz that \"a straw house\ncannot become the marble stone castle of a great prince through the mere\nrising up of a seed;\" rather, one must \"tear down the straw house to its\nfoundations and thereafter build the marble castle from the ground up.\" 30\n27\n28\n29\n30\nMaier, De Circulo Physico, Quadrato, p. 73: \"Quod aurum detectum a suo cortice,\nnucleum medicinalem offerat, sine quo tota compages ejus fere inefficax habeatur.\"\nIbid., pp. 40-42: \"Triplex omnino aurei nodi filum est, quo ille connectitur: Priraum,\nElementorum, terrae, aquae, aeris et ignis ilia proportione et mixtionis subtilitate mira\ncomplexio et perminimos \u00e1tomos mutua colligatio... Hinc natura lente festinat in suis\nmutationibus naturalibus, donee Aquila Bufonem attollat, et bufo aquilam d\u00e9prim\u00e2t, hoc\nest, alterum ab altero inseparabiliter teneatur, et sulfur ex argento vivo generetur,\nidentitate substantiae Mercurialis manente. Secundum filum complexionis aureae est in\nduplici j a m dicta substantia Mercuriali, fixa et volatili, r\u00fabea et alba, matura et\nimmatura... Tertium aurei nodi vinculum est aequatio quatuor qualitatum.\" In this\npassage Maier utilises the theory of a twofold mercury, developed by pseudo-Arnoldus\nde Villanova, which postulates the existence of a volatile mercury and a mercury which\nis fixed by virtue of an internal sulphur; Roberts, Mirror of Alchemy, p. 62.\nIbid., p. 42: \"Hoc triplici muro Castrum aureum circumdatum omnibus Elementorum\nhostibus insuperabile permanet, nisi quis veram clavem a Domino Castri acceperit\ndiutina animi speculatione, exercitio manuum et labore Chymico.\"\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 11, 1; cited in Moran, Alchemical\nWorld of the German Court, p. 104.\n\nPages 198:\nThe court of Moritz of Hessen-Kassel\n189\nMaier envisaged that the final lapis coagulatus 'of the ultimate goldenness'\nlying in his vessel would not be gold itself, but the miraculous medicinal\n'kernel' to be found underneath the impregnable husk of that metal. In this\n'tincture' or seed of gold the four contrary elements would be united - the\n'squaring of the circle', which would provide the means for producing gold\nthrough fermentation, and imparting a like equilibrium to the four humours of\nthe human body.\n2. Maier and the Calvinist court of Moritz of Hessen-Kassel\nWhilst Maier's dedication of his De Circulo Physico, Quadrato to Moritz did\nnot immediately result in his entrance into the princely court, in April of 1618\nhe sent exemplars of the eleven works he had hitherto published to Moritz,\nand was accepted as Medicus und Chymicus von Hau\u00df aus shortly\nthereafter. 31 This position was extra-mural, and allowed Maier to continue\nresiding at Frankfurt; 32 according to the letter of service issued by Moritz, he\nwas to be paid 150 rix-dollars (Reichstaler) per year and 75 rix-dollars extra\nto represent the court at each Frankfurt Book Fair, \"for as long as the\nappointment remains\":\nThrough the mercy of God, We Moritz, Prince of Caznelbogen, Diz, Zigenhain and Nidda,\ndo hereby make publicly known that we have adopted by our grace the most learned and\nfaithful Michael Maier as our Doctor and Chymist; and we do this by power of this letter, so\nthat he will be our Doctor and Chymist and will be trusty, obedient and willing to warn us of\ndanger when he resides at Frankfurt or other places; not only to faithfully communicate and\nconsult with us concerning medical and chymical matters, as the opportunity occurs, but also\nto give all kinds of good intelligence concerning other matters. 33\nIt seems that Maier's principal task concerning matters medical and alchemical was to test new medicines at Moritz' monetary expense - and as we might\nimagine, at the possible physical expense of his patients, unless Maier chose\n31\n32\n33\nFigala and Neumann, \"Author cui Nomen Hermes Malavici,\" p. 135.\nMoran, Alchemical World of the German Court, p. 108.\nHessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg, Bestand 4b, Nr. 266: \"Von Gottes gnaden Wihr Moriz\nLandgrave von Hesen, grave zu Caznelbogen, Diz, Zigenhain und Nidda, thun kund\nhiemit \u00f6ffentlich bekanndt, das wihr den hochgelarte unsern lieben getreuen Michaelem\nMajerum vor unseren Medicum und Chymicum von hau\u00df au\u00df in gnaden besteh, uff- und\nangenommen haben und thun da\u00df hirmit in craft dieses brives derogestalt und also da\u00df er\nunser Medicus und Chymicus, un\u00df getreu, wolt gehorsamb und gewilig sein, unseren\nschaden alzeit treulich warnen und hergegen bestes werken, mit un\u00df, wen er etwa zu\nfrankfurt oder derglichen orter einen sich uffhalten wirdet, nicht allein in medicina und\nchymia nach vorfallender gelegenheit getreulich communiciren, und consuliren, sondern\nauch in andere wege allerhandt gute nachrichtung geben...\"\n\nPages 199:\nThe completion of the work\n190\nto follow the example of other physicians at the court of Hessen-Kassel and\nself-medicate. 34 But the reference in his letter of appointment to further\nintelligence-gathering duties beyond matters of alchemy has fortified the\nRosicrucian thesis of Yates in the eyes of some recent writers, and thus a\nmore thorough examination of Maier's relation to the Calvinist court is called\nfor.\nFirstly, it should be noted that German courtiers in the early modern\nperiod were generally required to report the details of their movements and\nexperiences whilst residing in foreign lands or states. In Maier's time a\nuniversal postage system had recently been established within the Empire,\nand with war impending the exploitation of all possible intelligence\nopportunities was paramount. 35 This was particularly true for Moritz, who\nwas amongst the vanguard of the 'Second Reformation' in Germany - an\nattempt to fully implement Luther and Calvins' 'Reformation of Doctrine' in\na comprehensive 'Reformation of Life', which had as its goal the fusion of\necclesiastical and secular power under the prince's absolute authority.36\nAlthough his humanist education went hand-in-hand with an irenicist\napproach to intra-Protestant relations, Moritz was the possessor of an\n\"undiplomatic and radical Calvinist spirit\" which alarmed his Catholic\nadversaries; his desire for reform extended beyond the borders of his own\nlands, and he played a central role in efforts to install the Elector Palatine on\nthe imperial throne. 37\nWhilst his position compelled Moritz to remain well-informed concerning\ndevelopments in the Empire, the historical record does not support the\nconjecture of Yates that Maier was a key figure in his intelligence network. 38\nDuring Maier's years in Frankfurt am Main Moritz had at least three other\nagents operative in that city, including a certain 'Hessian agent' by the name\nof Hans Breul, a postal administrator by the name of Weigand Uffsteiner, and\n34\n35\n36\nIbid.: \"...uff un\u00dfer costen medicando und sonste, wozu wihr ihne dienlich und geschickt\nbefinden und wi\u00dfen, gebrauchen la\u00dfen...\"; on the duties of 'testers' at the court of\nMoritz, see Moran, Alchemical World of the German Court, p. 69.\nKleinpaul, Johannes. Das Nachrichtenwesen\nder deutschen F\u00fcrsten im 16. und 17.\nJahrhundert. Leipzig: AdolfKlein, 1930, pp. 138 ff.\nGiven the occurence of similar developments in Lutheran and Catholic lands at this\ntime, Schilling prefers the term 'Calvinist confessionalisation' to 'Second Reformation';\nSchilling, Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modern Society, pp.\n247 ff.\n37\nBorggrefe, Heiner, Vera Liipkes and Hans Ottomeyer (eds.). Moritz der Gelehrte: Ein\nRenaissancef\u00fcrst\nin Europa. Eurasburg: Edition Minerva, 1997, p. 11; on Moritz'\n'Points of Improvement', an irenic attempt to harmonise worship and belief between the\nLutherans and Calvinists of his lands, see Menk, Gerhard. \"Die 'Zweite Reformation' in\nHessen-Kassel.\" In Schilling, Die reformierte Konfessionalisierung\nin Deutschland, pp.\n154-183.\n38\nYates, The Rosicrucian\nEnlightenment,\npp. 81-82, 88.\n\nPages 200:\nThe court of Moritz of Hessen-Kassel\n191\na postmaster by the name of Johann von den Birghden.39 Another royal agent\nin Basel mentions Maier at one point in a letter to Moritz, but only to express\na certain displeasure with the acquaintance.40 And as we have seen, there is\nno justification for the belief that Maier had a hand in organising an AngloBohemian axis for the Calvinists whilst he was in England: at that time\nMoritz used a certain Francis Segar to conduct any important political\nbusiness in London, such as seeking subsidies from James I to counter\nincursions into the Empire from the Spanish Netherlands. 41\nWhat was the basis, then, for Moritz' employment of Maier? In his work\nThe Alchemical World of the German Court, Moran argues that Moritz'\npatronage of the occult arts was motivated primarily by \"a form of political\ndespair,\" which in the case of alchemy inspired particular interest in the\nmanipulation and transformation of metals as a possible technological\nsolution for his political problems. 42 Whilst it is certainly true that princely\npatronage in the early modern period was driven by \"practical concerns\nrelating to the demonstration or preservation of political power,\" it was the\nmedical application of alchemy that took the centre stage in Maier's work\nand in his appeals for patronage; thus the particular reasons behind Moritz'\nemployment of an iatrochemist such as Maier remain unclarified by Moran,\nbeyond the very general aim of investigating and gaining control over\nNature. 43 Given the close connection perceived between physical and moral\nstates in the medical worldview of the day, the iatrochemistry of Maier and\nother physicians at the princely court offered not only a means of curing\ndiseases but also establishing a pious life amongst subjects through the\nrestoration of the body's natural order - a proposition that would be\nparticularly attractive to a Calvinist prince who held the moral state of his\ndominion close to his heart. Needless to say, contemporary pharmacology\ncontinues to play a central role in the maintenance of social order, with the\nproviso that its application to the realms of physical and mental health is no\nlonger integrated in the same manner. In his practice and in the theoretical\nideas he directed towards Moritz, Maier placed particular emphasis on the\nestablishing of 'temperance' - conceived holistically as a psychosomatic state\n- in both individual and society through the operation of a divine virtue.\nThus the unified Hermetic worldview propagated by alchemists such as\nMaier not only offered Moritz \"an intellectual balsam for religious and\npolitical confusion,\" as Moran has it, but also promised a very practical\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\nKleinpaul, Das Nachrichtenwesen der deutschen F\u00fcrsten, p. 78.\nIbid., p. 80.\nIbid., pp. 79-80.\nMoran, Alchemical World of the German Court, pp. 171, 174-175.\nIbid., p. 176.\n\nPages 201:\n192\nThe completion of the work\nmeans of imbuing the princedom with \"the flaming torch of life.\" 44 Although\nthey are largely alien to the contemporary scientific worldview, Moritz held\nfirmly to such vitalistic notions.45 Furthermore, printing provided the state\nwith a powerful ideological tool, and Maier's writings on macrocosmicmicrocosmic correspondence communicated to the educated elite an episteme\nin which the natural and social orders are mirrors of the divine.46 Humanist\nintellectuals such as Maier formed an important well of support for\nthe authoritarian programme of the Calvinist monarchs, and although the\n'Second Reformation' in Germany had first arisen in the city-states of the\nLower Rhine through the congregational pressure of Dutch Calvinist exiles,\nin states such as Hessen-Kassel Calvinist confessionalisation was imposed by\nprincely autocracy through the collusion of the academic and civic\nechelons.47 In both its practical and ideological aspects, then, Maier's work\ncomplemented a process of 'social disciplining' that advanced in Calvinist\nGermany under the rubric of the 'Reformation of Life' - a process by which\npowerful centralised states were constructed through the promotion of a\nculture of piety and obedience amongst citizens.48\n3. Millennialism, nationalism and the descent into war\nHowever, even if Maier's duties as Medicus und Chymicus von Hau\u00df aus did\nnot earn him a central role in some 'Rosicrucian' intrigue, or even a place\namongst the inner circle of alchemists at the court of Moritz, the surviving\nmanuscript from his intelligence service is a fascinating document which\nreveals something of Maier's own sensibilities as Europe descended into war\naround him. On May the 23rd, 1618 - that is, around the time of Maier's\nentrance into the service of Moritz - Protestant rebels in Prague accused two\nimperial ministers of violating the Letter of Majesty, the guarantee of\nreligious freedom for Bohemian Hussites, Calvinists and Lutherans issued by\n44\n45\n46\nIbid., p. 24; Maier, De Circulo Physico, Quadrato, p. 6.\nMoran, Alchemical World of the German Court, p. 174.\nOn this point see the much-criticised work by Michel Foucault: The Order of Things:\nAn Archaeology of the Human Sciences. London: Tavistock Publications, 1970; for a\ndiscussion of the audience of Maier's works, see Figala and Neumann, \"Michael Maier,\"\np. 49.\n47\nSchilling, Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modern Society, p.\n290; Cameron, Euan. The European Reformation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, pp.\n369 ff.; Cohn, Henry J. \"The Territorial Princes in Germany's Second Reformation,\n1559-1622.\" In International Calvinism 1541-1715. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986, p.\n141.\n48\nPo-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation,\npp. 35-37, 122 ff.\n\nPages 202:\nMillennialism, nationalism and the descent into war\n193\nEmperor Rudolf in 1609. After an improvised trial, the two men were thrown\nfrom the windows of the Royal Chancellery in the Hradschin, an event\nknown as the Defenestration of Prague (figure 26).49 Although the men\nsurvived their eighty-foot fall with the help of a dunghill in the castle trench,\nthe event and its expected consequences inspired a full-scale Protestant\ninsurrection in Bohemia; and whilst the ailing and childless Emperor\nMatthia\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 184 to page 202 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 202 to page 218 out of a total of 334:\nPages 202:\nMillennialism, nationalism and the descent into war\n193\nEmperor Rudolf in 1609. After an improvised trial, the two men were thrown\nfrom the windows of the Royal Chancellery in the Hradschin, an event\nknown as the Defenestration of Prague (figure 26).49 Although the men\nsurvived their eighty-foot fall with the help of a dunghill in the castle trench,\nthe event and its expected consequences inspired a full-scale Protestant\ninsurrection in Bohemia; and whilst the ailing and childless Emperor\nMatthias made some efforts towards conciliation, his nephew and chosen\nsuccessor as Emperor and King of Bohemia, Archduke Ferdinand of Styria,\nwas known as a zealous defender of Roman Catholic and Habsburg interests\nin the Empire. 50 Fears concerning the imminent death of Matthias and the\naccession of Ferdinand to the imperial throne figure prominently in Maier's\nreport to Moritz, which is dated the 18th of January, 1619:\nOne report says that the Emperor is already dead... others say that he is very weak, and\ncannot keep any food down, and everything must be expelled from above rather than\nbeneath; it is for this reason that he is said to see dead people coming before him, such as the\nEmpress, Cl\u00f6sel and some others, and is very terrified about it. Cl\u00f6sel is dead, and after his\ndeath hung up; the reason for his imprisonment was that he let the Bohemians know that\nFerdinand is attempting to weaken the Letter of Majesty in order that it might be completely\nnullified when he becomes king... As reasonable people here can well imagine, the whole\npreparation and war armament that the Spanish have undertaken in the last year in Naples,\nSicily, Spain and Milan, is in order that they may offer their hand to the Emperor against the\nBohemians and the united [Protestant] princes; let Almighty God enlighten our leaders and\nprinces to defend themselves in good time against such mischief. People say that the\nVenetians have allowed the Spanish to pass freely through their land, though this is not to be\nbelieved... It is also announced that a request for access through Your Majesty's land for\n10000 men has been made [by the Spanish], as also through the lands of the Earl of\nWetterau, with the condition that if such access is not permitted, to make it by force. 5 1\n49\n50\n51\nSchiller, Friedrich. Der Drei\u00dfigj\u00e4hrige Krieg. M\u00fcnchen: Kindler, 1975, p. 70.\nIbid., pp. 67-68, 70 ff.\nHessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg, Bestand 4g, Paket 57- 1619, pp. 1-2: \"Man sagt alhie,\nIhr Kay: May: sey schon todt... Andere sagen, er sey sehr schwach, k\u00f6nne kein essen bey\nsich behalten, also das alles von oben, und nicht Unten, musse weg gehen, dazu ursach\ngegeben, das er die keisserinne, Cl\u00f6sel und ezliche andere vorstorbene personen fur sich\nkommente gesehen, dar\u00fcber er sehr erschrocken; Dan der Cl\u00f6sel sey gestorben, und nach\nseinem todt gehencket; die Ursache des Cl\u00f6sels gefengniss sey auch diesse, das er\ngeoffentbaret den behmen, wie der k. ferdinandus habe sich bearbeitet, zufor er zu den\nkr\u00f6n erhoben, durch der behmen Maiestet brief ein loch zu bringen, oder denselben\numbzustossen, damit er, wan er konig geworden, desto fuglicher ihn ghar konte\nvornichten... Was der Expedition gehgen Behmen und der spannier hulf anlanget, k\u00f6nen\nVornunftige alhie wol abmessen, das die ganze Zubereitung und kriegesrustung, so der\nspannier dis Vorgangene Jar zu Neapolis, zu sicilien, spannien und Meylandt bis anhero\ngehabt, dahin gereichen, das er Ihr Kay: May: die handt biete, gegen die behmen und die\nvoreinigten fursten, Godt der Almechtige wolle unsere haupter und fursten also\nerleuchten, damit solchem unheil in Zeiten gew\u00e4ret werde. Man sagt, die Venetianer\nhaben deme Spannier den pas durch ihr landt vorgunnet, welches doch nicht gleublig...\n\nPages 203:\n194\nThe completion of the work\nWe can be fairly certain that this was not the first Moritz had heard of a\nthreatened Spanish foray through his lands; indeed, Maier himself opens his\nletter with the self-depreciating admission that he hasn't any good reason to\nwrite, but that he knows he is duty-bound to do so.52 The remainder of\nMaier's letter deals with articles of hearsay and superstition that would have\nbeen of little or no use to Moritz, but which highlight the millennialist\nanxieties inspired by the deteriorating state of the Empire. The fact that Maier\nsuggests certain of these portents should be heeded shows that he, too, was\ndeeply imbued with the prevalent spirit of foreboding:\nThat the comet which has recently appeared brings with it changes in many things is\nbelievable. The ordinary man says that three stars were to be seen; one was a comet, another\nwas fiery red, the third (although unbelievable) often gave out a noise. However, these last\ntwo stars should be understood as the planets Venus and Jupiter, which are unknown to the\ncommon man and are seen in unusual parts of the Zodiac. That the star should give forth a\nnoise is not believable. Nevertheless people say that here around the city walls such voices\n(\"Woe! Woe!\") were heard at night. People also say that the comet fell into the moat in\nNancy, Lotringen, and in case it had reached the town, it would have flattened it. I don't\nknow, however, what to make of these things. Nevertheless I have heard from truthful people\nthat meteors were seen in the sky in Holland, and that people running together were seen,\nand shooting was heard together with the beating of drums. This one should truthfully report,\nand also make it publicly known. 5 3\nThe comet of 1618 (figure 27) was widely understood as an omen of impending doom for Europe. In his Septimana Philosophica Maier describes\ncomets as \"viscous ascending exhalations\" which are drawn up from the earth\nby the sun, and may ascend as high as the superlunary regions; we are told\nthat they do not emit their own light, but like the stars resemble \"clear\n52\n53\nEs werdt auch vormeldt, das durch E. F. G. landen fur 10. tausent man ein pas begeret\ngeworden, wie auch durch der Wetterawischen grafen landen, mit der Condition,\nwoferne solches nicht vorgunnet wurde, durch macht ihn zu suchen...\"\nIbid., p. 1.\nIbid., p. 2: \"Das der Comete, so newlig erschienen eine mutationem mit sich bringen\nwerde in vielen sachen, ist glaublig, Der gemeine man saget es sein 3. Sterne gesehen\nworden, davon der ein Ein comete, der ander sey rodtfeurig gewesen, der dritte habe\n(obwol ungleublig) oftmahl ein Stimme von sich gegeben, Jedog werden ohn zweifei die\n2. leste sterne Von den planeten Venere oder Hespero und love vorstanden, so dem\ngemeinen man unbekandt und an ungew\u00f6nlichen orteren Zodiaci gesehen seint, Das der\nSterne solte ein stimme h\u00f6ren lassen, ist wol ungleublig, Jedog sagt man, das alhie umb\nden mauern auch solche Stimme (Wehe, Wehe) des nachtes geh\u00f6ret worden, Man sagt\nauch der Comeht sey in lotringen zu Nancy in den schlossgraben gefallen, welcher so er\ndie Stadt erreichet, sie ertrucket hette, Ich weis aber nicht, was hie von zu halten, Jedog\nhab ichs von warhaften leuten geh\u00f6ret, Das auch Chasmata in der luft in hollandt\ngesehen, da auch die personen zusamen laufende gesehen und das schiessent geh\u00f6ret,\nsambt der trummel schlagent, Sol man warhaftig berichten; auch in patenten\numbtragen.\"\n\nPages 204:\nMillennialism, nationalism and the descent into war\n195\ncrystal\" which reflects the sun's rays.54 That these coagulated vapours\ncontain fine earthy matter is attested to by the fact that such particles also\nadhere to vapour in the alchemical vessel during distillation.55 Thus in\nMaier's alchemical worldview the cosmos is created in the likeness of a great\nalembic, and the possibility that the spiritus or solar virtue reflected from\nunusual heavenly bodies such as comets might cause momentous\ntransformations in worldly affairs is very plausible.\nMention is also made in his letter of an anonymous verse disseminated on\nthe walls of Rome which read, \"The house of the Austrian Emperor perishes:\nEngland will smile, Austria will groan, the Pope will grieve, after 60 years\nthe glory of the fifth will cease.\"56 Maier goes on to give a lengthy exposition\nof a 'believable' vision had by a watchman in a town near Frankfurt, in which\na ghostly prince was seen on horseback slaughtering his enemies, the words\n'Heinrich Friedrich' were heard, and the city of Frankfurt was seen in\nflames. 57 Maier also appended to his letter a certain prophecy that had come\ninto his possession, now apparently lost; he concludes with a solemn request\nthat Moritz take heed of his humble service and remain his merciful Master. 58\n54\nMaier, Septimana Philosophica, p. 60: \"Quid Cometae sunt? Non sunt stellae, quo ad\nformam, motum, aut durationem; quamuis, ut stellae, lumen Solis in se recipiant: Qui\nenim putant, esse Cometas \u00edgneos vapores in aere incensos, et ardentes eo usque donee\nabsumantur, falluntur: Sol est, qui Planetis, stellis fixis, et Cometis lumen communicat;\nUnde patet, quod materia Cometarum sit aeque receptiva Solaris luminis, hoc est,\nviscosa, et instar crystalli clara, quam stellarum... Saepe in sublunari visuntur aere, sed\nnec raro supra lunam prope Solis altitudinem, aliquando et Martis; qualis fuit, qui ante\n40. annos, aut circiter in Cassiopeia appara\u00eet, quem propterea miraculosam stellam\nquidam putarunt.\"\n55\nIbid., p. 35: \"Ex vaporibus ascendentibus viscosis fiunt Cometae. Cum vero alicubi\nrarefactas est aer, Sol attrahit vehementius vapores, et sic nonnunquam quid crassioris\nmateriae cum illis elevat (ut quoque fieri potest perignem vehementem arenae vel\ncinerum in distillatione aquaram, ut aliquid terrestrioris materiae una cum vaporibus\naqueis attrahatur) quae materia crassior in nubibus consistit;\" also Maier, De Circulo\nPhysico, Quadrato, p. 41: \"...si [substantia mercurialis] cruda alba et volatilis per se\nconsideretur, invenitur, quod in eo aqua ita adhaereat terrae, et terra aquae, quod terra\ncum aqua simul in aera seu alembicum ascendat, quod est alias contra communem\nnaturae institutum.\" Although his speculations concerning the origin of comets stray\nfrom the mark, it is an interesting coincidence that Maier's thoughts on their composition\n(i.e. water and earthy particles) conforms closely to our contemporary knowledge of\nthese objects.\n56\nHessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg, Bestand 4g, Paket 57- 1619, p. 3: \"InteritUs DoMUs\naUstrla Cae:/ Anglia ridebit, gemet Austria, Papa dolebit,/ Post ter viginti cessabit gloria\nQuinti.\"\n57\nIbid., pp. 3-4: the words 'Heinrich Friedrich' possibly depict Friedrich V as the avenger\nof Henry IV of France, the implacable foe of the Habsburgs whose assassination in 1610\nby a Roman Catholic fanatic, Ravaillac, dealt a blow to Protestant hopes in both France\nand the Deutsches Reich.\n58\nIbid., p. 4.\n\nPages 205:\n196\nThe completion of the work\nThe sentiments expressed by Maier in his report are in keeping with the\n\"intense Lutheran eschatology\" of the time, in which an apocalyptic conflict\nwith the Antichrist - i.e. the Roman Catholic Church - was thought to be\nthe precursor to the establishment of God's kingdom on earth.59 However,\nthere are other specifically esoteric millennialist elements to be found in\nMaier's work, particularly in relation to the 'Rosicrucian brotherhood' and\nits role in the re-establishment of the Golden Age. 60 In Rosicrucian circles\nthese elements emanated above all from the Paracelsian prophecy of the\ndestruction of a third part of the world and the appearance of 'Elias Artista' a great artist and scientist identified in certain texts as the chemical agent of\ntransmutation itself.61 Maier's fellow alchemist and Rosicrucian at the court\nof Moritz, Raphael Eglinus (1559-1622), believed this apocalyptic event\nwould mark the overthrow of a 'bestial estate', i.e. the rule of humans as\nunenlightened beings driven by animal desire and lust.62 Whilst there is\nnothing of the Elias myth to be found in Maier's work, given his own\nproclamations concerning the coming Hermetic Golden Age it is possible that\nhe envisaged the divine virtues of his own medicine playing a role in the\nconstruction of just such a pious new world.\nAs we have seen, Maier's attitude towards Paracelsus was somewhat\nambiguous; on the one hand, certain fundamentals of his alchemical theory\nwere opposed to the Paracelsian schema, whilst on the other hand he praised\nthe Swiss alchemist as the 'Luther' of chemical medicine. In Maier's time\n59\n60\n61\n62\nPo-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation, pp. 12-13.\nSee above, pp. 133-135.\nMoran, Alchemical World of the German Court, pp. 42-43. Elias appears to be an\namalgam of the biblical prophet Elijah and certain medieval alchemical figures; an\ninteresting account of the myth is given by 'Tharsander', or Georg Wilhelm Wegner in\nhis Adeptus Ineptus, Oder Entdeckung der falsch ber\u00fchmten Kunst ALCHIMIE\ngenannt.\nBerlin: Ambrosius Haude, 1744, pp. 38-39: \"Basil Valentine and Theophrastus\nParacelsus also dreamt much of this Elias Artista. Glauberus, who amongst all the\nalchemists easily wrote the most, also wrote a tract concerning this Elias, wherein he\nshowed how and what this Elias Artista should reform, namely the true spagyric\nmedicine of the ancient Egyptian philosophers, which was lost for more than 1000 years.\nHowever, he declares in the second part of Miraculi Mundi that this Elias is in fact the\nwhite Sal Artis Mirificum, and highest medicine: and if one changes about the letters of\nElias Artista, as Glauberus himself adduces, one receives: 'Et artis Salia'. I leave the\nalchemists to work out whether this Elias is in fact a real man, or the Philosophers' Stone\nitself; and only remark, that one of these alchemists gives us to believe that Elias is\nalready at hand. Helvetius, in his tractate Vitulus Aureus, believes that in the year 1666\nsome adept came to him in the Hague, who gave to him a small kernel of stone, half as\nbig as a turnip seed, with which he tinged one and a half pounds of lead into the most\nbeautiful gold, for which reason he took this Adept to be Elias Artista himself.\"\nMoran, ibid., p. 42; Eglinus predicted 1658 as the date of this second coming, rather\nroughly following Paracelsus, who stated that Elias would return in the fifty-eighth year\nfollowing the first fifteen centuries of the Christian era.\n\nPages 206:\nMillennialism, nationalism and the descent into war\n197\nsuch comparisons of Paracelsus and Luther were commonplace, and reflected\na striving to establish a pan-Germanic identity amongst a patchwork of states\nfragmented by politics and religion. Since the time of the Reformation antiCatholicism in the Deutsches Reich had been closely allied to a nascent\nGerman nationalism, and humanist Lutheran scholars such as Maier not only\nsympathised with efforts to wrest control of the empire from the clutches of\nPapism, but also attempted to establish their own claims to a German\n'Renaissance' distinct from its Italian predecessor. Thus Maier speaks of\nGermany as the 'new Egypt'; and in the Arcana Arcanissima we find the\nrather remarkable assertion that the name of the Teutons derives from the\nword 'Thoth', whose cult Maier believed was particularly strong amongst his\nancient forebears. 63 In this way Maier sought to affirm the legitimacy of\nGerman Hermeticism as a unique entity, rather than portraying his knowledge\nas the derivative of the Italian Renaissance that it truly was.\nThese contemporary tendencies towards cultural nationalism and ReichsPatriotismus are most clearly demonstrated in Maier's Verum Inventum (True\nInventions of the German Nation, 1619), a work printed simultaneously in\nGerman and Latin editions in which he praises the ingenuity of the German\npeoples in the fields of warfare, empire-building, theology, medicine and\nchemistry. The first three chapters of the Verum Inventum deal with the\nhistory of the German Empire and its prerogatives; Maier's burden is to\ndemonstrate that the first 'true invention' of the Germans was the founding\nof the Deutsches Reich by Karl the Great (Charlemagne) - not as a gift of\nthe Pope, but rather by the \"law of war.\" 64 When German authority was\nthreatened by the Italians and the French after the cessation of the\nCarolingian line, the empire was maintained for the \"Germans alone\" through\nthe ingenuity and strength of Otto the Saxon and his successors, an\nindependence which persisted thereafter through divine providence. 65 In the\nfollowing chapters Maier goes on to enumerate German inventions in the art\nof war; mention is made of the medieval German monk and alchemist\nBerthold the Black, who reputedly discovered the cannon in 1380 when a\nlaboratory experiment went horribly wrong. 66 According to Maier, whilst\n63\nMaier, Verum Inventum, pp. 214-215; Maier, Arcana Arcanissima, p. 142; comparable\nefforts to link Egyptian lore with the indigenous inhabitants of Schleswig-Holstein were\nmade by Johannes Goropius Becanus (1518-1572), whilst the Swedes Olaus Magnus and\nOlaus Rudbeck attempted to demonstrate the kinship of Egyptian hieroglyphs and\nNordic runes. See Iversen, The Myth of Egypt, pp. 88-89, 159.\n64\nIbid., pp. 10 ff.\nIbid., pp. 36 ff.\nIbid., pp. 90-91: \"Quibus omnibus consideratis Bertholdus Schwartz miscuit haec tria\nsimul, nempe carbones eos, ut corpus, sulphur, ut animam, sal petrae, ut spiritum, et\nposuit invase forti ad ignem fixatis, adhibitis ignis gradibus: Verum quamprimum calor\nignis incendium sulphuris causatus est, vas in mille partes dissiliit m\u00e1ximo cum bombo:\n65\n66\n\nPages 207:\n198\nThe completion of the work\nBerthold's invention has delivered so many more up to death than have been\nfreed by medicine, its efficacy is just one of the useful by-products of the\nsearch for the panacea, as it has liberated the Christian world from the\nincursion of barbarians such as the Huns and Tartars.67 A chapter is devoted\nto the German 'purification' of theological doctrine through Luther and\nCalvin, which although rejected by the ignorant is particularly salutary for the\nChristian world. 68 On the subject of medicine Maier argues that the\nconglomeration of the fields of chemistry and medicine instituted by Paracelsus has given rise to great advances. This is despite the fact that the Swiss\nalchemist's doctrines have been refuted by the 'learned' Erastus (1523-1583)\n- the Calvinist theologian who established the doctrine of the Church's total\nsubjection to the power of the state ('Erastianism'), but who railed against\nParacelsus as a restorer of Gnostic heresy and disciple of the Devil.69 A\nstaunch opponent of the Hermetic arts and zealous persecutor of witches,\nErastus had been close to the court of the Rhineland-Palatinate; Maier\ndiplomatically steps around the problem of his censure by implying that it is\ncertain unlearned followers of Paracelsus who are most deserving of the\ntheologian's reproach. 70 In Maier's eyes, Protestants and iatrochemists face\nthe common enemy of a 'papist medicine'; and just as Luther has \"purged the\npapist faeces\" from German theology, so Paracelsus has undertaken a similar\ntask in the realm of Medicine.71\nUt autem huius effectus causae probe agnoscerentur, est credibile ipsum monachum non\nacquievisse in eo, cum vas fractum esset, forte lapideum, sed vas metallicum fortissimum accepisse, ex ferro vel aere campanarum confecto, qualia sunt mortaria vel ollae\nmetallicae, inque hoc disposuisse hanc suam eandem materiam in maiori copia, et\norificium vasis arctissime conclusisse cum metallo eiusdem generis: sed vase ad ignem\nposito, quamprimum calor incenderit dictum pulverem, tanta violentia erupit obturamentum vasis, ut omnia, quae attigerit, penetrant, fregerit et \u00cdmpetu validissimo\nprostraverit: Hoc fuit initium fortuitae inventionis Pyrii pulveris.\"\n67\nIbid., pp. 84, 90: \"Ita dum monachus sapientiam quaerit Chymicam, hoc est Medicinam morborum omnium in homine et metallis, reperit Pyrium pulverem, quo tot et\nplures tradendi sunt morti, quam inde ea medicina liberandi.\"; \"Secundum VERUM a\nGermanis inventum est pulvis tormentarius et machina bellica, qua insignis mutatio facta\nest in mundo, tantum habens boni in vero suo usu, quantum mali in abusu; idque\nChristianum orbem a barbarorum, ut olim Hunnorum, Tartarorum, et aliorum, incursionibus liberavit.\"\n68\nIbid., pp. 143 ff.\nPagel, Paracelsus, pp. 311 ff.\nMaier, Verum Inventum, p. 214: \"Etsi vero a doctissimo Thoma Erasto Paracelsica\nMedicina examinata sit et refutata in multis, tamen suos adhuc inventi cultores tam inter\ndoctos, quam indoctos: Et quotidie nova exeunt opera, quae Chymicam cum medicina\nconiunctam optimum ei adminiculum esse declarant.\"\n69\n70\n71\nIbid. pp. 210-211, 214: \"Haec Medicina corporis non curat verba Sophistarum et\nThrasonum, sed mox ad Examen et probam eius professor vocatur; Papistica ilia\nmedicina animae per Sophistas logomachos et distinctionum subtilium authores, Iesuitas\n\nPages 208:\nMillennialism, nationalism and the descent into war\n199\nNot surprisingly, these sentiments earned the Verum Inventum a place\nalongside the Symbola Aureae Mensae on the papal Index of banned books. 72\nThe publication of the Verum Inventum at the outbreak of the Thirty Years\nWar and its distribution in the vernacular for the sake of a wider audience\nwere not facts coincidental to its author's purpose. Indeed, the evidence of\nMaier's own words does not support the view of some esotericists that Maier\nsought nothing more than a peaceful reformation of the arts and sciences;\nrather, they show he was inclined in his later life to authoritarianism, antiCatholicism and a militaristic nationalism. 73 In September of 1618 Maier\nhad already dedicated his Viatorium to Prince Christian of Anhalt-Bernburg\n(1568-1630), the military commander of the German Calvinists and their\nallies amongst the Lutheran states.74 The autocratic Erastian programme of\nMoritz and the German Calvinist princes accorded well with Maier's own\nelitist attitudes concerning alchemy and its relation to the unwashed masses;\nthus in his discourse on the subject of alchemical secrecy in the Silentium\npost Clamores, Maier recommends to the reader the work of 'Clapmarius'. 75\nArnold Klapmeier (1574-1604) was a follower of Machiavelli and a professor\nof history and politics patronised by Moritz of Hessen-Kassel; in the book\nmentioned by Maier, the De Arcanis Rerum Publicarum, he advocates the use\nof draconian measures for the establishment of religious unity, and reiterates\nTacitus' insistence on the necessity of withholding state secrets from the\ncommon people. 76\nverbo tenus defenditur et sustentatur, veluti mox ruitura domus per columnas... Cum\nMedicina animae esset a purificatore Saxone a foecibus humanis seu papisticis clarior et\nsyncerior reddita, ita ut quilibet non omnino intellectus oculis privatus, puritatem et\nsalubritatem doctrinae Evangelicae perciperet, En ex montanis Helvetiorum (quos\nSwiceros vocitant et Cymbrorum reliquias) locis alius prorupit Eremita, qui, quod\nfactum erat in Theologia, similiter in Medicina corporis testare ausus est, et hoc non\nminore foelicitatis eventu, quam animi magni conatu.\"\n72\n73\n74\n75\n76\nMoller, Cimbria Literata, p. 378; the honour was bestowed by special decree of the\nCongregation of the Index on the 12th of April, 1628.\nA view derived from statements in Maier's Themis Aurea concerning the necessity of the\nReformation; see above, pp. 148-149.\nFigala and Neumann, \"Michael Maier,\" p. 130, suggest that Prince Christian may have\nbeen a benefactor of Maier's during his time in Prague.\nMaier, Silentium post Clamores, pp. 57-58: \"Nemo autem, qui sanae mentis est,\nexistimabit, non solum in mundo arcana haberi, quae in vulgum proferenda non sint,\ncum omnes aetates, regiones, personae publicae et privatae, civitates et status sua\nhabeant secreta, in quae inquirendum aut involandum non sit: De secretis Rerum\npublicarum Clapmarius: De naturae arcanis innumeri scripserunt, non quasi omnia\nrevelaverint, sed quaedam pro Exemplis adduxerint, ex quibus de aliis, quae latent,\niudicium ferre liceat.\"\nOestreich, Gerhard. \"Clapmarius.\" In Neue\nDuncker & Humblot, 1957, p. 260.\nDeutsche\nBiographie.\nVol. 3. Berlin:\n\nPages 209:\n200\nThe completion of the work\nThe formation of a German national identity amongst Protestant scholars\nin the early modern period was particularly influenced by the Germania of\nTacitus, the ancient account of the German tribes and their invincibility in\nthe face of the might of Rome, which took on a specifically anti-Italian\nsignificance through German redactors such as Conrad Celtis.77 Thus Mai er\nliberally intersperses his Verum Inventum and other works with citations from\nthe Germania, and takes particular pride in the fact that Tacitus attested to the\ngreatness of the 'Cimbri', who vanquished entire Roman legions with their\nvast numbers and mighty army. Maier followed his patron Rantzau in signing\nhis name with the appendage 'Cimbri', in order to identify himself to his\nreaders as a member of the indigenous ethnic grouping of SchleswigHolstein. Following Tacitus, in his Atalanta Fugiens Maier proudly recalls\nthat when the Cimbri were denied their land by the Romans, they entered\nItaly and slew several thousand Roman soldiers together with their consuls.\nAs a people who had also fought through the centuries against the\nencroachment of the sea on their lands, the problem of Lebensraum was very\nreal for the Cimbri; thus the point of Maier's boast is to demonstrate the\nalchemical truth that whilst the earth as the last repository of things putrefied\nis most vile, it is also most precious as \"the mother of all things.\" 78 Clearly, it\nwas German earth in particular that Maier held precious, and the nation that\nhad given rise to those occult sciences which are like \"roses and lilies\" in the\nalchemical rose garden.\nIt also seems that Maier planned a more ambitious means of expressing his\nnationalism - a work in which he would tie these sentiments more closely to\nhis belief in an occult natural order. In his Grundlage zu einer Hessischen\nGelehrten und Schriftsteller Geschichte (1786), Strieder makes note of a\nprinted document not to be found in other bibliographies entitled the Aquila\nGermanica ('German Eagle'). Now apparently lost, this document consisted\nof just two pages, and constituted the announcement of a larger work that was\nto be forthcoming. Indeed, it was amongst the material Maier offered up to\nthe judgment of Johann Hartmann Beyer in his letter of the 20th of October,\n1617. There we are told that Maier planned the work whilst in England in\norder to honour his homeland - an understandable impulse given his bad\nexperiences amongst the English.79 The text is given by Strieder, and runs as\nfollows:\n77\nSee Muhlack, Ulrich. \"Die Germania im deutschen Nationalbewu\u00dftsein vor dem 19.\nJahrhundert.\" In Beitr\u00e4ge zum Verst\u00e4ndnis der Germania des Tacitus. G\u00f6ttingen:\nVandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989, pp. 136 ff.; also Schama, Simon. Landscape and\nMemory. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996, pp. 92 ff.\n78\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 36.\nFrankfurt am Main, Stadt- und Universit\u00e4tsbibliothek, MS Ff. J. H. Beyer A. 161, p. 207\nverso: \"Quod si vero ita vivendum mihi foret, uti absque medica praxi (quam in\n79\n\nPages 210:\nMillennialism, nationalism and the descent into war\n201\nThe German Eagle; that is, the collective body of the great modern Germans, consisting of\nhead and limbs, or leader and subordinates, with ten organs or classes as well as similar\ninstitutions; partly ecclesiastical, with Elector Archbishops, Bishops, Masters of the Orders,\nPrefects and Abbots, and likewise partly secular, with Elector Archdukes, Princes, Counts,\nBarons, Nobles, free cities and subjects of other dominions, as well as extraordinary\nmembers. Together with the particularities of topography and genealogy, and the history of\noutstanding places, persons, events and memorable deeds; demonstrated, enumerated and\ncollated from widely dispersed sources into one composition, and arranged in twelve\nchapters, in order that the duty owed to the nation may be discharged. 80\nThe theme of the correspondence of society to body, and of both to the\nuniversal order, was touched upon by Maier in the De Circulo Physico,\nQuadrato, and was developed at length in the Civitas Corporis Humani we\nwill shortly analyse. Strieder correctly deduces that the plan for the Aquila\nGermanica was printed in 1617, on the grounds that the second page displays\nthe copperplate engraving of Maier with the words \"Aetatis suae. 49. Ao.\n1617\" (see figure 1).\nLike Maier's Aquila Germanica, the Calvinist project in the empire was to\nremain incomplete, and the dominion of Catholicism and the House of\nHabsburg prevailed. In August of 1619 Ferdinand of Styria was crowned\nEmperor in Frankfurt; shortly thereafter the General Diet in Prague deprived\nhim of the crown of Bohemia, and elected Friedrich V in his stead.81 So\nbegan the short reign of the 'Winter King'; for some Lutheran German states\nwavered in their support for Friedrich's venture, and even James I refused to\ncommit himself to his son-in-law's perilous bid for the imperial throne. At\nthe Battle of the White Mountain near Prague on November the 8th, 1620, it\ntook a Catholic League army sent by Ferdinand less than an hour to defeat\ncommodiori loco potius eligerem) semper aliquid meditandum ac scribendum esset, opus\nquoddam hie animo concep\u00ec (dum absum a meis) in totius Germaniae, tanquam\ncommunis Patriae, honorem et multorum commoditatem concinnandum, quod quale sit\net ex quibus partibus constare debeat, in pagellis adiunctis, AQUILAM Germanicam\nreferentibus, patebit, de quo ut iudicium, Excellentiae Tuae candidum et maturum, hoc\nest, consilium auxiliumque, eo promptius experiri possim, ut et alias, occasionem hanc\ncapitandi in dedicando illi Aureum hunc TRIPODEM, hoc est, tres Authores Chymicos,\nqui nunc sub proelo fervent.\"\n80\n81\nStrieder, Grundlage, pp. 92-93 : \"Michaelis Maieri Aquila germanica, hoc est, universum\ncorpus Germaniae Magnae, modernae, constans capite seu imperio, et membris,\nordinariis, cum organicis sive X circulis, tum similaribus, partim ecclesiasticis, ut\nElect. Archiepiscopis, Episcopis, Ordinum Magistris, Praepositis, Abbatibus, partim\nSecularibus ut Elect. Archiduc. Ducibus, Principibus, Comitibus, Baronibus, Nobilibus,\nCivitatibus liberis et aliorum dominio subjectis, nec non Extraordinariis; quo Topographiae, genealogiae, chronologiae seu Historiae praecipuorum locorum, personarum, rerum\net factorum memorabilium continentur, demonstrantur et recensentur, ut debitum Patriae\ntalentum solvatur, ex varie dispersis materiis in unam formam sibi debitam collectum et\nin XII. Sectiones dispositum et concinnatum.\"\nSchiller, Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modem Society, p. 78.\n\nPages 211:\n202\nThe completion of the work\nthe Bohemian and German Protestant forces led by Prince Christian of\nAnhalt-Bernburg. 82 At the time Friedrich was residing nearby in his Star\nPalace (figure 28), an ornate hexagram structure fashioned on Hermetic\nprinciples; such was the haste of his retreat that his crown was left behind,\nand he is reported to have uttered the unhappy words, \"I now know who I\nam.\" 83 Ferdinand's wrath in Bohemia was severe, and he personally rent the\nLetter of Majesty asunder and burnt its seal.84 Thus began the thirty-year\ncycle of war, famine and pestilence that - in a strange confirmation of the\nParacelsian prophecy - would cost the German states one third of their\npopulation.\n4. The Civitas Corporis Humani - procuring a medicine of piety\nLife went on for the 51 year-old Maier, albeit under conditions of increasing\nhardship. As Figala and Neumann note, there is no mention on the title page\nof Maier's Civitas Corporis Humani ('State of the Human Body,' 1621) of\nhis status as 'Medicus und Chymicus von Hau\u00df aus' at the court of Moritz\nthe Learned, a fact which not only strongly suggests that he no longer held\nthis position, but also raises the possibility that his services had been\ndispensed with for lack of result.85 Nevertheless, Moritz remained a staunch\nsupporter of Friedrich V after the Battle of the White Mountain; even the\ndissolution of the Protestant Union in 1621 did not deter him, and in that year\na great part of his revenue was devoted to the cause of Count Ernst von\nMansfeld and Duke Christian of Braunschweig, who raised two marauding\narmies of forty thousand ex-Union troops which skirmished and plundered\ntheir way through the heart of Germany. 86 With Spanish and Bavarian troops\noccupying the lands of the Palatinate and pressing hard on the borders of his\nown land, Moritz may have found little time or money for further patronage\nof Maier.\nWhatever the reasons for his apparent departure from the princely court, it\nseems that Maier continued to make a living with his private medical\npractice; the Civitas Corporis Humani is a rather more sophisticated version\n82\n83\n84\n85\n86\nIbid., p. 85.\nIbid.\nIbid., p. 86.\nFigala and Neumann, \"Michael Maier,\" p. 46.\nSchiller, Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modem Society, pp. 97\nff.; Moran, Alchemical World of the German Court, pp. 33-35: the reign of Moritz came\nto an end in 1627, when he abdicated in the face of military defeat, and in face of his\nown wife's bargaining with Catholic forces for a portion of his remaining land.\n\nPages 212:\nThe Civitas Corporis\nHumani\n203\nof a pharmacy window advertisement, in which Maier presents the sum total\nof his medical knowledge alongside extravagant promises aimed at those\nwealthy readers who might employ him. Rather than dedicating this work to a\npotential princely patron, Maier makes a general dedication to doctors,\ndoctoral candidates, and whosoever may be concerned with the diseases of\narthritis and gout - and amongst the latter, as Maier makes clear in his work,\nare those on whom his livelihood depends, i.e. the sufferers of these diseases.\nIn the course of his Civitas Corporis Humani Maier elaborates further on\nthe correspondences between the princely state, the human body and the\ndivine order mentioned in the De Circulo Physico, Quadrato, and he\nmakes explicit the relationship between his own medicine and an ethic of\npiety. As in the macrocosm the 'citizens' of the universe are the stars,\nelements, angels and creatures, so in the microcosm of the human body\neach citizen is represented by the organs and limbs.87 Together, these form\nthe civitas corporis humani. Three states exist in the body politic monarchy, aristocratic oligarchy and democracy - and although there may be\nvariations of these principle forms, monarchy is clearly the most perfect\namongst them. 88 Likewise, in the human body these three states also exist.\nAgain, the most harmonious or temperate state is the monarchy - the rule of\nthe heart, which Maier compares to the prince in the royal court of the thorax.\nThe other members of the corporeal 'aristocracy' - the brain, lungs, liver and\nother principle organs - pay homage to the heart, as it is the heart that is the\nsource of the body's calor innatus, which imparts to the corporeal state life\n87\nMaier states that Galen observed the elegant order and functions of these 'citizens', even\nif he opposed the teachings of Moses and Christ; indeed, by his dissection of the human\nbody Galen had made a greater sacrifice than if he had offered up a hundred oxen at the\npagan altar, for in so doing he came to know God by His works: \"De Mundo minore, seu\nCivitate humani corporis nostra intentio est dicere, cuius cives, seu viscera et membra,\ncum Ethnicus ille Galenus (Mosi, Christoque nostro, contrarius alias) per anatomiam\nrimaretur, eorumque concinnos ordines, officia, et functiones miraretur, in libro De usu\npartium, se maius DEO sacrificium hac descriptione praestitisse affirmat, quam si\nHecatomben, seu centum bovum oblationem, ad aram instituisset: Certe huiuc\nPhilosopho et Medico possibile fuit, DEUM ex operibus suis cognoscere, non qualis in\nessentia, et quantus secundum immensitatem suam DEUS sit, nec qualiter se in verbo\ncreationis, redemptionis, et sanctificationis patefecit, sed tarnen vere et mire secundum\nquid.\" Maier, Civitas Corporis Humani, pp. 23-24.\n88\nIbid., pp. 33-34: \"In tres omnino species Magistratus politicus olim, ut adhuc, divisus,\nusu ipso rerum magistro, invenitur, nempe in eum, quo unus omnibus praeficitur, sive\nRex, sive Princeps, aut in quem Optimates plures consentiunt, aut quando populus ipse\nimperii habenas penes se habet: Prima species est regnum, vel principatus: Secunda\ndicitur Aristocratia: Tertia, Democratia. Hae, et non plures, a politicis omnis aevi\nadmissi sunt, licet mixti dominatus ex his, vel etiam degeneres non raro legantur:\nNullum est dubium, quin monarchia sit perfectissima Reipublicae forma, in qua potestas\nsumma sit penes unum, sive Regem, sive Principem.\"\n\nPages 213:\n204\nThe completion of the work\nand heat (the equivalent of princely justice in the political state). The consent\nof the principle organs to the rule of the heart ensures that the common\ncitizens - the limbs and extremities - remain \"steadfast in their duty\" and\nmaintain their proper function. 89 However, if the heart becomes too powerful,\nand the other members of the 'aristocracy' such as the reasoning brain are\noverthrown, tyranny may result. Maier compares this state of affairs to a\nroyal palace, in which love of power and immoderation has grown so strong\nthat rubbish and filth pile up at the palace doors, and the common folk whose\nwork it is to clean up after the monarch become overloaded with their\nburdens. 90 In the corporeal state such tyranny is brought about by an overfondness for 'Bacchus and Venus', i.e. by immoderation in drinking, eating\nand sexual activity.91\nSuch is the source of the 'tyranny' of gout and arthritis,92 which involves a\nbreakdown of the natural order and may lead to \"the utter destruction of the\nrepublic.\" 93 Immoderation produces an excessive downflow of humours from\nthe brain, lungs, liver and stomach, which suffer from a paucity of the\n'justice'-imparting calor \u00ecnnatus. If the body is not destroyed by a revolutionary 'democracy', it may become a tyrannical oligarchy, in which the\nimpurities produced by an impious lifestyle build up in the pericranium and\n89\nIbid., pp. 34-35: \"Ad Aristocratiam itaque mixtam cum principatu referimus,\nquemadmodum in Rep\u00fablica Veneta observamus, in qua Magnates dominantur, sed sub\nPrincipe limitatae potestatis: Cor, pulmo, thorax, nec non caput, seu cerebrum, cum\nvisceribus aliis principalibus ad salutem corporis humani spectant; verum cordi, ut\nprincipi, plurima indulgentur vota, dignitas, et excubiae regales, ut sub eo reliqua omnia\nvegetabilia firma permaneant, in suis quaeque officiis. Cor fabricatur spiritus vitales in\nsuis thalamis, per systolen et diastolen, hoc est, dilatationem et compressionem pulsuum\nin arteriis totius corporis sensibilium, eosque defert ad omnes partes, tam remotas, quam\npropinquas, ut sic illae vita et calore imbuantur, et perfundantur.\"\n90\nIbid., pp. 37-38: \"Restant membra, vel viscera evehentia superfluitates et saburras\ncorporis per sua emunctoria, quae, cum plebeia munia obeant, et non semper aequaliter a\ncalore cordis et spiritibus vitalibus illustrentur, hinc fit, ut facile onerentur laboribus, et\ntardentur in functionibus; unde contingit, ut indies materia in nobilioribus visceribus\ngenerata ad haec mittatur: Quemadmodum enim in aula potentissimi Principis, ex\nsingulis conclavibus sordes eiiciuntur foras, et quilibet a suis ostiis onera illa submovent,\ndonec tandem ad loca ab aliis neglecta vel humilia devoluantur; sic quoque fit in humani\ncorporis civitate nonnunquam, dum partes fortiores ad imbecilliores, cordi propinquiores, ad remotiores sua excrementa amandant: Quod si imbecilliores possent respondere\nsuis viribus ad se translata, alio quoque mitterent.\"\n91\nIbid., p. 37.\nGout is a metabolic disease marked by a painful inflammation of the joints, deposits of\nurates in and around the joints, and commonly an excessive amount of uric acid in the\nblood; the term arthritis refers to a number of conditions involving inflammation of the\njoints due to infectious, metabolic or constitutional causes.\n92\n93\nMaier, Civitas Corporis Humani, p. 38.\n\nPages 214:\nThe Civitas Corporis\nHumani\n205\nthree coctions (the three sites of 'cooking' nutrients in the Galenic system,\ni.e. the stomach, liver and veins 94 ) and overwhelm the extremities:\nIn the body politic the state of the aristocracy we have described degenerates into an\noligarchy if the noblest suppress the inferiors and demand all work and little profit... In like\nmanner it happens in the State of the human body that a paucity of innate heat and spiritus\nVitalis are supplied to the hands and feet, since those extremities are very remote from the\nheart, but nevertheless the superfluities which should be expelled elsewhere are transported\nto them. This occurs because the hands and feet are positioned in the lower places of the\nbody, to which place the humours flow by their nature, nor do the extremities possess any\nother ways or indeed parts to which they may send the superfluities further. Hence the\ntyranny of the oligarchy prevails in the human body, which rages and frenzies most bitterly\nin the nerves and tendons of the hands or feet, which it lacerates, dislocates and swells like a\ntorturer, and makes those organs useless and maimed. 9 5\nThe deleterious results of decadence in the civitas corporis humani demonstrate the close relation of immorality to sickness in Maier's medicine, and\nthe necessity of piety and sensual moderation for the maintenance of good\nhealth. If this early modern aetiology of arthritis seems strange to the\ncontemporary reader, then the purgative remedies which Maier proposes\nmight also strike us as being somewhat dangerous. Nevertheless, the Civitas\nCorporis Humani contains the most detailed description of Maier's 'mercurial medicine' and its mode of operation to be found in his works.\nTwo principle remedies are described, the first being a golden powder,\nand the second a 'fixed yellow Quicksilver' composed of Mercury and\nSulphur in equal parts, and apparently very similar in nature to the mercurial\nmedicine Maier produced in Easter of 1604 during his first period of\n94\nAccording to Galenic physiology, the first coction in the stomach turns food into chyle,\nwhich is transported through the veins of the intestine to the liver. In the liver the second\ncoction transforms the chyle into blood, which issues forth to the various parts of the\nbody. In these parts the third coction takes place, by which the material absorbed from\nthe veins by the flesh is made flesh itself. In the Galenic system the coctions are assisted\nby the calor innatus, being thus analogous to domestic cooking. See Hall, A. Rupert. The\nScientific Revolution,\n1500-1800:\nThe Formation of the Modern Scientific\nAttitude.\nBoston: Beacon Press, 1966, p. 133.\n95\nMaier, Civitas Corporis Humani, pp. 38-39: \"In Politia est status Aristocraticus ante\nrelatus, qui in Oligarchicum d\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e2t, si Optimates supprimant inferiores, illisque\nomnia onera et perpauca commoda demandent... Similiter contingit in Civitate humani\ncorporis, quod paucitas caloris nativi et spirituum vitalium manibus et pedibus suppeditetur, cum sint a corde eae extremae partes valde remotae, et nihilominus superfluitates\npleraeque totius, quae evehi aliunde deberent, iis transmittantur; quod eo facilius\ncontingit, quia in inferiori corporis situ collocatae sint, quorsum humores sua natura\ndefluunt, nec habeant alias partes, aut vias, ad quas ipsae ulterius amandent: Hinc\nTyrannis oligarchica in homine tum exoritur, quae saevit et furit acerbissime in nerv\u00f6s et\ntendones manuum aut pedum, eosque instar carniflcum lacerat, extendit, lux\u00e2t, et ad\nomnem usum motionis organa illa inutilia et manca reddit.\"\n\nPages 215:\n206\nThe completion of the work\nalchemical experimentation. This 'Quicksilver' is also imbued with solar or\nastral virtues, and the stages of the process used to obtain it again follow the\ntraditional medieval sequence:\nI have received the brightest mineral produced by Nature, which resembles ice, the most pure\nsubstance devoid of any heterogeneity, and if we may establish its physical anatomy, it will\nbe discerned that it is composed of Mercury and Sulphur. That Mercury contains some grains\nof silver, and if it is bound together with the correct quantity of silver itself, will then secrete\nsome grains of gold. This mineral is therefore the grandmother of gold, as it were, and the\nmother of natural silver, or rather it is sticky water impregnated with sulphur, which takes\ninto itself the embryos of gold and silver. It is liquefied in a strong fire, and it is the ray of a\nhigher sphere: it is pounded into the blackest powder, and it becomes somewhat white as it is\nheated by a slow fire in an earthen vessel, and it is made in nine months - not less - and at\nlength by the tenth month it matures into a fixed yellow Quicksilver. 96\nThis passage gives clear expression to the medieval alchemical conception of\na cure for 'sick' metals and humans alike, and the notion of embryonic forms\nof silver and gold created through the 'impregnation' of Mercury with\nSulphur, understood by Maier as the infusion of 'female' matter with 'male'\nform. 97 Hence the preparation period of nine months, after which \"you will\npossess the yellow Mercurial substance, twofold by nature, both fixed and\nvolatile, masculine and feminine, which is our said Medicine.\" 98 Maier also\ndescribes his golden powder as a 'mercurial medicine', and like the 'fixed\nyellow Quicksilver' it is also a strong purgative. As it is very potent, only\nthree to six grains are to be well mixed with aniseed water, cinnamon water\nor aqua vitae (wine spirit), and are to be drunk before the grains subside to\nthe bottom of the cup. This aurum potabile should be administered \"when\nparoxysm is impending,\" but not when the patient is already vomiting. The\ndraught should be washed down with one or two spoons of the same liquid\nmedium, \"so that nothing should be felt to have stuck in the mouth, throat or\noesophagus, but the complete dose has descended into the stomach with the\nliquid.\" During treatment the patient should remain in bed, but avoid sleep or\n96\n97\n98\nIbid., p. 67: \"Accepi mineram a natura productam clarissimam, instar glaciei, absque\nullis heterogeneis purissimam, cuius si anatomiam physicam instituamus, composita animadvertetur ex Mercurio et sulphure: Mercurius ille continet in se argenti aliquot grana,\net ipsum argentum, si colligatur ad iustam quantitatem, aliquot auri grana iterum\nabscondit: Est itaque illa minera tanquam avia auri, et mater argenti naturalis, imo est\naqua viscosa impraegnata a sulphure, donec hos conceperit embryones: Liquescit in igne\nvalido, estque radius superioris sphaerae: In pulverem nigerrimum tunditur, et igne lento\nin vasis terreis tenetur, donec subalbescat, idque fit nono fere mense, non prius, ac\ntandem decimo mense maturatur in argentum vivum fixum subflavum.\"\nMaier, Septimana Philosophica, p. 74; see \u03b7. 25 above.\nMaier, Civitas Corporis Humani, p. 68: \"...habebis Mercurialem substantiam citrinam,\nduplicem, fixam et volatilem, masculam et foemineam, quae est nostra dieta Medicina.\"\n\nPages 216:\nThe Civitas Corporis\nHumani\n207\ningesting other fluids or solids.\" The effects of the remedy on the patient are\ndescribed in some detail:\nThe operation is usually accomplished in this manner: as soon as this little powder reaches\nthe bottom of the stomach, it begins to attract the humours, at first from neighbouring parts,\nthen from more remote parts; when an abundant amount has been attracted, a portion ascends\nthrough the oesophagus into the mouth, and fills it with sputum, which is continuously spat\ninto a basin. But in fact the greater part of the same humour remains in the stomach, which it\naggravates while it remains in abundance; there may be nausea, belching, and - by and by light vomiting. Which as often and as frequently as it returns, then so often and of so great a\nmagnitude the work will have been. 1 0 0\nIn accordance with Galenic method, then, this 'work' is effected by a\npoison; and whilst we may discount Heisler's strange depiction of Maier as a\npoisoner-assassin embroiled in aristocratic intrigue at the court of James I,101\nit is an open question as to whether any of Maier's patients died of their\n'cure' before he determined the non-fatal dose of his remedies. In the Civitas\nCorporis Humani Maier advises those patients who \"do not greatly fear the\nuse of this powder\" to obtain a prescription from their local apothecary; and\nfailing this, \"a quantity pleasing for the price\" may be received directly from\nthe author. 102 Furthermore, we are told that arthritis is not the only ailment\nthat this mercurial medicine is indicated for; Maier claims that his\nQuicksilver will cure 'quasi in una hora' a host of diseases caused by the\n99\nIbid., p. 53: \"Volumus autem, ut grana iij. iiij. ad vj. usque, eius pulveris sumantur eo\ntempore, quando paroxysmus instat, nec dum iam incursionem fecerit, (quamuis in ipso\nparoxysmo et urgentibus doloribus idem optime revellendo et evacuando conveniat,) in\naqua stillatitia qualitatis calidae; utpote aqua cinamoni, anisi, vitae spiritu vini, aut simili,\ncum cochleari, pulvisculo bene mixto, et per liquorem diffuso, ut, antequam subsideat,\nebibatur, et post unum aut alterum cochlear eiusdem liquoris superbibatur, donee nihil in\nore, vel faucibus, aut oesophago haesisse sentiatur, sed tota dosis cum liquore in\nventriculum descendat: Teneat patiens se in lecto calide, et ab assumptione a somno, et\naliarum rerum ingestione abstineat.\"\n100\nIbid., p. 54: \"Operatio hoc modo plaerumque perficitur: Quamprimum hic pulvisculus\nfundum stomachi attigerit, incipit attrahere humores primo viciniores, deinde remotiores\nin ventriculum; quorum copia cum adfuerit attracta, pars ascendit per oesophagum in os,\net replet illud sputo, quod continue in pelvim expuendum est; maior vero pars eiusdem\nhumoris manet in ventr\u00edculo, quem dum sua copia aggravai, sit nausea, ructus, et mox\nlevis vomitio; quae toties redit, et in tanta frequentia, quoties et quanta opus fuerit.\"\n101\nHeisler, Ron. \"Michael Maier in England,\" in The Hermetic Journal, 1989.\nMaier, Civitas Corporis Humani, pp. 68-69: \"Pulvis Aurelius ubi haberi possit? Si vero\nnon cuiusvis sit Medici, aut patientis, tantum temporis, laboris, aut sumptus, huic operi\nimpendere, et interim quis eius pulveris usum ad eradicationem tanti mali non\nreformidet, sed maxime desideret, is saltern proximum sibi pharmacopoeum moneat, ut\nad praescriptam formam dictam medicinam praeparet, vel, si \u00f1eque id tuto aut commode\nfieri possit, ut a nobis quantitatem placitam pro suo pretio accipiat, inque usus aliorum\niterum divendat.\"\n102\n\nPages 217:\n208\nThe completion of the work\nexcessive downflow of humours, from fever, 'hypochondriac melancholy'\nand kidney stones to obstructions of the spleen, liver, gall bladder, mammary\nglands, urethra and uterus - and all for the price of \"an easily tolerated\nsickness.\" 103\nThere is a note of desperation, and a strong suggestion of charlatanism, in\nMaier's use of such exorbitant claims. His tone in the Civitas Corporis\nHumani is far removed from the elegant natural philosophical speculations of\nthe Septimana Philosophica or the De Circulo Physico, Quadrato. Had Maier\nfallen upon hard times following the loss of his position at the court of\nMoritz? Such is confirmed not only by the assertion of the eighteenth century\nBiographie Universelle that Maier \"sacrificed his time, his fortune and his\nreputation to a vain research\" 104 - a statement that reflects the standard\neighteenth century view of alchemy - but also by his posthumously published\nethical tract Ulysses (1624), which appeared two years after his death with\nthe melancholy subtitle, \"Wisdom or intelligence, as a spark of heavenly joy,\nby which if one might be shipwrecked in fortune and health, one may happily\nmake one's way to port with the oars of meditation and patience.\" 105 Indeed,\nthe contents of Maier's Ulysses - no less than its posthumous appearance give rise to the suspicion that Maier had been 'shipwrecked' in health, and\nthat this tract was composed during a time of terminal illness.\n5. Ulysses and the death of Maier\nMaier's Ulysses was published with a foreword from his publisher, Lucas\nJennis, announcing the death of 'the master' in Magdeburg:\nRecently, friendly reader, I received a number of letters from learned men in various\nlocations addressed to Master Doctor Maier, P. M., whom these men were imagining to be\nalive: on which account I could not tarry, but felt I must announce positively to one and all\nthat the master himself, namely my friend and honoured patron, died in Magdeburg in the\nsummer of 1622, the debt of Nature having been dutifully paid. When therefore 1 received\n103\nIbid., p. 69: \"Quibus alias conveniat. Nec vero hoc remedium tantum arthriticis convenit, sed aeque omnibus ex humorum colluvie quacunque laboratibus auxiliatur, quasi\nin una hora omnem labem morbificam copiosissime cum aegri facili tolerantia educendo, ut sunt febres tertianae, quartanae, quotidianae, melancholia hypochondriaca,\ncalculus, obstructio viscerum, lienis, epatis, vesiculae fellis, meseraicarum, emulgentium, ureterum, uteri, et in summa omnium humorum excessus, et ex his morbi, aut\nsymptomata.\"\n104\nBiographie Universelle, Vol. 36, p. 232.\nMaier, Ulysses, title page: \"Sapientia seu intelligentia, tanquam coelestis scintilla beatitudinis, quod si in fortunae et corporis bonis naufragium faciat, ad portum meditationis\net patientiae remigio feliciter se expediat.\"\n105\n\nPages 218:\nUlysses and the death of Maier\n209\nthe present little tract named Ulysses from that same man who was hitherto living, I was\nunwilling to submit it for publication on account of its humble size. Nevertheless, as I have\nsaid, when several of the most learned men took care that their letters to the deceased Dr.\nMaier be delivered to me (having expected that they would be passed on to him because I\nhad printed the greater part of their works), I felt it would be worth the labour if, for the\nbetter information of everyone, and by issuing this little work itself, I might arrange [for Dr.\nMaier] a public departure from this miserable life to death. In doing so 1 fulfilled the task of a\nmother carrying out the last duties for her dead son. Granting, as I have said, this little work\nmay be too slender in respect of pages, nevertheless with regard to its substance it is quite\nbig enough, and worthy of being read... 1 0 6\nIt seems from these solemn words that Maier died in 1622 between the date\nof the dedication of his Cantilenae Intellectuelles, the 25th of August, and\nsummer's end in the calendar, the 22nd of September. The cause of his death\nis not made clear by Jennis; nevertheless, his wording suggests sickness\ncarried Maier away rather than accident or foul play. Chronic chemical\npoisoning was not uncommon for alchemists in the seventeenth century; thus\nthe prolific author Glauber died of mercury poisoning, whilst Hermann Wolf\n(1562-1620), employed by Moritz of Hessen-Kassel as a physician and\n'taster', fell seriously ill in 1619 after sampling a leaden clyssi ex Saturni for\nhis prince, was 'revived' by an aurum potabile Angelicanum, but expired\nsome months later after ingesting Moritz' very own 'lunar essence'. 107\nWhether or not long-term exposure to 'Saturnus', mercury, antimony and\nother toxic substances explains Maier's untimely demise, there is certainly no\njustification for \u00c2kerman's assertion that Maier \"disappeared during the\nviolent siege of Magdeburg by Imperial troops in 1622,\" as the city's\ndeclared neutrality was still holding in that year, and she was not put under\n106\nIbid., p. 3-4: \"Postquam, amice Lector, hactenus diversis ex locis aliquot Doctorum\nvirorum, ad Dominum Doctorem Majerum, p.m. (quem in vivis adhuc esse certo sibi\npersuadebant) spectantes litterae ad me pervenissent: ea propter intermitiere non \nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 202 to page 218 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 218 to page 234 out of a total of 334:\nPages 218:\nUlysses and the death of Maier\n209\nthe present little tract named Ulysses from that same man who was hitherto living, I was\nunwilling to submit it for publication on account of its humble size. Nevertheless, as I have\nsaid, when several of the most learned men took care that their letters to the deceased Dr.\nMaier be delivered to me (having expected that they would be passed on to him because I\nhad printed the greater part of their works), I felt it would be worth the labour if, for the\nbetter information of everyone, and by issuing this little work itself, I might arrange [for Dr.\nMaier] a public departure from this miserable life to death. In doing so 1 fulfilled the task of a\nmother carrying out the last duties for her dead son. Granting, as I have said, this little work\nmay be too slender in respect of pages, nevertheless with regard to its substance it is quite\nbig enough, and worthy of being read... 1 0 6\nIt seems from these solemn words that Maier died in 1622 between the date\nof the dedication of his Cantilenae Intellectuelles, the 25th of August, and\nsummer's end in the calendar, the 22nd of September. The cause of his death\nis not made clear by Jennis; nevertheless, his wording suggests sickness\ncarried Maier away rather than accident or foul play. Chronic chemical\npoisoning was not uncommon for alchemists in the seventeenth century; thus\nthe prolific author Glauber died of mercury poisoning, whilst Hermann Wolf\n(1562-1620), employed by Moritz of Hessen-Kassel as a physician and\n'taster', fell seriously ill in 1619 after sampling a leaden clyssi ex Saturni for\nhis prince, was 'revived' by an aurum potabile Angelicanum, but expired\nsome months later after ingesting Moritz' very own 'lunar essence'. 107\nWhether or not long-term exposure to 'Saturnus', mercury, antimony and\nother toxic substances explains Maier's untimely demise, there is certainly no\njustification for \u00c2kerman's assertion that Maier \"disappeared during the\nviolent siege of Magdeburg by Imperial troops in 1622,\" as the city's\ndeclared neutrality was still holding in that year, and she was not put under\n106\nIbid., p. 3-4: \"Postquam, amice Lector, hactenus diversis ex locis aliquot Doctorum\nvirorum, ad Dominum Doctorem Majerum, p.m. (quem in vivis adhuc esse certo sibi\npersuadebant) spectantes litterae ad me pervenissent: ea propter intermitiere non potui,\nquin, ilium ipsum Dominum Doctorem videlicet, Amicum et Favitorem meum\nhonorandum, ANNI M.DC.XXII. tempore aestivo, Magdeburgi naturae debitum pie\npersolvisse, omnes et singulos certiores redderem. Cum igitur, ipso adhuc vivente,\npraesens opusculum, Ulyssis nomine inscriptum, ab eodem acceperim, illudque, ob\nparvitatem suam, praelo subijcere noluerim: nihilominus tamen cum, uti dictum, aliquot\nviri doctissimi literas suas, ad D. Majerum exaratas, ad me (ut pote qui, non abs re\nquidem, credebant, illas ipsas suas literas me hero suo certo transmissurum esse, idque\neo magis, quod suorum operum majorem ad partem sumptibus meis imprimi operant\ndedissem) perferri curassent: operae pretium me facturum putavi, si, ad meliorem\nomnium informationem, publicatione huius sui opusculi mortalem ipsius ex misera\nhacce vita egressum testatum facerem. Qua sane in re matris alicuius, posthumum\naliquem excludentis officio functus sum. Licet vero, uti dictum, opusculum illud papyri\npaucitate nimis tenue et parvum sit: nihilominus tamen respecta materiae satis magnum,\nlectuque dignum est...\"\n107\nSzydlo, Zbigniew. Water which does not Wet Hands. Warsaw: Polish Academy of\nSciences, 1994, pp. 15-16; Moran, Alchemical World of the German Court, pp. 69-70.\n\nPages 219:\n210\nThe completion of the work\nsiege or sacked until 1631.108 The suggestion that Maier may have been\nexecuted by his enemies is only one amongst a number of myths that have\ngrown up around his death. Despite the testimony of Jennis - or perhaps\nbecause of it, as he makes mention of Maier's purported 'admittance' into the\nranks of the Rosicrucian Fraternity shortly before his death - the notion has\nrecently arisen in esoteric circles that Maier did not die at Magdeburg at all,\nbut changed his identity and continued his work under another name. 109\nWhilst not disprovable, one cannot fail to note that similar myths have\nadhered to numerous personages in history, and are likely to reflect a\nreligious impulse in their creators. Furthermore, the Cantilenae Intellectuales\nare dedicated to Duke Friedrich III of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, the son of\nCarnarius' patron Duke Johann Adolf, and grandson of the patron of Peter\nMaier, King Friedrich II of Denmark. In that dedication Maier flatters the\nDuke for his \"singular love of letters and those who cultivate them,\" and\nrecalls the past generosity shown by the Duke's family to his own; he also\nstates that he is hoping to return to his native Holstein with the help of the\nDuke's patronage, thus bringing to an end the fourteen years he has 'endured'\nin foreign lands \"perfecting his Hermetic studies.\"110 These are not the words\nof someone who had decided \"the time was ripe to disappear for political and\nphilosophical reasons,\" as de Rola has it.111 Rather, they speak of a dying\nman's desire to see his homeland.\nAlas, unlike the wandering Ulysses, the ailing Maier was not to make a\nheroic return to his native land after years of travelling. Given its clear\nparallels with Maier's own life of wandering and hardship, Ulysses may be\nunderstood in an autobiographical sense, and its subject - the Greek hero\n108 Wolter, F. \u0391. Geschichte der Stadt Magdeburg von ihrem Ursprung bis auf die\nGegenwart. Magdeburg: Faber, 1901, p. 149; \u00c2kerman, Rose Cross over the Baltic, p.\n91. \u00c2kerman's statement echoes Yates' suggestive and misleading comment that Maier\n\"disappeared at Magdeburg in 1622 when that city was in the hands of the troops;\"\nYates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 81.\n109\nThis tradition seems to stem from Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, who writes: \"Some\nbiographers believe that Maier died at Magdeburg in 1622, but I do not. I believe that\nMaier felt the time was ripe to disappear for political and philosophical reasons, and this\nmay well be why his last treatise (1624) was given out as posthumous.\" The idea of\n'disappearing' may also stem from Yates; to be fair to de Rola, he rightly admits that this\nis \"an unsubstantiated feeling.\" See de Rola, The Golden Game, p. 106.\n110\nMaier, Cantilenae Intellectuales, pp. A4-A5: \"Mei, quia Holsatus sim patria, quam ob\nstudia Hermetica penitus absolvenda et apud exteros in diversis regionibus et populis\nexantlanda, ante 14. annos reliqui lubens et volens, non, ut spes est, in perpetuum, sed ad\ntempus, prout Deo et principi meo placuerit, aliquando reversurus: Meos autem, qui\nqualesque fuerint, non solum tota Nobilitas Holsata, sed et parens tuus, avusque Divae\nmemoriae, quibus i Hi, quoad vixerunt, servitio fidelissimo astricti fuerunt, optime\nnoverunt.\"\n111\nDe Rola, The Golden Game, p. 106.\n\nPages 220:\nUlysses and the death of Maier\n211\nOdysseus, or Roman Ulysses - reflects the ideals and self-perception of a\nman who is nearing the end of a long journey. Following the method of his\nArcana Arcanissima, Maier portrays the figure of Ulysses as a hieroglyph,\nbehind which lies veiled a higher truth - wisdom in the face of suffering. This\nwisdom takes the form of a paradox, as ill fortune and poor health may be\ntransformed through the power of the intellect:\nNobody is happy, I believe, unless they are wise, and nobody unhappy or foolish, unless they\ndo not skilfully use the intellect; for while good and evil things depend on fortune, they do\nnot define a man or determine the boundary of happiness and unhappiness, since bad may be\ntransformed into good for a man, and good into bad. I am willing to say the same concerning\nfavourable or odious circumstances of the body, because they do not truly deliver happiness\nor sadness to a man. It is that better part of man, the mind, which determines whether he is\nhappy or not; and even if this opinion seems at first sight to reveal a rather strong Stoic\nattitude, it does not contradict the truth of the Academic philosophy, 1 1 2 but rather approaches\nit very closely. And if this may be held to be the paradox of paradoxes, I take care to put it in\na way that it might not be unpleasant - unless I am mistaken - to delicate ears. 1 1 3\nFor all their reification of the intellect, these introductory words appear to be\nspoken from experience; and on account of his constancy in the face of\nhardship - be it shipwreck, battles with fabulous beasts, or seduction by the\nsirens - Ulysses is accounted \"the symbol of absolute (human) wisdom,\nwhich exceeds all other mortals, and exalts itself in the ethereal realm, never\ncrawling on the earth or seeking bestial practices, but sublime, truly\nintellectual and peculiar to man.\" 114 According to Maier the wisdom\nencapsulated in the figure of Ulysses has been 'imprinted' by God in the\nminds of a select few, and is not visible with the corporeal eye - by which he\nmeans to say that it may be discovered with 'the little eye of the soul' we\n112\nHere Maier seems to allude to the Platonic Academy of ancient Greece, and to the fact\nthat the Good of Platonic idealism is an absolute which cannot become its opposite; in\nanother place he criticises the Stoics for arguing that God is subject to Fate and not\nentirely free; see Maier, Themis Aurea, p. 180.\n113\nMaier, Ulysses, pp. 11-12: \"Nemo est, me judice, beatus, nisi sapiens, et nemo infelix,\nnisi intellectu dextre non utens, aut insipiens: Nam quae bona et mala a fortuna\ndependent, hominem non definiunt aut ad finem beatitudinis aut infelicitatis non\ndirigunt, cum ilia mala in bonum, et bona in malum virum transferri possint: Eadem de\ncorporis accidentibus favorabilibus, aut odiosis dicta velim; quod nec ilia vere felicem,\nhaec miserum reddant hominem: In potiore hominis parte, mente, situm esse debet, a\nquo denominatio ejus beati vel contra petenda sit: Quae mea sententia liceat stoam\nduriorem primo aspectu praese ferat, veritati tamen Academicae neutiquam adversatur,\nsed proxime ad earn accedit: Hoc etsi paradoxon paradoxotaton haberi possit, tamen\nfaxo, ut teneris etiam auribus non ingratum, nisi fallor, accidat.\"\nIbid., p. 30: \"Ulysses itaque est sapientiae absolutae (humanae) symbolum, quae omnes\nalios supergreditur mortales, seque in aethereas exaltat domos, nunquam humi repens aut\nbestialia exercitia quaerens, sed sublimia, vere intellectualia et homini propria.\"\n114\n\nPages 221:\n212\nThe completion of the work\nhave discussed. 115 In accordance with Maier's Lutheran sensibilities, this\nwisdom is the foundation of morality, imparting both strength and piety to\nhumankind, lest it falls into the immoderation of vice.116\nIn the figure of Ulysses Maier sees those aspects of a man's character he\nmost admires; thus we are told that Ulysses was the most astute of men, the\nmost eloquent, the most prudent, the most ingenious, the most distinguished\nin war, the most expedite in counsel, and the most patient in the face of toil\nand danger. In the course of the Ulysses he elaborates upon each of these\nseven characteristics with reference to various episodes in the hero's journey.\nIn the manner of the Arcana Arcanissima Maier undertakes a curious\nrationalisation of the myth, for just as Ulysses represents the intellect, the\ndivine faculty in humanity, so the men of his company are understood to be\nthe faculties of vision, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, imagination,\nmemory and 'common sense' - that is to say, the sense in the Aristotelian\nschema binding the other senses together to give a common, unitary\nimpression. Maier illustrates the relation of this schema to his medicine of\npiety through Ulysses' encounter on the island Aeaea with the sorceress\nCirce, who turns Ulysses' men into pigs with her magic wand. Although\nthese men, as representatives of the base senses, are easily led into a 'bestial'\nexistence, Ulysses as the intellect is rendered immune to Circe's sorcery by\nHermes, who gives the hero the magical herb Moly - in Maier's eyes, a\ncipher for the Universal Medicine:\nUlysses protected himself with the herb Moly, lest he should be transformed by Circe\ninto wild animals with his men. The men, as I have said, are the senses... and they are\nall defeated by the sorceress Circe, or the abyss of wickedness, and transformed into\nbeasts. Ulysses alone, the intellect, being the exception, who used the most extraordinary\namulet 1 1 7 to avert the sorcery. Here one might ask what this Moly, a white flower with\nblack roots, might be? Without doubt it is a bittersweet virtue that must be searched\nfor by the intellect and perfected by the will; it possesses a black and bitter root, but\na sweet and lovely little white flower: through baseness to majesty, through toil to glory,\nthrough courage to immortal fame, it is striven for and it is reached. The same thing\nconcerning Moly and its virtue is asserted by Gratian the Philosopher in the Rosarium\nPhilosophorum:\n\"and there is in our Art a certain noble body, which is moved from\nmaster to master, in the beginning of which will be misery with vinegar, but in the end\ngladness with joy.\" This herb arrives from a black root to a little white flower, from\ndarkness to radiance, from immaturity to perfection; likewise the same [noble] body we\n115\nIbid., pp. 30-31: \"Haec est idaea paucorum mentibus impressa, quae si oculis corporeis\nconspici posset, miros sui amores apud quam plurimos relinqueret.\"\n116\nIbid., p. 31: \"Sapientia est, quae hominem exornat moribus, ditat opibus et temperat\nvirtutibus, ne in extremitates vitiorum immoderatas irruat.\"\n117\nPliny makes mention of a veneficiorum amuleta, hung around the neck as a preservative\nagainst sickness.\n\nPages 222:\nUlysses and the death of Maier\n213\nhave just mentioned tends from misery to pleasure, from vinegar to joy, like the completion\nof a comedy. 1 1 8\nNaturally Maier does not mention the fact that, in Homer's tale, Ulysses\nproceeds to the bed of Circe once she releases his men from the bondage of\ntheir swinish forms. Nevertheless, Maier's purpose here is to demonstrate the\nintegral relation of piety to his alchemy, and its relation to the coniunctio\noppositorum. The 'noble body' mentioned in the Rosarium Philosophorum is\nnot only manifested in the preparation of the cathartic iatrochemical cure and\nits operation, but in a life of travelling and hardship, by which the corporeal\nrealm is superseded and we approach divinity. On both cosmic levels the\nPhilosophers' Stone stands in a paradoxical relationship with its opposite,\n\"the abyss of wickedness,\" for as in the black phase of the alchemical\nprocess, so in the seductions and anguish of the body new life and wisdom\nare found.\nEven if Maier found wisdom in the Great Work that was his life, it would\nbe tempting to conclude that he did not find it in the laboratory, although he\nstubbornly persisted with his methods to the end. For Maier the figure of\nthe ideal alchemist was to be found in Ulysses, as both are steadfast and\ncourageous, \"pushing on through the many waves of error to the haven of\ntruth.\" 119 This is not the way of the \"purely speculative philosopher,\" who\nregardless of the merits of his reasoning achieves nothing more than the\nformation of an abstract idea; rather, the ideal alchemist is \"a practical\nphysical philosopher, who is compelled to prove by the work itself that which\n118\nIbid., pp. 21-22: \"Sexto, idem se molii herba munit, ne in bestias cum sociis a Circe\ntransformetur: socii, ut diximus, ipsius intellectus sunt sensus tam externi, visus auditus,\ngustatus, odoratus, tactaus, quam interni, communis, phantasia et memoria: Hi omnes a\nvenefica Circe, seu vitiorum voragine superantur, in bestias mutantur, solo intellectu,\nUlysse, excepto, qui amuleto prestantissimo ad veneficium avertendum usus est: Quid\nmoly sit, flos albus cum radice nigra, hic quaeri posset? Certe est amara dulc\u00eds virtus tam\nintellectu investiganda, quam vol\u00fantate perficienda: Nigram habet radicem et amaram,\nsed flosculum album, amabilem et dulcem: Per angusta n. ad augusta, per laborem ad\ngloriam, per virtutem ad immortale nomen tenditur et pervenitur: De Moly que dicitur, et\nvirtute, idem in Rosario Philosophorum a Gratiano Philosopho asseritur, nempe que sit\nin arte quoddam corpus nobile, que movetur de domino ad dominum, in cujus principio\nerit miseria cum aceto, sed in fine gaudium cum laetitia: Herba ea a radice nigra ad\nflosculum album, a tenebris ad candorem, ab immaturitate ad perfectionem pervenit;\nEodem modo et iam dictum corpus a miseria ad gaudium, ab aceto ad laetitiam, quasi\ncomoedia peracta, tendit.\"\n119\nIbid., pp. 28-29: \"Est enim Herois constantis, animosi et patientis praeclarum exemplar, quod poeta in Ulysse exprimere voluit: At nos meminimus, quod in Hieroglyph,\nlibr. 6. ad philosophum retulerimus, qui per multos errorum fluctus ad veritatis portum\ncontendat.\"\n\nPages 223:\n214\nThe completion of the work\nis speculated.\" 120 It seems that Maier attempts to rationalise his own failures\nwhen he describes this 'practical physical philosopher'. Thus he argues that\nnothing certain has been established when \"the most learned doctor\" strays\nfrom the mark in his diagnosis, and is not immediately able to remove an\nillness with his remedies, whilst \"empiricists, charlatans and little old\nwomen\" manage to heal difficult cases with mere audacity and persuasion,\nwith a false theoretical basis, and without insight into the true causes of\ndisease. There is a science (i.e. chemia) beyond the extremes of unlearned\nempiricism and Scholastic medicine, in which the practitioner is able to\nsystematically learn from his errors - a science which is nevertheless open\nonly to the most learned of the learned.121 These words mark something of a\ndeparture from the exorbitant claims of the Civitas Corporis Humani and its\npromise of a cure, quasi in una hora, for diverse and serious diseases. Indeed,\nthey are more reminiscent of the testimony of 'Bacsen' (the Arabic alchemist\nBaqsam) given in the Turba Philosophorum, and quoted in the thirty-ninth\ndiscourse of Atalanta Fugiens. After stating that the \"seeker after the Art\"\nneeds a patient soul and persevering courage, Baqsam issues the following\nstern warning:\nWoe unto you who seek the very great reward and treasure of God! Do you not know that for\nthe smallest purpose in the world, earthly men will give themselves to death, and what,\ntherefore, ought they to do for this most excellent and almost impossible offering? ...Woe\nunto you, sons of the Doctrine! For one who plants trees does not look for fruit, save in due\nseason; he also who sows seeds does not expect to reap, except at harvest time... Learn O ye\nstudents, that which the Philosophers have long since intimated, saying that truth is not\ndiscerned but by error, and that nothing begets more grief to the heart than error in this work;\nfor when a man thinks he has done and has the world, he shall find nothing in his hands. 1 2 2\nStrangely, it seems that this was the wisdom Maier found in his laboratory. In\nhis discourse on this passage in the Atalanta Fugiens, Maier states that the\n120\n121\nIbid., p. 29: \"Non intelligo philosophum mere speculativum, qui sive bene, sive male\nratiocinatus sit, eundem effectum relinquit, nempe scientiam vel opinionem in mente,\nsed philosophum physicum practicum, qui opere ipso quod speculatus est, comprobare\ncogitur.\"\nIbid.\u00b7. \"Verum cum in re medica saepe usu veniat, doctissimum medicum, causas rerum\noptime perscrutantem, a scopo aberrare, ut morbum suis remediis non statim toUat, et\necontra indoctissimum quoque, Empyricum, agyrtam vel aniculam absque ulla causarum\nconsideratione, ex falso fondamento, ex mera audacia, et persuasione non raro morbos\ndesperatos medicis curare, hinc nihil certi hic statuendum arbitrar: Est praeter medicinam alia scientia mere intellectualis, quae opus palpabile post se relinquit, nullis\nEmpyricis, falsariis aut indoctis possibile vel imitabile, sed solis doctiorum doctissimis,\nin opere constantissimis, et errores suos emendare non detrectantibus.\"\n122\nWaite, Arthur Edward. The Turba Philosophorum, or the Assembly of Sages. New York:\nSamuel Weiser, 1973, pp. 128-129; the final sentence here is taken from Maier, The\nFlying Atalanta, discourse 39.\n\nPages 224:\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n215\nsame truth lies hidden behind the hieroglyph of the Sphinx, for those who fail\nto solve its riddles are destroyed - a fate he understands allegorically as the\n'grief occasioned by failure in the enigmatic alchemical Art. 123 In this\ncomplex of ideas we may discern the integral relation of Maier's laboratory\npractice to the magnum opus that was his life; for it was precisely his quest\nfor the Universal Medicine and his endless struggle to find patronage which\nconstituted the black phase of the work, an impossible task from which the\nfinal release could only be death. Thus in the Atalanta Fugiens Maier clearly\nstates that \"there is nothing that can restore youth to man but death itself,\nwhich is the beginning of eternal life that follows it.\"124 This is the circular\nand paradoxical nature of Maier's spiritual alchemy, which like the\nouroboros devours and emerges out of itself (figure 6).\n6. The phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\nIn concluding our consideration of Maier's life and its relationship to\nhis alchemy, we may turn again to his Allegoria Bella, in which the\ncorrespondence of laboratory process to his own personal odyssey through\nthe world finds its clearest expression. This allegory forms part of the\nconcluding chapter of the Symbola Aureae Mensae (1617); in accordance\nwith his role as 'cook' for the banquet held in honour of 'Queen Chemia', the\nAllegoria Bella is offered up by Maier as the bellaria or 'dessert', i.e. a\nsummation of the combined wisdom of the sages gathered around the Golden\nTable. 125 Although strictly speaking it is not an autonomous text, the\nAllegoria Bella counts amongst the most attractive and intriguing works of\nMaier, a fact which no doubt earned its separate publication in the Musaeum\nHermeticum of 1678 and 1749 as A Subtle Allegory concerning the Secrets of\nAlchemy.126\nInspiration for Maier's allegory was undoubtedly drawn from the quintessential expression of early Rosicrucianism, Johann Valentin Andreae's\nChymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreutz, which appeared a year prior to\n123\n124\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 39: \"...quod si aliquis monstrum praetereat, nil mali\nab ipso patitur, qui vero animi vel ingenii audacia fretus ejus aenigmata dissolvere\nconetur, nisi id faciat, excidium sibi parat, hoc est, dolorem cordi et damnum rebus suis\nex errore in hoc opere.\"\nIbid., discourse 9: \"Hominem, quod rejuvenescere faciat, nihil est, nisi mors ipsa et\nsequentis aeternae vitae initium.\"\n125\nThe work's full title runs as follows: \"Mensae Secundae seu Bellaria, Hoc est, Allegoria\nBella, Vice recapitulationis aut conclusionis summariae totius operis posita, plurimum et\nperspicuae utilitatis et iucundae meditationis lectoris menti exhibens.\"\n126\nSee above, chapter I, n. 131.\n\nPages 225:\n216\nThe completion of the work\nthe Symbola Aureae Mensae. That work describes the journey of Christian\nRosenkreutz, the legendary founder of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross,\nwho sets out to attend a mysterious royal wedding. His seven-day journey\nsymbolises seven stages of the alchemical work, whilst the wedding itself\ndenotes the perfection of the opus through the union of Mercury and\nSulphur. 127 As we have mentioned, Maier's Allegoria Bella is constructed in\na very similar fashion, portraying the alchemical process as the author's\npilgrimage through four continents in search of the phoenix, the feathers of\nwhich constitute a cure for \"anger and grief.\" However, given Maier's own\nunsettled life of roaming it is clear that this allegorical pilgrimage was not\ncomposed merely as a didactic analogy for the laboratory work; Maier tells\nus at the outset that he himself was \"destined to imitate the natural\nprogression of elements,\" which tend from density to subtlety - that is to say,\nthe pattern of elemental transmutation described in Aristotle's De\nGeneratione et Corruptione to which we have referred. 128 Thus he begins his\nquest in Europe (earth), travels through America (water) to Asia (air) and\nfinally arrives in the deserts of Africa (fire) - for \"air may not come from\nearth except by the mediation of water, and fire may not come from water\nexcept by the mediation of air.\"129 Whilst Andreae's Chymische Hochzeit is\nreplete with an intensely surreal imagery, Maier's allegory is permeated with\na veritable cornucopia of bizarre facts drawn from history, astronomy, botany\nand zoology, each of which possesses a microcosmic or macrocosmic\ncorrespondence to laboratory process.\nMaier begins his allegory with an explanation of the origins of his quest\nfor the phoenix. Having spent the greater part of his life in the study of\nrefined literature and the liberal arts, and having conversed with men of\ngreater wisdom than the common folk, his contemplation of the masses had\nled him to the conclusion that they prefer ostentation, carnality and lust to\n127\n128\nIn his Elucidar\u00edas Major (1617) Maier's contemporary Radtichs Brotofferr (Christoffer\nRotbard 'the Exile') describes the Chymische Hochzeit as a 'very artful description' of\nthe preparation of the Philosophers' Stone, and enumerates the seven stages of the\nalchemical process corresponding to the seven days of Christian Rosenkreutz' journey as\ndistillation, solution, putrefaction, multiplication, fermentation, projection and 'the\nMedicine'. 'Rotbard' also gives a chemical explanation of the Rosicrucian manifestos in\nthis work and the earlier Elucidarius Chymicus, Go\u00dflar: Johann Vogt, 1616.\nSee below, chapter VI, n. 3; in constructing this schema (see above, chapter II, n. 61)\nAristotle elaborated upon similar theories proposed by the pre-Socratics. Thus, according\nto Heraclitus (535-475 BCE), the world is resolved out of fire (the prima materia) into\nwater and then into earth ('the way downwards'), and then returns again from earth\nthrough water to fire ('the way upwards'). See Barnes, Jonathan. Early Greek\nPhilosophy. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987, p. 107.\n129\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 572: \"Ex terra autem non fit aer, nisi intermedio\naquae, et ex aqua non fit ignis, nisi intermedio aeris.\"\n\nPages 226:\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n217\nhonour, and esteem piety and virtue less than the pursuit of material wealth.\nWhen he discovered this melancholy truth, Maier tells us he was not sure\nwhether he should follow the 'laughing Democritus' 130 or the 'weeping\nHeraclitus', 131 or indeed simply follow Solomon in declaring, \"Vanity of\nvanities, all is vanity!\" 132\nNevertheless, upon reading the Bible he was inspired to investigate \"the\nmost useful things hidden in Nature and man,\" be that \"at home in books\nbequeathed by others, which lead the way for meditation and experience, or\nto go out of the house and range through that great book of the world.\" 133\nAlthough Maier's autobiographical testimony in the De Medicina Regia\npoints to the medieval alchemists as the inspiration for his quest to uncover\nthe structure of the cosmos and the Universal Medicine, his allusion here is to\nthe harmony of the two great works of God - the Bible and the Book of\nNature. This harmony is expressed in the Allegoria Bella in the figure of the\nphoenix, by which both Christ and the Universal Medicine are signified. The\nphoenix had constituted a symbol for Christ since the time of the\nPhysiologus, an allegorical bestiary produced by Alexandrian Christians\naround the fourth century CE, and this significance would have been clear to\nmany of Maier's Christian readers.134 In Maier's eyes Jesus Christ was the\n130\nDemocritus (born c.460 BCE), founder of atomic theory and the Epicurean school of\nthought, was said to have laughed constantly; imagining him to be crazy, the local\npeople called upon the great physician Hippocrates to tend to him, whereupon\nDemocritus confessed that he was laughing at their foolishness.\n131\nHeraclitus, despiser of democracy and the lower classes, was known as the 'weeping\nphilosopher', in part for his theory of perpetual flux and his belief that 'war is the father\nof all things'.\n132\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 561-562: \"Cum iam potiorem vitae meae partem in\nliterarum humaniorum, artiumque liberalium studiis, ac cum doctioribus quibuscunque,\nqui sapere quid prae vulgo viderentur, conversationibus transegissem, ita ut quid\nfirmioris iudicii partim assidua lectione, partim ipso rerum usu acquisiuisse mihi viderer,\ncepi mecum considerare acutius varias hominum actiones, plaerumque vel ad pompam et\nlibidinem aliis praedominandi et in honoribus anteferri, aut gulam et luxuriem corporis\npromovendam, aliaue eiusmodi enormia vitia spectantes, et quod plaerique per fas et\nnefas solis fere diuitiis cumulandis, omni conscientiae respecta, pietatis aut virtutis zelo\nposthabito, praeoccupati essent; Unde diu anceps et incertus haesitavi, an Democritico\ncachinno, an Heracletio fletui eandem ob causam subscriberem, an vero cum Ecclesiastico, Omnia vanitates vanitatum pronunciarem...\" See Ecclesiastes 1.2.\n133\nIbid., p. 562: \"...Verum pensiculatis singulis tandem ad me reversus, post Dei Opti.\nMax. agnitionem, ex Fontibus Israelis seu sacris Bibliis haustam, nihil melius, prius\naut antiquius inveni, quam rerum abditarum in natura existentium, hominique maxime\nutilium, investigationem, qualicunque modo institutam, sive domi per libros ab aliis\nrelictos, meditatione praevia et experientia manuali pedisse qua, sive foris magnum ilium\nMundi codicem pervoluendo.\"\n134\nPhysiologus. Trans. Michael J. Curley. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979, pp. 1314; the phoenix-Christ analogy is also used by certain Church Fathers, such as Clement\n\nPages 227:\n218\nThe completion of the work\ngreatest of physicians, and the agent of transmuting the hearts and minds of\nmen, turning them from lives of sin to piety.135 In his reference to the Bible,\ntherefore, we may discern the experiential genesis of Maier's concern with a\ncure for anger, as Christ promises emancipation from base impulses of the\nkind that had once jeopardised his own career in Padua. Nevertheless, as a\ndoctor Maier also understands that anger has a very physical basis, and that\nChrist has the temperance-imparting Universal Medicine as a physical\ncorollary - for \"the habits of the mind follow the temperament of the body,\"\nas Galen has stated, and just as the bravest soldier may be ground down by a\nlong and squalid imprisonment, so also the mind of man, whilst not being\notherwise predisposed to anger, may be overcome through 'contamination'\nwith yellow bile or other humours. 136 The Universal Medicine also promises\nto assuage unspeakable sorrows such as those inflicted upon Maier by his\n'harsh fortune'. For we are told in the Allegoria Bella that the phoenix is\nsynonymous with nepenthe,137 the cure of worldly cares given by the queen\nof Egypt to Helen of Troy, who administered it to the son of Odysseus,\nTelemachus:\n...like Tantalus, the more I learnt, the more I thirsted: and I had heard moreover that there is a\ncertain bird unparalleled in the entire sphere of the earth called the phoenix, and that its skin\nstripped away from its body (that is to say, its feathers) constitute the pre-eminent medicine\nof all medicines, as it is the remedy for anger and grief, or Nepenthe\u00b7, concerning which it is\nwritten in the ancient texts, that Helena, having been seized by Paris to Troy, supplied it to\nTelemachus, who was rapt in the greatest joy, having forgotten all his past toils, cares and\ngrief. Therefore I was forced to search for this bird - wherever it may have been hidden - by\na certain impulse of Nature and my mind, as if willingly compelled. Not that I hoped to\npossess this bird in its entirety (for I could see that was impossible for me), but at least in\norder that I might obtain a little feather of it, whatever labour, expense or travel I may need\nto undergo. 1 3 8\n135\n136\nof Alexandria, The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, ch. 25, \"On the Phoenix\nas an Emblem of the Resurrection.\"\nThe description of Christ as the greatest of physicians occurs in a number of places in\nMaier's works; see, for instance, Maier, Septimana Philosophica, p. 200: \"Quanto enim\nhonestius est, mederi malis et morbis hominum (quod aeternus Dei Filius hic in terris\nversans ante alia omnia elegit et perfecit divinitus) quam cupiditatibus propriis\nindulgere.\"\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 564: \"...Quod mores animi sequantur temperamentum corporis: Ut enim alias fortissimus et invictus miles diutino et squalido carcere\nenervari et conteri potest adeo, ut aegre seipsum sustineat, ita et mens hominis, alias nec\nirae nec furiosis affectibus mancipata, vitio solius corporis biliosi vel ab humoribus aliis\ncontaminati, saepissime inficitur et vincitur.\"\n137\nAccording to Pliny and Dioscorides, nepenthe was the herb borage, or borago officinalis,\nwhich was steeped in warm wine and drunk as a sedative.\n138\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 562: \"A nullo horum inquirendae scientiae modo\nabstinui, sed nunc hie, nunc alteri indulgendo, quo plus hausi, eo magis, Tantali instar,\n\nPages 228:\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n219\nHaving decided upon his quest, Maier left his hometown on the day of\nthe vernal equinox, \"when the moon and sun were in the sign of Aries\nnear the head of the Dragon.\" 139 This is a reference to the most auspicious\nastrological moment for the commencement of the laboratory work, when\nthe appropriate astral influences are at their peak. It is also the time of\nspring, which marks the beginning of life in the cycle of the year; in which\ncase we may assume that 'the head of the dragon' refers not only to\nthe constellation Draco which coincides with that of Aries, but also to the\nouroboros, whose head marks the beginning and the end of the cyclical\nalchemical work.\nAccording to Maier, Europe represents the element earth because she is\nthe foundation and mother of the world; she also corresponds to the sun and\ngold, on account of the excellence of her people.140 Giving further reign to his\nnationalistic sympathies, Maier describes the Umbilicus Germanicus that is\nthe centre of the European 'virgin', from which both imperial power and\noccult wisdom extend:\nThis is the mother, who is always known as a virgin; this is the most talented nurse of the\npeople, who has brought forth from herself in abundance many gifts invented by the most\nsubtle art: in this Umbilicus Germanicus, as the immovable centre from which the axioms of\nimperial authority extend, so many arts issue forth as from the fruitful horn of Amalthea. 1 4 1\nMaier goes on to relate certain 'miracles' or hieroglyphic truths demonstrating the correspondence of Europe to the element of earth: thus in certain\nregions of Hungary men live underwater with the help of tufa, which is\ncongealed out of water; and in the mountains of Karlsbad raging waters are\nsitii: Audiveram vero inter caetera esse avem quandam in toto terrarum orbe saltern\nunicam, PHOENICE dictam, cuius corporis exuviae, hoc est plumae seu carnes haberentur Medicina omnium Medicinarum praestantissima, ut pote quae foret Remedium\nIRAE ET DOLORIS seu NEPENTHES, de quo legitur in antiquorum scriptis, quod\nHelena, a Paride Troiano rapta, id praebuerit Telemacho, quo ille omnes praeteritos\nlabores, curas et dolores oblitus laetitia singulari exhilaratus est. Ad hanc itaque avem\nindagandam, ubicunque lateret, \u00edmpetu quodam naturae meae mentisque raptus et quasi\nvolens coactus sum; non quod sperarem potiri hac volucri integra (id enim mihi\nimpossibile praevidi) sed saltern ut vel plumam exiguam eius, quocunque labore, sumptu\net peregrinatione adipiscerer...\"\n139\nIbid., p. 572: \"Egressus itaque solo patrio ipso AEQUINOCTII Vernalis die LUNA, cum\nSole in AR\u00cdETIS signo circa caput Draconis...\"\n140\nIbid., pp. 573-574.\nIbid., p. 574: \"Haec est ea mater, quae virgo semper agnoscitur: Haec est nutrix populorum ingeniosissima, quae multa dona artificio subtilissimo a se inventa suppeditavit:\nIn hac Umbilicus Germanicus, veluti centrum immobile, consistit, a quo ut Axioma\nImperialis Dignitatis dependet, ita multae artes, tanquam ex uberrimo Amaltheae cornu\nprofluxerunt.\"\n141\n\nPages 229:\n220\nThe completion of the work\npetrified in the same manner. 142 On the shores of Prussia pellucid and\nfragrant amber is washed up by the waves, having been produced from\nsubterranean juices, and the coral-plants of the Sicilian sea harden into red\nand white stony shoots when taken out of the water (figure 29). 143 Maier tells\nus these examples are to be understood with the mind, and not only with the\nears - for Europe itself is akin to the fixed 'Lion Earth' of the alchemical\nvessel, which is not resolved into air, nor is it destroyed by the fiercest fire,\nbut in the likeness of gold maintains an equilibrium of forces and yields to no\nother power. 144\nFor all the magnificence of Europe, Maier says that he did not find anyone\nthere who could tell him something more certain about the phoenix and its\nmedicine; indeed, he encountered many people who would rather jest with\nhim than aid him by word or deed. Some tell him the thing which he seeks is\nnowhere to be found, and when he does find something it will not be what he\nexpects; they advise him to spare his labours, expenses and droning\nquestions, which are as insubstantial as Echo following Narcissus - the\nimplication being that Maier has fallen in love with the products of his own\nimagination. Others say that life is too short, and that a man will die before he\nfinds such secret and intricate things. 145 Nevertheless, in his reply to these\nnay-sayers Maier speaks of a certain allure that draws him on in the face of\nsuch doubts - and in so doing he reveals something of the psychology lying\nbehind his quest:\n142\nIbid.: \"In quibusdam Pannonia locis homines sub aquis habitare scribunt, quia ex aquis\ninduratis tophacei lapides concreverint: In montanis Carolinis aquae ferventes lapidescunt similiter.\"\n143\nIbid., p. 575: \"Quis non miretur succinum, lapidem pellucidum et odoriferum ex succis\nsubterraneis gigni et per maris fluctus littoribus appelli, ut in Sudavia, maritima\nBorussiae ora? Ne quid dicam de Corallis Siculi maris, ex vegetabili seu frutice\nindurescente extra aquam in lapideum rubrum vel album virgultum.\"\nIbid.: \"...sufficiat nobis Leoninam terram indicasse et intelligentibus, qui mente, non\nauribus solum nostra dicta capiunt, innuisse. Terra insuper ut in igne perdur\u00e2t, nec\nresolvitur in aerem, licet fiamma sit fortissima, sed Auri instar pretiosi, quibus libet\ninjuriis resistit, sic et Europa nostra suis potentiis aequata et serata, veluti Terminus\nDeorum antiquissimus, nulli cedit.\" The reference to 'Terminus' here is to the ancient\nRoman god of boundary stones.\n144\n145\nIbid.\u00b7. \"Multis perreptatis celebr ioribus locis in nullum incidere potui, qui de Phoenice\neiusque Medicina me certiorem faceret, Verum quamplurimos offendi, qui me veluti\nludentem operam et oleum luserint potius, quam iuverint verbis, multo minus rebus:\nQuod quaeris, dicebant, nusquam invenies, ac quod invenies, non est, quod quaeris:\nDeceptus es ab aliis, qui te, quod non est, indagare impulerunt: Parce labori, sumptui et\ninquisitioni vocalis sine pondere bombi, qui velut Echo te Narcissum proprii ingenii\nadmiratorem sequitur et ad omnia vocata, prout videntur, apta respondet, ad rem vero,\nquam inquir\u00eds, ineptissima: Nonnulli eorum, haec est res abstrusior et intricatior, aiebant,\nquem ut tibi, tuisque studiis conveniat: Demus enim, esse eiusmodi Medicinam ex\nPhoenice petendam, at hominis vita per se admodum brevis perit, antequam i n d a g e t e . \"\n\nPages 230:\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n221\nEven if truly I may not possess such great gifts, nevertheless I do not know by which\nbeckoning or command (surely divine, I believe) I am being swept into these troubles, at\nonce willing and unwilling, with the unwavering and preconceived hope that the sought\nmedicine will eventually be found through the benevolence of God. As any queen appears to\nher king, or a beautiful bride to her bridegroom, so this medicine is pleasing to me before all\ngood things in the world, and with a certain magnetic power it enchants and draws my mind\ntowards it, so that I might be willing to forego life, friends and family if I could hold it. 1 4 6\nMaier also defends his quest by stating that 'sweat' comes before virtue and\nfame, and \"rest from labour will be reached through the earth\": 147 another\nindication that his purifying peregrination through the world mirrors both the\ntransmutation in the vessel and the action of the cathartic Medicine itself.\nHaving gained no useful information concerning the phoenix in Europe,\nMaier travels to the Canary Islands where he witnesses a royal wedding\nvaguely akin to that portrayed in Andreae's Chymisches Hochzeit.148 From\nthere he sails onwards to America on a ship with an eagle at its prow. The\neagle is the symbol of St. John; yet its significance for Maier is also to be\nfound in the forty-sixth emblem and discourse of the Atalanta Fugiens, in\nwhich Maier speaks of two eagles circumnavigating the globe: one comes\nfrom the east, and one from the west, which together signify the two\nprinciples (masculine Sulphur and feminine Mercury) necessary for the\ncompletion of the work (figure 30). Maier also likens the eagle to the lapis\nphilosophorum because it is said to restore itself to youth by plunging itself\nthree times into a fountain. 149 In this way the eagle is linked with the cyclical\nprocesses in the vessel, in which the alchemical subject eventually returns\nto the point of origin, albeit in a purified and renewed state. In the course\nof his peregrination Maier also returns to the place of his departure by\ncircumnavigating the earth, a subject that figures prominently in the discourse\nof the 'sixth day' of his Septimana Philosophica. There it is said that\nColumbus, Americus and Magellan have fought the vast oceans in their quest\nfor new worlds, sailing \"with barely a hand's width between their lives and\ndeath;\" the latter encircled the entire globe (figure 31), thus overcoming\n146\n147\nIbid., p. 576: \"Etsi vero ego talia et tanta dona in me non agnoscam, tarnen nescio\nquo ductu aut nutu (credo, certe divino) in has difficultate nolens volens rapior,\nspe indubitata praeconcepta, me Medicamentum quaesitum tandem, ex Dei gratia\ninventurum esse: Cuilibet Regi ut sua Regina, aut sponso sponsa pulchra videtur, sic\nmihi haec Medicina prae omnibus mundi bonis arridet et magnetica quadam virtute\nmentem meam sibi fascinat et astringit, ut vita et amicis cognatisque carere velim, si ilia\ndebeam.\"\nIbid., pp. 576-577: \"Ratio est, quia pulchra difficilia, et sudor ante virtutem et gloriam\npositus sit: Per terram enim laboris tenditur ad quietem.\"\n148\nIbid., pp. 578-579.\n149\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 46.\n\nPages 231:\n222\nThe completion of the work\nhuman weakness through \"steadfastness and greatness of soul\" - a theme\nfamiliar to us from Maier's Ulysses.150\nIn accordance with this theme, Maier's crossing of the Atlantic is described as a journey by night through the dark surges of the ocean, in which\nperilous encounters with hurricanes and sea monsters mirror the black phase\nof the processes within the vessel. At length, however, he arrives at the\nshores of Brazil, \"a great province of America covered with unbroken\nforests,\" in which colonies are rare and men with knowledge of the liberal\narts such as Maier himself are entirely foreign. 151 Given that the natives of\nthat province have only recently received the art of reading and writing from\nthe Spanish, and hold it in low esteem as \"the betrayal of deeds,\" Maier\nwonders whom he might question concerning the phoenix. For although there\nare birds of many species and diverse colours in Brazil, he knows that the\nphoenix is of a different nature and is not to be found amongst them. In any\ncase, he takes to wandering through the fragrant and multi-coloured forests,\nwhere the flowers and trees refresh his eyes and the \"natural music\" of the\nbirds frees his mind from troubles.152 There he discovers an extraordinary and\nmarvellously elegant apple, on the side of which is the following inscription:\n150 Maier, Septimana Philosophica, pp. 199-200: \"Magna fuit hominum illorum audacia\nprudentiae coniuncta, qui, relicta terra, quae humanae genti incolenda concessa est, aliud\nelementum, utpote vastum ingressi Oceanum, compactis lignis seu navibus, vitam suam,\nut a morte vix palmum distarei, crediderunt, alium quo quaererent orbem, animalibus,\nhominibusque, veluti hunc, inhabitatum, quales fuere Columbus, Americus, et Magellanus; quorum primus novas \u00ednsulas invenit; alter Americam, de suo nomine sic dictam,\ndetexit et lustravit; tertius totum terrenum globum aquis undiquaque cinctum circumnavigavit, incredibili et pene humanam superante imbecillitatem magnanimitate et\nconstantia.\" Maier goes on to say that the physician is an explorer of the 'little world'\nthat is man, although he is not driven by greed for gold and the 'thirst of kings'; rather, it\nis his aim to remedy the evils and illnesses of humankind, a task which the eternal Son of\nGod perfected whilst living here on earth.\n151\n152\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 580: \"Fluctibus Oceani de nocte horribiliter nigricantibus emensis, multisque periculis a monstris marinis et adversis turbinibus ac\nprocellis inflictis, exantlatis; tandem ad Brasiliae littora laeti appulimus, quae magna\nProvincia est Americae nemoribus continuis repleta. Mapalia colonorum rara, rarissima\noppida, et homines a doctrinis liberalium artium alienissimi sunt.\"\nIbid., pp. 580-581: \"Quos hic, inquam, de arcanis naturae occultissimis consulam, ubi\nincolae pro miraculo non ita pridem habuerunt lectionem Epistolae ab Hispanis invicem\nscriptae et transmissae, putaruntque chartam loquacem et proditoriam factorum? Quem\nperconter de Phoenice avium omnium rarissima? Hoc quidem indubitatum est, volucres\ndiversorum generum et colorum ibi reperiri, quales non in his locis aut terrae partibus\nvisantur, verum cum Phoenix sit longe alterius naturae et proprietatis, non est qui ilium\ninter vulgares aves quaeramus. Nemora hic ex odoratis et variae coloratis arboribus sunt\nfrequentia, in quae dum meditationibus occupatus aliquando deambularem; partim ut\nlaetiori arborum florumque aspectu oculos reficerem, partim ut naturali avium cantillantium musica mentem a curis relaxarem...\"\n\nPages 232:\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n223\nWithin lies that which you may deliver to its grandmother,\nThence reappears the son which may enter the mother in embrace.\nAfter a little while it will be born again into an excellent tree,\nWhich will give to the farmer progeny with golden foliage. 1 5 3\nAfter pondering for a while over this little riddle, Maier realises that the apple\nmust come from the garden of the Hesperides, and that the grandmother in\nquestion is the earth - a line of reasoning familiar to us from the tale of\nDeucalion and Pyrrha in the Themis Aurea. Thus Maier plants a seed of the\nfruit in the earth, and after a short time a sapling grows up; then he looks\nnearby for another tree of the same genus (the mother) and grafts the two\ntogether. From this grafting there arises a more noble tree bearing the\nextraordinary fruit of the scion - an example, as Maier declares, of the\nperfection of Nature through art.154 Maier goes on to relate a similar story\nconcerning a sage who passed through the same region and taught the natives\nhow to breed mules from horses and asses; an allegory which serves to\ndemonstrate a natural or chemical law in the same manner as the tale of the\napple.155 For just as the leopard is born from the lioness and the panther (!),\nor new varieties of flowers are produced through interbreeding, so gold arises\nwhen Mercury is mixed with the Tincture or \"red metal powder\" in the fire.\nMaier's point here is to demonstrate that gold differs in kind from both its\nparents. 156\nBefore taking his leave of America, Maier takes a valuable piece of ebony\nas a souvenir; in describing its properties he cites the work of Nicolas\nBautista Monardes (c. 1508-1588), a physician of Seville who first brought\nknowledge of the medicinal virtues of plants in South and Central America to\nEurope. 157 Maier also relates that the natives of Peru are in possession of a\nmiraculous 'water' or aqua Americana which makes gold soft and malleable,\nyet does not burn the fingers - the reason, no doubt, why America answers to\nthe element of water in his schema.158\n153\nIbid., p. 581: \"Intus adest aviae, quod tradas, inde resurgens/ Filius, amplexus matris\ninire potest./ Inde renascetur paulo post nobilis arbor,/ Agricolae foetus quae dabit\nauricomos.\"\n154\nIbid.\nIbid., pp. 581-583.\nIbid., p. 583: \"Sunt nam qui dicant ex Pardo et Leaena sic generatum Leopardum, ex\nlupo et cane foemina, lyciscam, ex equo et asina hinnum seu mulam diversam a mulo;\nEx surculo seu ramulo unius arboris et trunco alterius illi, non huic similem arborem, ex\nfloribus certis coloribus mistis, alios flores coloratos, ex Tinctura seu pulvere metallico\nruberrimo cum argento vivo in igne mixto, aurum, quae nec huic, nec illi per oina est\nsimile, et sic de aliis censendum.\"\n155\n156\n157\nThe work Maier cites is the Historia Medicinal\nIndias Occidentales. Seville: Escrivano, 1574.\n158\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 583-584.\nde las cosas que se traen de\nnuestras\n\nPages 233:\n224\nThe completion of the work\nMaier sails on towards Asia on a ship with a white unicorn at its prow - a\nmedieval symbol for Christ - and by and by makes a landing in the Persian\nGulf. On account of the moistness and warmth of this region Maier associates\nit with the element of air, and speaks of it as the mediator between hot and\ndry Africa and the frigid north (a slight variation on the association of regions\nwith Aristotelian properties given in the Theses Summam Doctrinae de\nTemperamentis Corporis Humani).159 Upon his arrival Maier makes his way\ntowards Asia Minor, and to the place where Jason was said to have obtained\nthe Golden Fleece. Coming to the field of Mars, which was the site of\nthe palace of Jason's father-in-law \u00c4etes (a descendant of the Sun), Maier\nmeets an old man of venerable countenance with whom he strikes up a\nconversation. As this senex is clearly a wise and experienced man, Maier asks\nhim if the stories related in poems and histories concerning Jason and his\nGolden Fleece are in fact true, or vain and false; for as facts they detract from\nfaith, but as fictions they may at least represent moral expositions. 160 To this\nquestion the old man suddenly cries \"Behold, I am Jason!\", and proceeds to\nrelate the story of his quest for the Golden Fleece, which had been 'gilded' by\nMercury and hung in the grove of Mars by \u00c4etes. As a dragon had been set to\nguard the fleece, Jason had subdued it with a narcotic supplied by Medea; he\nthen sowed the dragon's teeth in ground tilled by fire-breathing bulls, whose\nfire he first extinguished by sprinkling \"the clearest dripping water\" into their\njaws. Whilst Maier was \"somewhat terrified\" by the old man's revelation,\nnevertheless he was told not to be afraid, as it appears that the Greek hero\nwas not in the habit of harming others, but rather sought to benefit them as a\ngood physician. 161 In this way Maier receives a confirmation of his chemical\ninterpretation of ancient myth - from the horse's mouth, as it were.\nIn time Maier journeys towards Ormuz (Jazireh-ye Hormoz) - a city on an\nisland in the Persian Gulf that in Maier's time was a major Portuguese\nconduit for the Indian spice trade. In that city, which as we might expect is\nfull of exotic fragrances, Maier becomes embroiled in the locals' quest for\nan 'earthly paradise', although he gathers little information from them\n159\n160\n161\nIbid., pp. 584-585.\nIbid., p. 586: \"Vellern autem lubens cognoscere, num ilia, quae de lasone, eiusque\nveliere Aureo a tot Poesis et historiis tradita, revera ita se habeant, an vero sint vana et\nfalsa, solummodo ad delectandos homines introducta et hue usque ad nos propagata?\nMulti enim his, ceu factis, fidem detrahunt, sed saltern ut fictis moralem expositionem\ninducunt.\"\nIbid., pp. 586-587: \"Ad quae ille renidens paululum, en ego, inquit, sum ipse Iason, de\nquo quaeris, qui tibi de me roganti omnium optime responsum dare ut possum, sic\npolliceor: Quo dicto, cum aliquantulum exhorrescerem, non est, ait ille, cur timeas; Ego\nenim et vivus nulli nocui, sed veluti Medicus bonus omnibus profui, sic nec vita\ndefunctus, quamvis revera mortuus non sim, sed fama, ut semper, vegetus et superstes.\"\n\nPages 234:\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n225\nconcerning its whereabouts. 162 Having crossed to the mainland of Persia he\ntravels by road until he comes to a fork in the way, where there stands a\nstatue of Mercury; like the \"man of silver who becomes a man of gold\" in the\nVisions of Zosimos, his body is made of silver and his head is golden, and\nwith his right arm he gestures towards the 'earthly paradise' which Maier\nseeks.163 Setting forth in this direction, Maier reaches a broad river - on the\nother shore lies a magnificent garden replete with the sound of birds, exotic\nfragrances, evergreen trees and flowers such as amaranths, lilies, roses and\nhyacinths. The parallels between the peregrination of the Allegoria Bella and\nMaier's own biography are demonstrated here when Maier also tells us he\ncould see an organ in the Edenic garden driven by a water-wheel and\nwindsocks, which gave forth wonderful multi-voiced melodies - a device that\nwas very similar to one he once saw near Florence.164 We may take this as\nanother indication that the peregrinatio acad\u00e9mica which Maier undertook\nsome twenty years earlier served as an important experiential source for the\npilgrimage described in the Allegoria Bella, as his only recorded visit to\nFlorence occurred on that journey. 165\nNevertheless, for want of a boat Maier is unable to cross the river to the\nearthly paradise, and so he decides to return to his quest for the phoenix,\nconfident in the knowledge that he will one day come back to this\nmagnificent place. In this passage we may see another reference to the\nsecluded alchemical garden with its roses and lilies - a symbol for the\nperfection of the work, in which things heavenly and earthly coalesce.\nNevertheless, in Maier's failure to reach his goal we may also see a very\nChristian allusion to the afterlife awaiting us when our earthly toils are at an\nend. Although the divine law of death and resurrection is to be observed in\nthe microcosm of the vessel, and the elixir vitae Maier sought to procure\npartakes of the divine nature and power in some lesser measure, we have seen\nthat Maier believed eternal life can ultimately be found only through our\ndeparture from this life. Thus the Edenic symbolism of the Allegoria Bella\nrecalls the passage in 1 Corinthians to which Maier alludes when describing\nthe Rosicrucian Brotherhood's Liber M. in the third chapter of the Themis\n162\n163\nIbid., pp. 591-592.\nIbid., p. 592; see Taylor, \"The Visions of Zosimos.\" A representation of the Work as a\nhuman figure with a golden head is to be found in the sixth parable and emblem of the\nSplendor Solis.\n164\nIbid., p. 593: \"Nec defuit Musica arte Instrumentalis, quae facta erat cum rota suis clavis\ndeprimente claviculas Organorum Musicorum, atque sic varias melod\u00edas 4 5 vel 6\nvocum, veluti digitis humanis, causante; follibus ventum afflantibus, dictaque rota a rivo\nquodam aquae perenni, motis et circumductis, quemadmo\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 218 to page 234 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 234 to page 251 out of a total of 334:\nPages 234:\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n225\nconcerning its whereabouts. 162 Having crossed to the mainland of Persia he\ntravels by road until he comes to a fork in the way, where there stands a\nstatue of Mercury; like the \"man of silver who becomes a man of gold\" in the\nVisions of Zosimos, his body is made of silver and his head is golden, and\nwith his right arm he gestures towards the 'earthly paradise' which Maier\nseeks.163 Setting forth in this direction, Maier reaches a broad river - on the\nother shore lies a magnificent garden replete with the sound of birds, exotic\nfragrances, evergreen trees and flowers such as amaranths, lilies, roses and\nhyacinths. The parallels between the peregrination of the Allegoria Bella and\nMaier's own biography are demonstrated here when Maier also tells us he\ncould see an organ in the Edenic garden driven by a water-wheel and\nwindsocks, which gave forth wonderful multi-voiced melodies - a device that\nwas very similar to one he once saw near Florence.164 We may take this as\nanother indication that the peregrinatio acad\u00e9mica which Maier undertook\nsome twenty years earlier served as an important experiential source for the\npilgrimage described in the Allegoria Bella, as his only recorded visit to\nFlorence occurred on that journey. 165\nNevertheless, for want of a boat Maier is unable to cross the river to the\nearthly paradise, and so he decides to return to his quest for the phoenix,\nconfident in the knowledge that he will one day come back to this\nmagnificent place. In this passage we may see another reference to the\nsecluded alchemical garden with its roses and lilies - a symbol for the\nperfection of the work, in which things heavenly and earthly coalesce.\nNevertheless, in Maier's failure to reach his goal we may also see a very\nChristian allusion to the afterlife awaiting us when our earthly toils are at an\nend. Although the divine law of death and resurrection is to be observed in\nthe microcosm of the vessel, and the elixir vitae Maier sought to procure\npartakes of the divine nature and power in some lesser measure, we have seen\nthat Maier believed eternal life can ultimately be found only through our\ndeparture from this life. Thus the Edenic symbolism of the Allegoria Bella\nrecalls the passage in 1 Corinthians to which Maier alludes when describing\nthe Rosicrucian Brotherhood's Liber M. in the third chapter of the Themis\n162\n163\nIbid., pp. 591-592.\nIbid., p. 592; see Taylor, \"The Visions of Zosimos.\" A representation of the Work as a\nhuman figure with a golden head is to be found in the sixth parable and emblem of the\nSplendor Solis.\n164\nIbid., p. 593: \"Nec defuit Musica arte Instrumentalis, quae facta erat cum rota suis clavis\ndeprimente claviculas Organorum Musicorum, atque sic varias melod\u00edas 4 5 vel 6\nvocum, veluti digitis humanis, causante; follibus ventum afflantibus, dictaque rota a rivo\nquodam aquae perenni, motis et circumductis, quemadmodum prope Florentiam Italiae\nin Pratolino olim vidimus et audivimus.\"\n165\nMaier, De Medicina Regia, p. Aii recto.\n\nPages 235:\n226\nThe completion of the work\nAurea: \"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now I\nknow in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known.\" 166\nThe frustration of Maier's attempt to reach the 'earthly paradise' prefigures the outcome of his quest for the phoenix, which next takes him to the\npenultimate destination of his journey, 'hot and dry' Africa which answers to\nthe element of fire. Maier's point of arrival is Eritrea, which he reaches by\ncrossing the Red Sea from Arabia when \"the sun has entered Leo for the\nsecond time, and the moon is holding in the height of the house of Cancer;\"\nmore than a year had elapsed since his departure from Europe, and the\nastrological signs seemed to augur well for him. 167 Maier begins the tale of\nhis adventures in Africa by giving a description of a number of fabulous\nanimals and semi-humans that live there; he also tells us that in the region by\nthe Red Sea there dwells the 'Ortus':\nIn the same place close to the Eritrean sea a certain wild animal has been seen, called the\nOrtus, which has a red head with golden lines extending all the way to the neck, black eyes,\nwhite forefeet, blacker hindfeet, and a white face up to the cheeks. Whilst I was engaged in\nmeditation on the exterior form of this creature, it occurred to me that the words of Avicenna\nthe philosopher appear to concern an animal which is in all ways similar: namely, \"What is\nthat thing, whose head is red, feet white and eyes black? That is the magistery.\" 168\nThis creature does not seem to appear in the Hieroglyphics of Horapollo or\nthe bestiaries which Maier drew upon when compiling his Tractatus de\nVolucri Arborea-, nevertheless, some clue as to the significance of the beast's\nname is given by the meaning of the Latin word ortus: variously 'a rising of\nthe heavenly bodies', an 'origin' and 'a springing up' or 'growth'. Like the\nmulti-coloured statue of Mercury this beast recalls the vitalistic fantasy\nrepresented in the fourth parable and corresponding emblem of the sixteenth\ncentury Splendor Solis, in which we see a humanoid figure with a red head\nand right arm, white left arm and black body emerging from a muddy swamp\nand accompanied by the caption, \"it is a living thing that dies no more, for\nit is endowed with everlasting increase.\" 169 Maier's Ortus represents the\n166\n1 Corinthians 13.12.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 594: \"Cum in Africain appulissem, integro exacto\nanno et eo amplius, iam Sol iterum Leonem ingressus fuerat, Luna tenente Cancrum sui\ndomicilii fastigium, quod magnam mihi spem optimi augurii fecit.\"\n168\nIbid., pp. 594-595: \"Ibidem iuxta Erythraeum mare fera quaedam visa est, ORTUS\nnomine, cuius caput rubeum lineis aureis ad cervicem usque pertinentibus, oculi nigri et\npedes, praesertim priores, albi, posteriores nigriores, os usque ad genas candidum, fuere:\nCuius exterioris formae consideratione dum detineor, occurrit, philosophi Avicennae\ndictum, quod de consimili animali videtur intelligi; nempe, Res, cuius caput rubeum est,\net pedes albi et oculi nigri, quid est? Hoc est magisterium.\"\n169\nSalomon Trismosin. Splendor Solis. Trans. Joscelyn Godwin, with an introduction and\ncommentary by Adam McLean. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Phanes Press, 1991, p. 36.\n167\n\nPages 236:\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n227\nprogressive perfection of organic forms, in which the head as the centre of\nthe most refined spiritus corresponds to the final phase of the work arising\nfrom the inferior, black and earthy parts of the body.\nIn a cave in the vicinity of the Red Sea there also lives the Erythraean (i.e.\nEritrean) Sibyl - the pagan prophetess who, according to certain of the\nChurch Fathers, predicted the coming of Christ.170 Having heard of her\npresence there, Maier decides to pay her a visit in order to learn more from\nher concerning the whereabouts of the phoenix, and whether its feathers\ndo indeed constitute a cure for anger and grief. Although she is somewhat\nstartled by Maier's arrival and castigates him for approaching a lone virgin\nthus, the Sibyl consents to tell him what she knows. She begins her discourse\nby stating that the very land in which Maier now stands is the birthplace of\nthe phoenix, and she goes on to describe the bird in order that Maier may\nbetter apprehend it:\nIn ancient times felicitous Arabia and its neighbour Egypt rejoiced in this bird, the neck of\nwhich is of flashing gold, the body is covered with purple feathers, and on the head there is a\ncrest like a crown. It is sacred to the sun, and it lives 660 years; at which time, with old age\napproaching, it constructs a nest with twigs of cinnamon and frankincense which it fills with\nfragrance. Then it stirs up flames by shaking its wings towards the sun's rays, and is burnt to\nashes. Out of these ashes there is produced a worm, and from thence a little bird, which gives\nits father a proper funeral by carrying the entire nest to Heliopolis in Egypt, the city sacred to\nthe sun also known as Thebes, and there places it upon an altar. Those who regard this as a\ncomplete fantasy show themselves to be children and poor judges of things; those who take it\nto be historical fact just as the words sound are deceived by their judgement. For these things\nare Hieroglyphs and are spoken more to the mind than the ears, and are written to the mind\nrather than the eyes by means of certain figures and pictures like letters, which are said to be\nsacred. If you have no faith in my judgment alone on this matter, you should consult the\nEgyptian author Horus Apollo, amongst others... 171\n170\nAugustine. \"City of God.\" In The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 24. Washington: Catholic\nUniversity of America Press, 1954, pp. 114 ff. See also Theophilus and Lactantius; and\nEusebius, from whom Maier quotes when introducing the Sibyl.\n171\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 598: \"Arabia felix, eique adjacens Aegyptus\nantiquitus hac gaudebat volucri, cuius collum aureus fulgor, reliquum corpus purpureus\ncolor in pennis cinxit: In capitibus crista, coronae instar, visa est: Soli sacra avis vivit\nannos 660 ad quam aetatem cum pervenerit senescens, casia thurisque surculis construit\nnidum, quem odoribus replet, conquassatisque ad solis radios alis flammam excit\u00e2t, qua\ncomburitur in cinerem: Ex hoc deinde prodit vermiculus et inde pullus, qui priori ceu\npatri lunera iusta reddens, totum nidum defert in urbem Aegypti Heliopolim Soli sacram,\nalias Thebas dictam, ibique in ara deponit. Hoc, qui pro fabula omnino habent, pueri et\niniqui rerum aestimatores videntur, qui pro historia, ut verba sonant, facta, et illi\nfalluntur suo iudicio. Hieroglyphica enim sunt haec et menti potius dictantur, quam\nauribus, inscribunturque potius, quam oculis per certas figuras et picturas, quasi literas,\nquas sacras vocant: Qua de re si mihi fidem soli non adhibes, consule inter caeteros\nOram Apollinem Aegyptium scriptorem...\"\n\nPages 237:\n228\nThe completion of the work\nThe Sibyl then cites the words of Horapollo in his Hieroglyphics, which\ninterestingly are at variance with both the account of Pliny she had just\ndelivered and the account of the Hieroglyphics given in Hoeschel's 1595\nedition of that work: for the Sibyl states that the phoenix flies to Heliopolis\nwhen it is 500 years old, and if it reaches that city before it dies it is\n\"cared for mystically\" by the Egyptians. Although Hoeschel's edition merely\nmentions that when the phoenix dies \"it is buried with great solemnity and\nritual,\" the reasoning behind the 'mystical' wording of the Sibyl's account is\nclear; for she goes on to tell Maier that \"these words are enough to teach you\nthat the phoenix was understood mystically by the Egyptians, just as it was\ncared for 'mystically'.\" 172\nThis 'mystical' significance of the phoenix becomes apparent when Maier\nis directed by the Erythr\u0153an Sybil to the seven mouths of the Nile, the\ndwelling-place of Mercury himself, who has \"the power to show you\nthe phoenix and the Medicine derived from it.\" 173 In using the Christprophesying Sybil to demonstrate the path to the phoenix in this way, it is\nclear that Maier understands the fabled bird as a symbol for both the\nalchemical Universal Medicine and Christ, whose life-giving power of\nrenewal was manifested not only in His passion and resurrection, but also in\nthe resurrection of those saved by Him. Thus, whilst en route to the mouths\nof the Nile, Maier passes by a famous hill where the bodies of a number of\nChristian martyrs are interred. We are told that on a certain day in May\nbetween the rising of the sun and midday the skeletons buried there rise up\ntowards the surface of the earth until they are visible, then sink back into the\nearth as the sun wanes. Maier declares that those who might call this event\ndiabolical rather than divine are impious, for they deny the will of the free\nand omnipotent God; furthermore, such a miracle presents evidence for the\n172\nIbid., p. 598: \"...'Phoenicem post quingentesimum annum, cum iam est morti propinqua,\nin Aegyptum remeare, ac si praeveniat ante obitum curari mystice ab Aegyptiis, et\nquaecunque aliis sacris animalibus tribuunt, haec et Phoenici omnia deberi: Gaudet enim\nsole maxime Phoenix in Aegypto praecipue, ut pote illic vehementi.' Haec Ori verba te\nsatis erudiunt, quod mystice accipiatur Phoenix ab Aegyptiis, prout mystice curatur.\"\nHoeschel's 1595 edition runs as follows: \"Haec enim in Aegyptum, cum tempus mortis\ninstat, quingent\u00e9simo demum anno regreditur: ubi si naturae debitum persolverit, magna\nsolennitate ac ritu funeratur. Quaecunque enim in caeteris sacris animantibus religiose\nobservant Aegyptii, ea et Phoenici tribui debent. Fertur siquidem Sole magis apud\nAegyptios gaudere, quam apud caeteras gentes.\" Hieroglyphica Horapollinis. Trans.\nDavid Hoeschel. Augustae Vindelicorum: n.p., 1595, p. 44. For an English translation of\nthis passage, see Boas, George. The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo. Princeton: Princeton\nUniversity Press, 1993, p. 61.\n173\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 599: \"Pater enim filio dedit potestatem monstrandi\ntibi Phoenicem et ex ea petendam Medicinam.\"\n\nPages 238:\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n229\nresurrection of the body at Judgment Day, \"just as the new phoenix arises\nfrom the ashes of the dead.\" 174\nWhen Maier finally arrives at the Nile he finds his quest for Mercury\nfrustrated at every juncture, as the inhabitants of the delta that once cradled\nthe Great Library of Alexandria are sunk in a barbarous and abject state.\nNevertheless, this is the place of which Zosimos once wrote:\nGo to the waters of the Nile; there you will find a stone which has a spirit; take it, cut it in\ntwo; put your hand in its interior and draw out the heart: because its soul is in its heart. 1 7 5\nMaier's point of arrival at the Nile is Canopus (i.e. modern Abu Qir on the\noutskirts of Alexandria), where he hears that Hermes once said Egypt\n174\nIbid., p. 600: \"Ad Canopicum primo me contuli, in qua via per collem sepulturae\nChristianorum a barbaris ibi quondam occisorum insignem profectus sum, cuius loci\nannua miracula, relatu dignissima, hie praeterire nequeo: Num certo quodam die Mensis\nMaii cadavera seu ossa sepultorum ab oriente sole usque in meridiem sensim ad\nsuperficiem usque tumbae elevantur ex sese, donee in conspectum eo concurrentium\nhominum devenerint, alicubi magis, alibi minus, tum a meridie versus occasum solis\neodem modo deprimuntur, donee omnia ad pristinum statum redierint: Quae si quis\nnon divina virtute, sed diabolica prorsus fieri affirmet, videat ne a superstitione\nnimium discedendo ad incredulitatem seu impietatem inclinet, Deique omnipotentiae\net liberrimae voluntati haec aut his similia miraculosa facta deneget ac subtrahat: Haec\nsi vera sunt, ut testantur multi, qui viderunt, suis scriptis publicatis, Resurrectionis\ncorporum humanorum evidentissimum exemplar exhibent, quemadmodum quoque Phoenicis novi ex ci\u00f1ere mortui resuscitatio.\" Tertullian also used the phoenix as a symbol for\nthe resurrection of the body in his On the Resurrection of the Flesh, ch. 13: \"What can\nbe more express and more significant for our subject; or to what other thing can such a\nphenomenon bear witness? God even in His own Scripture says: \"The righteous shall\nflourish like the phoenix;\" that is, shall flourish or revive, from death, from the grave to teach you to believe that a bodily substance may be recovered even from the fire.\"\nHowever, the reference in the gospel of Matthew to which Tertullian refers only\nmentions a palm tree - a symbol associated with the phoenix.\n175\nZosimos of Panopolis. \"Concerning Virtue and its Interpretation.\" In Berthelot,\nCollection des Anciens Alchimistes Grecs, p. 129: \"Va vers le courant du Nil; tu\ntrouveras l\u00e0 une pierre ayant un esprit; prends-la, coupe-la en deux; mets ta main dans\nl'int\u00e9rieur et tires-en le c\u0153ur: car son \u00e2me est dans son c\u0153ur;\" the saying is attributed by\nZosimos to 'Ostanes'. Budge once argued that the very term 'alchemy' is ultimately\nEgyptian in origin, deriving from an ancient name for Egypt, 'Qemt' - a word meaning\n'black' on account of the dark mud of the Nile's floodplains. According to Greek\nwriters, quicksilver was utilised by Egyptian metalsmiths to separate gold and silver\nfrom the native ore, from which process there was produced a dark powder or substance.\nNot only was this powder believed to possess the individuality of the various metals; it\nwas also identified with the body of Osiris during his journey to the underworld, and was\nheld to possess life-giving powers. From the word 'Qemt' came the Greek 'Khemeia', or\n'preparation of the black powder', to which the Arabs added the article 'al-'. Budge, Sir\nE. A. Wallis. Egyptian Magic. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. Ltd., 1899,\npp. 19-20.\n\nPages 239:\n230\nThe completion of the work\nsignifies the heavens, and that the seven mouths of the Nile refer to the seven\nplanets; the Canopic mouth answers to the highest of the planets, Saturn, and\nas Mercury is his grandson Maier is told to look for him in another mouth of\nthe Nile. 176 Given the correspondence of the planets to the metals, this\nallusion shows the reader of the Allegoria Bella that Maier's passage through\nthe delta is akin to the progress of metallic development in the womb of the\nearth, and that Maier has begun his journey at Saturn or lead - which as\nRhazes stated is the \"first gate to the arcana.\" 177\nNevertheless, upon searching all the other mouths of the Nile - the\nBolbitic, Sebbenitic, Pelusian, Tanitic, Phanitic and Mendesian - the\ndwelling of the elusive Mercury is nowhere to be found, and the inhabitants\nare equally elusive in their answers to Maier's queries. Whilst the Sibyl had\nissued a warning that Mercury has no 'fixed' habitation, and is to be found in\ndifferent places at different times, Maier begins to believe that she has\ndeceived him out of some hatred for strangers, and thrown him into this\n'labyrinth' in order to lead him around with the false hope of reward. 178\nSimilarly, it seems to him that the deceptions of the delta's inhabitants are\nalso born of some loathing of foreigners; but considering this matter\ncarefully, he decides to follow the opposite of their advice, and begins to\nretrace his steps towards the Canopic mouth. Before reaching that mouth he\nfinally finds Mercury in a place where the inhabitants had previously said he\nwas not to be seen - in all likelihood the fifth Tanitic mouth, which\ncorresponds to the fourth planet from Saturn (i.e. Mercury) in Maier's\ncosmology, and where the locals had actively denied Mercury's presence\nrather than disowning any knowledge of the matter. 179\nHaving received instructions from Mercury (about whose visage nothing\nis said), the time is ripe for the fulfilment of Maier's destiny as it was\nprefigured in the augury of his birth. However, when he finally arrives at the\nabode of the phoenix, he finds it has \"gone abroad\" for a few weeks, and so\n176\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, pp. 600-601.\nSee above, p. 42.\n178\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 603: \"Atque sic Septem ex ordine Nili ostiis\nperlustratis, quem quaesivi, cum non offenderim, deceptum me a Sibylla arbitratus sum,\nquae saltern in hosce labyrinthos iniecerit, ut animum falsa spe lactatum circumduceret,\nforte ex invidia aut odio erga al\u00edenos praeconcepto.\"\n179\nIbid.: \"Verum cum singula, quae contigerant in itinere, revolverem; me forte ab\ninquilinis quorumcunque locorum pessime deceptoria responsione circumventum conjectavi, ea ratione quod innata quadam ferocia omnes peregrinos fastidirent ac odissent:\nIdeoque quid circa primum, secundum ac tertium, aliaque ostia, ab illis responsum fuerit,\nbene consideravi, ex quibus quam plurima occurrerunt, quae dubium ante conceptum\naugerent potius, quam eximerent: Unde retorsum vestigia relegendo ab ultimo versus\nprimum regressus sum, ac tandem antequam ad primum redierim Mercurium inveni, in\naliquo ostiorum, ubi incolae visi essent antea negasse.\"\n177\n\nPages 240:\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n231\nhe returns empty-handed to Europe. The phoenix has taken flight - just as a\ndove once flew beyond the grasp of Maier's mother's hands - and the oftrepeated warning of the alchemists has been realised: when the seeker thinks\nthe Art is finally perfected, \"he will find nothing in his hands.\" Nevertheless,\nin one of Maier's typically enigmatic and witty asides, we are told that the\nphoenix is absent because it has been \"appointed arbiter between the owl and\nthe other birds attacking her, which conflict we have elsewhere put on\nrecord\" - an oblique reference to the 'Rosicrucian' Owl and its detractors\ndescribed in Maier's Jocus Severus.m In his lengthy analysis of the Allegoria\nBella Carl Gustav Jung found it tragic that, at the end of his long journey,\nMaier was left with nothing but a feather, i.e. \"his own quill pen.\" 181 But for\nthose of Maier's readers well acquainted with the Hieroglyphics of\nHorapollo, it is clear that the author has found the phoenix in the face of its\nvery absence. For in allowing the Erythraean Sibyl to give voice to\nHorapollo's pronouncements on the phoenix, Maier has nevertheless\nwithheld the crux of that particular passage, which is the significance of the\nhieroglyph and the key to Maier's allegory - \"to indicate a traveller who\nreturns from a long journey to his native land, again do the Egyptians draw a\nphoenix.\" 182\nApart from offering concise insight into the nature of Maier's spiritual\nalchemy, the Allegoria Bella sets forth that admixture of vitalism, solar\nmysticism and pietist Christian sentiments that is so characteristic of Maier's\nthought. Although we must continue to designate Maier's doctrines as\n'pseudo-Egyptian' due to the transformation of Egyptian religion by both\nancient and Renaissance Neoplatonism, his works display a very Egyptian\nand pagan fascination with gold, the sun and eternal life. In other passages in\nthe Hieroglyphics of Horapollo from which Maier does not quote, the\nphoenix is also said to denote the sun, the immortality of the soul and a 'long\nenduring restoration', \"for when this bird is born, there is a renewal of\nthings.\" 183 Despite the Neoplatonising nature of the Hieroglyphics, these\nmeanings are congruent with ancient Egyptian depictions of the phoenix or\nbennu, which show the bird as a type of heron with two long feathers\nstreaming from the back of its head, and which associate it with the rising\n180\nIbid., p. 603-604: \"Phoenicem inprimis demonstravit, ubi conveniri deberet, quem in\nloco, de quo ne cogitassem antea latere apertissime narravit, quo cum pervenissem, meo\ninfortunio, exierat foras, (forte tum Arbiter constitutus inter Noctuam et volucres alias\nearn insectantes, de quo praelio alibi tradidimus) at post aliquot dies, paucasue septimanas rediturus.\"\n181\nJung, Psychology and Alchemy, p. 431.\n182\nHorapollo, Hieroglyphica\nHorapollinis, p. 44: \"Quin et eum innuentes, qui longo\ntempore peregrinatus tandem in solum natale remeet, rursum Phoenicem avem pingunt.\"\n183\nIbid., pp. 42-44, 96.\n\nPages 241:\nThe completion of the work\n232\nsun. Hieroglyphic inscriptions speak of the phoenix as \"the soul of Ra\" and\n\"the heart of the renewed Ra;\" the Papyrus of Ani also relates the creature to\nthe cult of the resurrected Osiris, and Egyptian funerary trappings represent\nthe deceased with the words \"I am in the form of the phoenix.\" 184 In this\nway the phoenix represents a typically pagan concern with natural cyclical\nprocesses of ebb and flow, death and resurrection - processes that appear to\nhave first given rise to the association of the bennu with the returning sun in\nancient Egypt, as the meaning of the \"returning traveller\" given by Horapollo\nderives from the said heron's periodic migrations. 185 When we view these\nfacts in light of Maier's discourse in the Allegoria Bella on the \"model of\nperegrination\" set for man by birds and the sun,186 it is clear that for all\nMaier's errors the ethos of the Egyptian cults was not entirely lost to him.\nAs we have seen, Maier did not consider his 'true home' to be Europe, or\neven his native Holstein. Maier's homecoming came when death overtook\nhim as he was returning to Holstein, i.e. through another frustration of his\nearthly designs, a fate that seems to have been prefigured in the alchemical\naugury appearing at his birth. After the many years he had spent in foreign\nlands 'perfecting' his unattainable Art, living amongst strangers as hostile to\nhis quest as the inhabitants of the Nile delta in the Allegoria Bella, the spirit\nof this 'long-absent traveller' had finally returned to its origins. This is the\n'rotation of the circle' of which Maier spoke in his De Circulo Physico,\nQuadrato, the cyclical return to the beginning in the great vessel that is God's\nCreation - for just as the spiritus descended as a dove at Maier's birth, so it\nascended at death as Maier returned to his true heavenly home. All things\nstem from God, and all return to God; the spiritus moves through the sun to\ngold and the human heart, and then returns again to its source. Alternatively,\nit is the 'return to the Monad' of the Atalanta Fugiens, the 'unity and eternal\npeace' following the purification of the matter in the vessel - \"make a circle\nout of a man and a woman, derive from it a square, and from the square a\ntriangle: make a circle again and you will have the Philosophers' Stone.\"\n184\n185\n186\nCook, Albert Stanburrough. The Old English Elene, Ph\u0153nix and Physiologus. New\nHaven: Yale University Press, 1919, pp. xxxviii ff.\nIbid., p. xxxix; according to Cook, the etymological origin of bennu lies in a root verb\nmeaning 'to turn'.\nSee above, p. 56.\n\nPages 242:\nVI. Conclusion: Maier and the historiography of alchemy\n1. Piety and the coniunctio\noppositorum\nLet us now return to the conjectures of Principe and Newman, and in\nparticular to their argument that the notions of piety and \"exhortations to\nmorality\" to be found in the literature are epiphenomena with little or no\nrelation to the central goal of the early modern alchemist, who merely worked\non \"material substances towards material goals.\"1 As we have seen in our\nanalysis of the life and work of a significant laboratory worker and influential\nwriter on the nature of alchemical Decknamen, notions of morality held an\nimportant place in the early modern medical worldview. This holds true not\nonly for Maier, but also for other alchemists of his time, such as Raphael\nEglinus, Oswald Croll, Joseph Duchesne and Heinrich Noll. 2 In Maier's eyes\ndisease was closely associated with impiety and a sinful lifestyle; and the\nUniversal Medicine which he strove to uncover imparted 'temperance' to the\nhuman body, a term which refers simultaneously to a somatic and a psychic\nor moral state. The imbalance of humours in the body that Maier sought to\ntreat was the direct result of overindulgence in sensual pleasures, such as the\ndrinking of alcohol, sexual debauchery and gluttony. Likewise, impious urges\nsuch as anger are the result of just such a disequilibrium in the four bodily\nfluids, which may be remedied by the temperance-imparting lapis just as\nmetals may gain a more perfect proportion or balance of opposing elements.\nFurthermore, the operation of Maier's alchemical remedies depends upon the\n'virtue' of divine origins inhering in the rays of the sun, be it directly\nreceived or reflected; and in the term virtus itself we may also see something\nof the holistic sense that has been largely lost to contemporary science, i.e.\nthe dual meaning of 'strength' or 'power' and 'moral virtue'. Hence the\nrelation of the body to the princely state in Maier's work, and the nature of\nhis appeals to the patronage of his Calvinist master in the De Circulo\nPhysico, Quadrato.\nCentral though piety was to Maier's alchemical physic, there is nothing\nin this fact per se which would justify the application to his work of the\nphrase 'spiritual alchemy' as we have defined it. Nevertheless, in Maier's\n1\n2\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 397.\nOn this point see Moran, Alchemical World of the German Court, pp. 122-125.\n\nPages 243:\n234\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nwork alchemical Decknamen refer not only to chemical processes narrowly\nconceived in the manner of Principe and Newman, but also to a process of\npersonal transmutation from a base, earthly state into \"a more noble, more\nspiritual, more moral, or more divine state\" - i.e., a 'spiritual alchemy'. Thus\nMaier believed that he was \"destined to imitate the natural succession of\nelements\" to be observed within the vessel, moving from a denser 'earthly'\nstate to a finer 'spiritual' state.3 From the perspective of the history of\nideas, these sentiments are a natural extension of the Hermetic theory of\nmicrocosmic-macrocosmic correspondence, and the traditional alchemical\nconception of an agent able to transmute metals and humans alike; in Maier's\ntime they were fortified on the one hand by the Protestant emphasis on\nreflexivity and the religion of the individual, and on the other by pansophic\nconcerns with the integration of disparate fields in a unified science. Whilst\nNewman has briefly considered in his work the court of Rudolf II, the centre\nof pansophic thought in the early modern period, it is only to state that \"the\ncult of emblems\" adhered to by Maier encouraged the trend of employing\n'verbal conceits' and 'tropes' current in medieval European alchemy!4 In\nthe pansophist imagination, the relation of the processes in the alembic to\nsoteriological and spiritual matters was one of correspondence, and not\nmerely didactically employed analogy. Indeed, when reading Maier's works\none has the sense that the underlying reality of the cosmos is 'chemical' in\nhis eyes, and that 'chemical' research was concerned with uncovering laws\nwhich govern all aspects of the macrocosm and the microcosm \u2014 including\nthe life of the soul.\nWhilst Jung's ahistorical methodology failed to expose the integral\nrelation of laboratory practice with 'spiritual' alchemical notions of the transformation of the psyche or soul, we have seen that in Maier's work the one\nemerges from and complements the other. On the one hand, Maier hoped to\nachieve something of a moral transformation in his patients through the\napplication of his cathartic, purgative medicine; more importantly, however,\nit was precisely the hopeless quest for the Philosophers' Stone that formed\nthe black phase of the work that was Maier's life, a peregrination in search of\nthe arcana in which a finer spirit was distilled through the trials and\nseductions of earthly existence. In this sense Maier's thought conforms to the\nethos of the later German Romantics, who utilised the alchemical symbol of\nthe blue flower to signify an elusive wisdom that withers away before it can\nbe grasped. Herein lies the most profound expression of the alchemical\n3\n4\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 572: \"Cur vero hune ordinem suscipiendi itineris de\nuna parte in aliam transeundi, animo praeconceperim, haec causa sufficiens mihi visa est,\nquod naturalem elementorum seriem, qua ilia ex crassis in subtilia, ex ponderosis in levia\nmigrant, imitari debeam.\"\nNewman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" pp. 162-163.\n\nPages 244:\nChymia and alchemici\n235\nconiunctio oppositorum; for Maier's great and fruitless labour to reach the\neighteenth rung of the alchemical ladder, and the sometimes inglorious and\nnear-fraudulent means he employed to extract gold from his patrons and\npatients, formed the means of knowing \"the nature of this transitory life, and\nthe nature of the everlasting happiness to come.\" Whosoever denies the\nlessons imparted by the liber mundi, Maier writes, is in need of \"a dose of\nHellebore.\" 5\n2. Chymia and alchemici\nGiven that Maier names his own Art chemia or chymia and uses alchemia in\nreference to the work of those vulgar practitioners and Betr\u00fcger who have\nbrought the true Art of transmutation into disrepute, should we dispense with\nthe term 'alchemy' when describing his work? Or should we dispense with\nthe term altogether when referring to the early modern period, as Principe and\nNewman recommend? Whilst these authors have shown that a clear and\nconsistent distinction between the terms alchemia and chemia did not appear\nuntil the anti-chrysopoeian Lemery elaborated upon Ruland's mistaken\netymology in the late seventeenth century, Maier was already distinguishing\nbetween the two terms on the basis of charlatanism by the early seventeenth\ncentury. In itself this fact suggests that the eventual widespread distinction\nbetween the two terms - the one referring to the procurement of the\nlapis philosophorum, the other to a chemical research rejecting metallic\ntransmutation and the feasibility of an elixir vitae - was not merely the result\nof an etymological error, but may also have emerged through earlier attempts\nto distinguish unlearned from legitimate chemical research. Maier's\ndiscarding of the term alchemia in favour of chemia is in accord with the\nrationalising aspect of his work, and may indicate that the exotic otherness\nimparted by the Arabic definite article 'al' was beginning to be associated in\nhis time with equally outlandish and spurious claims (hence the widespread\nseventeenth century misunderstanding of 'al' as signifying the 'great' or\n'sublime' nature of the Art).6 Whatever the case may be, with the progressive\n'disenchantment of the world' associated with the rise of modernity the term\nalchemia became associated exclusively with transmutational pursuits\nexcluded from the domain of 'legitimate' chemical research.\nIn her study of Maier's Atalanta Fugiens de Jong has also made note of\nthe fact that Maier eschewed the term 'alchemy' in favour of chemia or\n5\nSee above, chapter V, n. 15; Hellebore was a plant with violent emetic and cathartic\nproperties much used by the ancients as a remedy for mental disease; it has been used as\na term of invective through the centuries.\n6\nC.f. Principe and Newman, \"Alchemy vs. Chemistry,\" passim.\n\nPages 245:\n236\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nchymia in his work; nevertheless, she continues to use the term herself\nbecause Maier draws from sources prior to the widespread emergence of the\nterm chymia, and because his iatrochemical goals bear a strong resemblance\nto those of his medieval predecessors (i.e. the production of a Universal\nMedicine which imparts its virtue to metals and the human body alike).7 It\nbehoves us to follow this sound reasoning when considering the continuity\nexisting between Maier's work and subsequent esoteric pursuits sequestered\nfrom the scientific mainstream in the course of the eighteenth century. If we\nwere to cease utilising the term 'alchemy' in favour of chymia on the grounds\nthat such use would constitute a 'presentisi' projection of contemporary\ncategories into a time when they did not exist, we would be left with a\nmedieval 'alchemy', an early modern chymia, and a modern 'alchemy', with\nno sense left of the clear ideological continuity between them. Likewise, the\nterm 'alchemy' could not be applied to the pre-Arabic pursuit of metallic\nand spiritual transmutation. Given these difficulties inherent in Principe and\nNewmans' proposal, one may legitimately speak of Maier's place in an\nesoteric tradition of 'alchemy'; for just as the retrospectively-constructed\nterm 'humanism' would have proved a strange conception in the Renaissance\nand early modern periods, so the term 'alchemy' - whilst possessing negative\nconnotations in Maier's work - is indispensable as a category in the history\nof Western esotericism. In making sense of the alchemical past we cannot\nfail to be 'presentisi', as our own schismatic understanding of science and\nreligion is grounded in developments which were nascent in the early modern\nera but which had not fully crystallised by that time.\nOn this count there can be no doubt that Maier stood at a crossroad in the\nhistory of ideas, as Jung suggested; for whilst the rationalising elements\npresent in his work led Peuckert to speak of Maier's \"philosophy of the\nlaboratory\" which \"must lead in the end to Newton,\" 8 it is also clear that the\nspiritual alchemy, vitalism, pietism and pseudo-Egyptianism drawn from his\nwork by the eighteenth century Gold- und Rosenkreutz lay on the wrong side\nof the Aufkl\u00e4rung (a fact demonstrated by that Order's inter-Masonic conflict\nwith the Illuminati). But of course, in the eyes of Principe and Newman there\nis no continuity between early modern laboratory alchemy and the later\nesoteric traditions, as the alchemical Decknamen of the seventeenth century\nbecame 'meaningless' in the hands of the secret societies.9\n7\n8\n9\nde Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, p. 11.\nPeuckert, Pansophie (1936 edition), pp. 107-108.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 387.\n\nPages 246:\nThe 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\n237\n3. The 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\nIn order to offer a corrective to this claim, let us proceed to chart the history\nof the reception of Maier's thought amongst later writers. When delving\nthrough this history and uncovering the myriad verdicts pronounced concerning the value of Maier's labour or the moral standing of this man, it must\nbe said that a mercurial figure emerges. Maier has been the subject of a\nspate of recent academic studies, many of which have focussed on his work\nof multimedia, the Atalanta Fugiens, which has been described as \"the\nstrangest, the most beautiful and the most innovative work of esoteric\nalchemy in the seventeenth century.\" 10 Maier has also figured in recent works\nof popular fiction, in which he has been playfully portrayed as the erstwhile\ncorrespondent of John Dee, or the purveyor of an elusive wisdom. 11 Amongst\nProtestant writers of the last century the judgment was mixed; thus Montgomery perceived in Maier's work inclinations towards \"an existential Christ\nmysticism,\" yet the Reverend Craven felt that Maier's desire for \"earthly\nriches\" led him away from \"higher studies.\"12 And in the esoteric circles of\ncontemporary Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, Maier is accepted as an\ninitiate of the mysteries and a representative of the 'Tradition', even if his\nenigmatic style has eluded some writers.13\nThe conception of a Tradition prevalent in contemporary esoteric circles\nstems in part from the Renaissance, and the attempt to identify the chain of\n10\nKindlers Literatur Lexikon. Vol. 8. Weinheim: Zweiburgen Verlag, 1982, p. 10478; in\naddition to those works already cited above, we may mention M\u00f6dersheim, Sabine.\n\"Mater et Matrix: Michael Maiers alchimistische Sinnbilder der Mutter.\" In Mutter und\nM\u00fctterlichkeit:\nWandel und Wirksamkeit einer Phantasie in der deutschen\nLiteratur.\nW\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigshausen und Neumann, 1996, pp. 31-56; Rebotier, Jacques. \"La\nMusique Cach\u00e9e de \u0393 Atalanta Fugiens,\" Chrysopoeia, Vol. 1, 1987, pp. 56-76; Allen,\nSally G. \"Outrunning Atalanta: Feminine Destiny in Alchemical Transmutation,\" Journal\nof Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 6, 1980, pp. 210-221; Streich, Hildemarie.\n\"Musikalische und psychologische Entsprechungen in der Atalanta Fugiens von Michael\nMaier.\" In Correspondences in Man and World. Eranos Yearbook, 1973. Leiden: E. J.\nBrill, 1975, pp. 361-426. Forthcoming studies on Maier will appear from Erik Leibenguth\nof Universit\u00e4t Heidelberg (Cantilenae Intellectuals)\nand Bernhard Zagler of Technische\nUniversit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen (Theses Summam Doctrinae de Temperamentis Corporis Humani).\n11\nUmminger, Walter. Das Winterk\u00f6nigreich. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1994; Eco, Umberto.\nDas Foucaultsche Pendel. M\u00fcnchen: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1989.\nMontgomery, Cross and Crucible, p. 19; Craven, Count Michael Maier, p. 11.\nThus the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC) recently established a\n'Michael Maier' branch in Seattle; the Freemasonic writer Manly P. Hall once stated that\nMaier was one of a small group of adepts residing at the House of the Holy Spirit, but he\n\"concealed his knowledge so cunningly that it is exceedingly difficult to extract from his\nwritings the secrets which he possessed;\" Hall, Manly P. Lectures on Ancient\nPhilosophy.\nLos Angeles: Hall Publishing Co., 1929, p. 411.\n12\n13\n\nPages 247:\n238\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\ninitiates who transmitted the philosophia perennis from the time of the\nJewish Patriarchs onwards; medieval alchemical texts also produced lists of\nthose adept in the alchemical Art.14 As we have seen, the identification of just\nsuch a Tradition was the central concern of Maier's Symbola Aureae Mensae,\nas it also was in the fifth and sixth chapters of his Silentium post Ciamores, in\nwhich the Rosicrucian 'Brethren' were portrayed as only the latest\nrepresentatives of a long line of purveyors of the prisca sapientia. As Faivre\nargues, the task of the scholar of esoteric studies is not to prove the existence\nof a philosophia perennis reaching beyond the Renaissance into antiquity, but\nrather to describe the different facets of the emergence of this idea as it\nappears in post-Renaissance discourse.15 On this count we may note that in\nthe decades following his death, Maier himself came to be regarded as an\nexpositor of the Tradition amongst the proponents of Hermetic philosophy.\nOne of the earliest figures in this regard was Daniel Stoltzius von\nStoltzenberg (c.l597-c.l644), a Bohemian alchemist who has been rather\nenthusiastically described by Read as \"a humble disciple of the great Michael\nMaier.\" 16 Stoltzius studied at Charles University in Prague and at the\nUniversity of Marburg, an important centre of 'Rosicrucian' activity; later in\nhis life he would find employment in Constantinople.17 Whilst in Frankfurtam-Main Stoltzius visited Maier's publisher, Lucas Jennis; it seems Jennis\nhimself arranged a viewing for the young man of certain alchemical emblems\nfrom the books of Maier and his fellow physician at the court of Moritz\nthe Learned, Johann Daniel Mylius. According to Stoltzius, his soul was\ndelighted by the \"mystical sense\" of these ingenious pictures; they provided\nsome solace in the face of his flight from war-torn Bohemia, which seems to\nhave coincided with the defeat and exile of Friedrich V. Having seen how\nmuch these copperplate engravings pleased the young man, Jennis suggested\nthat he compose short verses to accompany their republication - the end\nresult being the beautiful Viridarium Chymicum (Chemical Pleasure-Garden,\n1624).18 In the foreword to this work Stoltzius pays tribute to the pious\n14\n15\n16\n17\n18\nFaivre, Access to Western Esotericism, p. 37.\nIbid., p. 51.\nRead, Prelude to Chemistry, p. 197.\nSee Hild, Heike. Das Stammbuch des Medicus, Alchemisten und Poeten Daniel Stoltzius\nals Manuskript des Emblembuches Viridarium Chymicum (1624) und als Zeugnis seiner\nPeregrinano Acad\u00e9mica. Doctoral Thesis, Technische Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen, 1991; also\nKarpenko, Vladimir. \"Viridarium Chymicum: The Encyclopedia of Alchemy,\" The\nJournal of Chemical Education, Vol. 50, No. 4, April 1973, p. 272.\nStoltzius, Daniel. Viridarium Chymicum Figuris Cupro Incisis Adornatum et Poeticis\nScripturis Illustratum: Ita ut non tantum oculorum et animi recreationum suppeditet, sed\net profundiorem rerum naturalium considerationem excitet, ad haec forma sua oblonga\nAmicorum Albo inservire queat. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1624, p. A4:\n\"Desiderabam igitur talem mihi Philothecam comparare, quae et oculos meos artificiosa\n\nPages 248:\nThe 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\n239\nmemory of Michael Maier, a celebrated doctor and a \"most brilliant and\nlearned man,\" and he speaks of the importance of embracing the \"great\ntreasure\" that has been bequeathed through his work. 19 In a particularly\npoetic passage, Stoltzius describes his re-issuing of the emblems as the\ntransmission to posterity of a tradition based on reason and experience:\nWith this flame before us, we shall not stray into darkness; leaning on this staff, we shall not\nfall in the slippery way; nor will we swear by someone's lengthy words or inane phantasms,\nbut having been guided by Nature, we will examine everything with the precise touchstone\nof reason and pyrotechnic experiment, eagerly seizing the truth and rejecting falsehood. And\nby examining closely the unexhausted abysses of Nature, and the immense miracles in this\ngreat amphitheatre of the contemplated universe, we will be inspired to sing to the praise and\nglory of its Author. 2 0\nHere Stoltzius expresses a similar sentiment to that of the forty-second\nemblem and discourse of Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617), in which it is said\nthat Nature, reason, experience and reading should be 'guide, staff, spectacles\nand lamp' to those who are employed in alchemical affairs (figure 32). The\nfirst intention of the alchemist, Maier writes, must be to discover \"through\nintimate contemplation how Nature proceeds in her operations.\" 21 This was a\nstaple theme of the medieval alchemical literature, and one that was\nreinforced by the Paracelsian emphasis on observation and experiment.\nStoltzius adds that such knowledge of Nature aids our proximity to God, and\nthat all our labours should be made to repay His love for us - a restatement of\nMaier's belief that we may know God through His works. The reading of the\nliber mundi remained a central concern of the Tradition as it appeared in later\nParacelsian Naturphilosophie and eighteenth century Rosicrucianism.\npictura recrearet, et mystico sensu animum oblectaret: potissimum in hac Medicinae ergo\nsuscepta peregrinatione, in qua Patriae meae mirandos et miserandos casus cum moerore\naudio, et turbis illis Martialibus hinc et inde dispersis, non sine gravi dolore, saepissime\ninterturbor. Has ergo cupro incisas imagines Francofurti apud Dn. Lucam Jennisium\npraeter spem inveni, et cum mihi arriserint, eidem desiderium meum aperui. Propositum\nille comprobavit, meque mei voti compotem reddidit, simulque ut figuras illas brevissimo\nCarmine describerem, et tecum, Lector Humaniss. communicarem, rogavit.\"\n19\n20\n21\nIbid., p. A6.\nIbid.: \"Hac enim face praeeunte, in tenebris non aberrabimus; hoc b\u00e1culo innixi, in via\nlubrica non cademus, \u00f1eque amplius in alicujus sesquipedalia verba, et inania\nphantasmata jurabimus, sed naturae ductum sequendo, ad rationis et experientiae\npyronomicae trutinam omnia examinabimus, verum avide arripiemus, falsum abjiciemus,\nInexhaustas Naturae abyssos, et miracula immensa in hoc totius Universitatis\nAmphitheatro intuendo, ad laudem et gloriam Conditori decantandam excitabimur.\"\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 42: \"Prima itaque intentio est, naturam intime\ncontemplati quomodo procedat in suis operationibus eo fine, ut subjecta Chymiae\nnaturalia absque defectu aut superfluitate haberi queant.\"\n\nPages 249:\n240\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nThe conception that knowledge of Nature leads to knowledge of things\ndivine was succinctly expressed by another early appraiser of Maier, the\nFrench alchemist Jean d'Espagnet (1564-C.1637). In his Enchiridio Physicae\nRestitutae ('Summary of the Restored Physics,' 1623), written a year after\nMaier's death, d'Espagnet tells us that the ancients knew the world was\nprefigured in its Archetype, which is God; before Creation He was like unto\n\"a book rolled up in Himself,\" but by giving birth to the world His mind was\nmade manifest, so that Nature is nothing else but \"the disclosed image of an\noccult Deity.\" 22 In his writings d'Espagnet gives alchemical meanings to\nGreek and Egyptian myth in a style reminiscent of Maier's; he also\nrecommends that those who have not understood the alchemists should\ninspect the writings of Maier on account of their perspicuity:\nPhilosophers do usually expresse themselves more pithily in types and aenigmaticall figures\n(as by a mute kind of speech) then by words; for example, Senior's Table, the allegoricall\nPictures of Rosarius, the Schemes of Abraham Judaeus in Flamellus: of the later sort, the rare\nEmblemes of the most learned Michael Maierus, wherein the mysteries of the Ancients are\nso fully opened, that as new Perspectives they can present antiquated truth, and remote from\nour age as near unto our eies, and perfectly to be seen by us. 2 3\nAlthough Schick once asserted that Maier was a 'theosopher', 24 the thought\nof laboratory alchemists such as Maier or d'Espagnet is more often described\nas 'pansophist' due to its emphasis on knowing divinity through Nature,\nrather than using gnosis or theosophical speculation on cosmogony as a point\nof departure. 25 Nevertheless, there were a variety of worldviews grouped\nunder the rubric of the term theosophia in early modern Germany, some of\nwhich grew directly from alchemical labours before the furnace fire. Maier's\ncontemporary and fellow Lutheran, Khunrath, spoke of theosophy in terms of\nthe mystical perception of a universal, external and visible fire of Nature, and\nits complement in a universal, internal and invisible fire - that is to say, in\nterms of both a knowledge and a life-imparting entity that transcends the\n22\n23\n24\n25\nd'Espagnet, Jean. Enchyridion Physicae Restitutae, or, A Summary of the Physicks\nRecovered. Ed. Thomas Willard. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999, p. 10.\nAshmole, Elias. Fasciculus Chemicus: or, Chymical Collections. Expressing the Ingress,\nProgress, and Egress, of the Secret Hermetick Science, out of the Choisest and most\nFamous Authors. Collected and digested in such an order, that it may prove to the\nadvantage, not onely of the Beginners, but Proficients of this high Art, by none hitherto\ndisposed in this Method. Whereunto is added, the Arcanum or Grand Secret of Hermetick\nPhilosophy. Both made English by James Hasolle, Esquire, Qui est\nMercuriophilus\nAnglicus. London: Printed by J. Flesher for Richard Mynne, at the sign of St.Paul in\nLittle Britain, 1650, p. 169.\nSchick, Das Altere Rosenkreuzertum, p. 250.\nOn this point see Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 23-32.\n\nPages 250:\nThe 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\n241\napparent division between the interior and exterior worlds. 26 Similarly,\nMaier's own use of the term 'theosophy' in the De Theosophia Aegyptiorum\ndenotes a knowledge of divine things acquired through the reading of\n'hieroglyphs' present in both the microcosm and the macrocosm, which\nproceeds from the gnostic and revelatory operation of the 'little eye of the\nsoul'. Whilst there is nothing in the way of explicit theological speculation in\nMaier's works, given the complementarity of the Light of Nature and the\nLight of Grace (the latter being the inspiration of theosophers proper such as\nBoehme and Weigel), later theosophically-oriented Paracelsians could\ncomfortably portray Maier as a 'chymico-theologian'.\nWhilst Rosicrucianism underwent something of a lull in Germany after its\ninitial efflorescence, across the English Channel Maier's reputation in Britain\nas an expositor of Rosicrucian knowledge was furthered by Nathaniel and\nThomas Hodges' 1656 translation of his Themis Aurea, entitled The Laws of\nthe Fraternity of the Rosie Crosse.21 The dedicatee of this translation was\n\"the most excellently accomplish't, the onely Philosopher in the present age:\nthe Honoured, Noble, Learned, Elias Ashmole, Esq.,\" who as we have\nmentioned was an early English Freemason and a member of the Royal\nSociety. In accordance with their concern to establish an unbroken lineage of\nadepts, in the eyes of later esoteric writers England became the nexus for the\ntransmission of Rosicrucian ideas through the fictitious Maier-FluddAshmole chain we have discussed.28 Whether or not Freemasonry was\ninfluenced by Rosicrucian ideas at this early stage, the currency of Maier's\nthought in 'Rosicrucian' circles is demonstrated by Thomas Vaughan's\ncitations from the Themis Aurea in his preface to the English edition of the\nFama Fraternitatis (1652). Furthermore, the 1618 version of the Themis\nAurea had a preface addressed to a certain S. P. D., who was described as\n\"Theod. Verax., Theophil. Caelnatus;\" after the publication of Vaughan's\nversion of the Fama Fraternitatis an open letter appeared in reply from\n26\nKhunrath, Heinrich. De Igne Magorum\n1608, pp. 87-88.\n27\nMaier, Michael. Themis Aurea: The Laws of the Fraternity of the Rosie Crosse. Written\nin Latin by Count Michael Maierus, And now in English for the Information of those who\nseek after the knowledge of that Honourable and mysterious Society of wise and\nrenowned Philosophers... Whereto is annexed an Epistle to the Fraternity in Latine, from\nsome here in England. London: Printed for N. Brooke at the Angel in Cornhill, 1656.\n28\nHence William Wynn Westcott, writing in 1926 in his capacity as Supreme Magus of the\nSocietas Rosicruciana in Anglia, stated that Maier \"admitted Robert Fludd, M. A. and M.\nD. Oxon. to Rosicrucian Adeptship;\" Fludd became \"First Magus\" in England, followed\nby Sir Kenelm Digby, whilst Ashmole received the torch of occult truth from William\nBackhouse, \"a renowned Rosicrucian and Chemist:\" introduction to Gardner, F. Leigh. A\nCatalogue Raisonn\u00e9 of Works on the Occult Sciences. Vol. 1. N.p.; n.p., 1923, pp. xviiixix.\nPhilosophorum.\nStrassburg: Lazarus Zetzner,\n\nPages 251:\n242\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\n\"Theodosius Verax and Theophilus Caelnatus,\" a clear indication that the\nGerman edition of the Themis Aurea was in circulation in England prior to\nthe appearance of the English Fama Fraternitatis.29 Maier's Lusus Serius\nwas also published in English at this time as The Serious Jest (1654),30 and\nthere exist two English manuscript translations of the Atalanta Fugiens\ndating to the seventeenth century.31\nFollowing the devastation wreaked by the Thirty Years War in Germany,\nthe thought of Maier re-appeared in an interesting series of dialogues\nconcerning the true nature of alchemy and the possibility of the transmutation\nof metals. In 1673 the renowned German encyclopaedist and professor of\nhistory at the University of Kiel, Daniel Morhof (1639-1691), published a\nlengthy letter concerning the transmutation of metals (De Metallorum\nTransmutatione) he had earlier sent to the chief physician at the court of\nSchleswig-Holstein, Joel Langelott (1617-1680). In this letter he advises\ncaution in the pursuit of metallic transmutation, arguing agnostically that\nthe secrets of chrysopoeia or gold-making will probably remain forever\nunknown, just as the processes of metallic formation in the womb of the earth\nmust remain hidden from human eyes.32 Whilst acknowledging the many\nbenefits of chymia, Morhof argues that prudence should prevail before\nspending time and money on the uncertain quest for transmutation. He goes\non to impugn those pseudo-chemists who set out to deceive even the most\nobservant clients by concealing gold dust in the coals of their fires, or within\nthe instruments with which they work. On this count he mentions the Examen\nFucorum Pseudo-chymicorum of the 'learned' Michael Maier, in which are\nenumerated over fifty such ingenious frauds:\n...I have recommended that his book be read, lest we may be deceived by those impostors,\nwhose sole labour it is, to seek wealth of their own by imposing the hope for wealth on\nothers: a practice by which the harmless study of alchemy is led into odium, and honest men\ncome to perceive this Art as an empty mockery, or curse all chymists as fraudulent. 3 3\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\nWaite, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, pp. 329, 386; according to Heisler, there is an\nEnglish manuscript translation of portions of the Themis Aurea dating to 1623.\nMaier, Michael. Lusus Serius, or, Serious Passe-time. A Philosophical\nDiscourse\nconcerning the Superiority of Creatures under Man. London: Moseley and Heath, 1654.\nMaier, The Flying Atalanta, is held by the British Library; Yale University Library\nhouses Atalanta Running, that is, New Chymicall Emblems relatin\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 234 to page 251 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 251 to page 269 out of a total of 334:\nPages 251:\n242\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\n\"Theodosius Verax and Theophilus Caelnatus,\" a clear indication that the\nGerman edition of the Themis Aurea was in circulation in England prior to\nthe appearance of the English Fama Fraternitatis.29 Maier's Lusus Serius\nwas also published in English at this time as The Serious Jest (1654),30 and\nthere exist two English manuscript translations of the Atalanta Fugiens\ndating to the seventeenth century.31\nFollowing the devastation wreaked by the Thirty Years War in Germany,\nthe thought of Maier re-appeared in an interesting series of dialogues\nconcerning the true nature of alchemy and the possibility of the transmutation\nof metals. In 1673 the renowned German encyclopaedist and professor of\nhistory at the University of Kiel, Daniel Morhof (1639-1691), published a\nlengthy letter concerning the transmutation of metals (De Metallorum\nTransmutatione) he had earlier sent to the chief physician at the court of\nSchleswig-Holstein, Joel Langelott (1617-1680). In this letter he advises\ncaution in the pursuit of metallic transmutation, arguing agnostically that\nthe secrets of chrysopoeia or gold-making will probably remain forever\nunknown, just as the processes of metallic formation in the womb of the earth\nmust remain hidden from human eyes.32 Whilst acknowledging the many\nbenefits of chymia, Morhof argues that prudence should prevail before\nspending time and money on the uncertain quest for transmutation. He goes\non to impugn those pseudo-chemists who set out to deceive even the most\nobservant clients by concealing gold dust in the coals of their fires, or within\nthe instruments with which they work. On this count he mentions the Examen\nFucorum Pseudo-chymicorum of the 'learned' Michael Maier, in which are\nenumerated over fifty such ingenious frauds:\n...I have recommended that his book be read, lest we may be deceived by those impostors,\nwhose sole labour it is, to seek wealth of their own by imposing the hope for wealth on\nothers: a practice by which the harmless study of alchemy is led into odium, and honest men\ncome to perceive this Art as an empty mockery, or curse all chymists as fraudulent. 3 3\n29\n30\n31\n32\n33\nWaite, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, pp. 329, 386; according to Heisler, there is an\nEnglish manuscript translation of portions of the Themis Aurea dating to 1623.\nMaier, Michael. Lusus Serius, or, Serious Passe-time. A Philosophical\nDiscourse\nconcerning the Superiority of Creatures under Man. London: Moseley and Heath, 1654.\nMaier, The Flying Atalanta, is held by the British Library; Yale University Library\nhouses Atalanta Running, that is, New Chymicall Emblems relating to the Secrets of\nNature. Yale University Library, MS 48; this latter work may have been a rough draft for\na planned English edition that never emerged.\nMorhof, D. G. De Metallorum Transmutatione, ad Virum Nobilissimum et Amplissimum\nJoelem Langelottum, Serenissimi Principis Cimbrici Archiatrum Celeberrimum,\nEpistola.\nHamburg: Ex Officina Gothofredi Schultzen, 1673, p. 83.\nIbid., pp. 84-85: \"Talibus enim operandi modis plerumque dignoscendi Pseudo Chemici,\nqui adeo speciose fraudes suas tegere possunt, ut vel oculatissimos nonnunquam fallant:\nper infidias enim auri pulverem vel carbonibus, vel instrumentis, quibus operantur,\n\nPages 252:\nThe 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\n243\nHere Morhof uses the terms alchemia and chymia to denote the iatrochemia\nformerly pursued by the 'learned' Maier, and now practised by his friend\nLangelott; this 'alchemy' stands in contrast with chrysopoeia, which had\nbeen so thoroughly tainted by fraud. Later in his letter Morhof also\ncommends Maier's Arcana Arcanissima. Although he feels Maier ascribed a\nlittle too much ingenuity to the Egyptians as the concealers of chemical truth\nwith myth and hieroglyph, Morhof notes that Maier's argument is followed\nby Vigenerius, Johannes Petrus Faber, Conringius, and the 'father' of early\nEgyptology, Athanasius Kircher.34 In his Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1653), in the\nchapter entitled De Alchymia Aegyptiaca, Kircher argued that the hieroglyphs\nreferred symbolically to \"a certain quintessence\" that cures illness and\nimparts abundant happiness, on account of which it is known as \"the highest\nsubtlety and perfection;\" he also makes brief mention of Maier's Arcana\nArcanissima, although his status as a Jesuit seems to have hindered him from\nciting more freely from a book that was to earn a place on the Index in\n1667.35\nDespite the decline of early Rosicrucianism in the German-speaking lands,\nthe Paracelsian alchemy which was the life-blood of its eighteenth century\nrevival remained. A rejoinder to the dialogue between Morhof and Langelott\nwas made by Johann Ludwig Hanneman (1640-1724), a professor of natural\nphilosophy at K\u00f6ln patronised by Christian Albert, King of Norway and\nruler of Schleswig-Holstein. Hanneman was a believer not only in the\nUniversal Medicine but also in the possibility of the transmutation of metals,\nand there is a strong mystical streak in his work, whereby chemistry and\n34\n35\nrecondunt, ut arte factum quis putet, quod verum est et nativum. Quoru. quinquaginta et\namplius fraudes sane ingeniosissimas recenset Michael Meierus in Examine Fucorum\nPseudo-Chemicorum detectorum: quem vel ideo librum legendum suaserim, ne fallamur\nab agyrtis istis et impostoribus, quorum unicus labor est, spe lucri aliis ostensa sibi\nlucrum quaerere: quo fit, ut innoxia Alchemiae studia in invidiam adducantur, honestique\nhomines vel ut res inanes ludibrio habeant, vel ut fraudulentas detestentur.\"\nIbid., p. 104: \"Hinc plurimas Graecorum fabulas natas fuisse verosimile est, quas\ningeni\u00f3se satis ad Chemicos sensus explicat Michael Mejerus, Vir doctus, in Arcanis suis\narcanissimis sive Hieroglyphicus Aegyptio-Graecis vulgo nondum cognitis, qui tarnen ob\namorem artis fortassis nimium ingenio suo indulget. Quem sequuntur in hoc instituto\nVigenerius commentario in Philostrati tabulas et Pet. loh. Faber in Pan-Chymico suo.\nNegare certe ipse Conringius non potest, docendi ac scribendi rationem apud Aegyptios,\nChemicorum ordini semper familiarem, et ad hos ab illis derivatam videri posse.\nKircherus vero noster quasi e tripode pronunciat (Oedip. Aegyptiac. torn. 2. classe 10. de\nAlchymica Aegyptiaca) Aegyptios praxin lapidis Philosophorum haud intendisse, sed rem\nquandam in inferiori mundo Soli analogam et quintam quandam essentiam pro morbis\nomnibus curandis et vita in omni felicitate traducenda.\"\nKircher, Athanasius. Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Vol. 2. Rome: Vitalis Mascardi, 1653, p. 399;\nMoller, Cimbria Literata, p. 379: \"E vocibus Praefationis: Salvifico verbo, priorem\nSalvifici Index Expurg. Hispanicus, ab Ant. Sotomajore Madriti A. 1667 editus, p. 787.,\nridicule jubet expungi.\"\n\nPages 253:\n244\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\ntheology are brought into close proximity. In his Cato Chemicus Tractatus\n(1690) he set out to distinguish between \"the true and genuine hermetic\nphilosophy, and the counterfeit and sophistical pseudo-chemistry, as well as\nthe characteristics of the masters of both.\" 36 There the Examen Fucorum\nPseudo-chymicorum is specified as the means by which these two lineages\nmay be distinguished; Hanneman also recommends Heinrich Khunrath\n(c.1560-1605), whose warnings concerning the Betr\u00fcger were translated\nfrom the vernacular into Latin by Maier and quoted at length in his\nown polemic. Great praise is lavished on Maier in Hanneman's Ovum\nHermetico-Paracelsico-Trismegistum\n('Hermetic-Paracelsian-Trismegistian\nEgg,' 1694); and whilst there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of\nHanneman's beliefs, his love of Maier (\"O most serene and merciful\nmaster!\") is certainly motivated in part by ethnic pride. Amongst learned\nmen, Maier is \"a star of the first magnitude\" not only in Jutland but in all\nEurope, and through him Jutland shines as the possessor of that 'sublimer'\nHermetic Art. 37 As a number of erudite persons have flourished in Jutland\nunder the name of Maier, Hanneman suggests further research should be\nmade into his lineage by means of baptismal records, and he also muses that\nsome material may one day be found concerning the nature of his death in\nMagdeburg. 38\n36\n37\n38\nHanneman, Johann Ludwig. Cato Chemicus Tractatus: Quo Verae ac Genuinae\nPhilosophiae Hermeticae, et Fucatae ac Sophisticae Pseudo Chemiae et utriusque\nMagistrorum Characterismi accurate delineantur. Hamburg: Gothofried Liebernickel,\n1690.\nHanneman,\nJohann\nLudwig.\nOvum\nHermetico-Paracelsico-Trismegistum,\ni.e.\nCommentarius-Philosophico-Chemico-Medicus,\nIn quondam Epistolam Mezahab Dictam\nde Auro. Et Historia Philosophico\nChemico-Medica\nde eodem metallo nativo et\nartificiali. In quo et 108. Quaestiones Chemicae ab Excellentiss. D. D. Morhofio\npropositae\nab Autore solvuntur. Omnia, juxta adeptae Paracelsicae\net Eclecticae\nPhilosophiae principia. Frankfurt am Main: Friderich Knoch, 1694, pp. C l a - C l b : \"Multi\nsunt ex omnium facultatum et scientiarum Professoribus, qui pro ejus divinioris artis\nveritate pugnarunt, ac doctissima apologemata conscripserunt. Ex quorum numero duo\ninstar omnium, qui et Cymbriae nostrae, imo universae Europae stellae primae magnitudinis fuerunt, esse possunt. Quos et jam ex nube testium in hoc theatro sisto, ut puta\nDD. Michaelem Meyerum, qui O serenissime Princeps ac Domine clementissime!\nprimam suae vitae auram Tuae Cymbriae, in hac enim dicitur natus, tuusque vel et beatae\nmemoriae Divi Parentis subditus fuit, ut hoc pluribus in commentarli hujus contextu\nasserui. Sicque haec nostra Chersonesus Cymbrica consummatissimo istius Hermeticae\nsublimioris possessore superba folget. Huic a latere jungimus DD. Morhofium, o\ncandidum olim amicitiae nostrae pectus!\"\nIbid., p. 133: \"Forsan adhuc Magdeburgi aliqua notitia de eo haberi posset. Esset revera\noperae pretium, anxius quis inquireret in ejus familiam, ad quamnam Mejeranam esset\nrelegandus. Aluit enim alias nostra Cimbria Eruditos Mejeros Cr\u00edticos, Mathematicos,\nRectores, Gymnasiarchas, Poetas, Concionatores et id genus Eruditos. Ad aliquam autem\nfamiliam Mejeranam hie noster Philosophus adeptus afferendus. Quod si inquirerentur\n\nPages 254:\nThe 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\n245\nIn the course of his Ovum Hermetico-Paracelsico-Trismegistum\nHanneman refers to the \"chemical questions\" proposed by the sceptical Morhof,\nwhich he seeks to answer \"in accordance with the principles of Paracelsian\nand eclectic philosophy.\" 39 These questions seem to have arisen not only\nfrom the publication of Morhof s De Metallorum Transmutatione, but also\nbecause Morhof had personally shown Hanneman a letter from Maier (now\napparently lost) to a certain doctor in L\u00fcbeck condemning alchemical\nBetr\u00fcgerei,40 In his reply to Morhof, Hanneman counts Maier amongst the\nadeptae, who in his eyes possessed the means to transmute both metallic and\nhuman bodies. In his Ovum he sets forward four (slightly shaky) reasons for\nthis assertion. Firstly, Maier was physician to Emperor Rudolf II, a man who\nwas himself most experienced in chemical matters, and who promoted Maier\nto the position of Count Palatine on account of his fine service; secondly,\nbecause the Emperor granted Maier nothing less than the 'symbol of\nAvicenna', the representation of the magistery that appears on Maier's coatof-arms - an honour that would never have been granted unless Maier had\npossessed that magistery; thirdly, because clear and manifest testimonies\nconcerning the arcana are given in Maier's Viatorium, Symbola Aureae\nMensae and Arcana Arcanissima; and fourthly, because Maier is counted\namongst the adepts by other adepts, such as the author of the Experimentum\nOsiandrinorum.41 Here Hanneman refers to the Osiandrische Experiment\n(1659), in which the anonymous author writes of his efforts to repeat the\npurported experimental production of the Philosophers' Stone by Lucas\n39\n40\n41\nMatriculae Ecclesiasticae, quibus recens baptisati infantes inscribi soient. Quilibet Pastor\nalicujus Parochiae tantum temporis facile impenderet ut suae Ecclesiae matriculam\nperlustraret, anne ex ea aliquid luminis huic dubio accendi posset.\"\nHanneman also addressed Morhof s doubts concerning chrysopoeia in a book-length\ncommentary on the Arcanum\nHermeticae\nPhilosophiae\nof d'Espagnet entitled\nInstructissima Pharus. Kiel: n.p., 1712, p. 190.\nHanneman, Ovum Hermetico-Paracelsico-Trismegistum,\np. 131: \"Mihi aliquando\npraelaudatus Morhofms concessit literas ipsius Michaelis Meyeri manu hic Kiliae\nexaratas ad quendam Chymicum Lubecae commorantem, in quo vehementius expostulat\nde dolo, quo ipsi Chymicus pessime imposuerat; in istius Epistolae contextu multa\noccurrebant, quae ipsum Cimbriae nostrae asserebant.\"\nIbid., pp. 130-131: \"(1) Quia fuit Archiater ipsius Imperatoris, qui istorum naturae\nMysteriorum fuit peritissimus, ejus autem dementia luculentissime esse usum, probat\nquod ab eo Autore in Comitem Palatinum fuerit promotus. (2) Quod ipsi Imperator ad\ninsignia concesserit symbolum Avicennae, quo hoc Magisterium adumbratur: et est:\nAquila volans per aerem et Bufo gradiens per terram est Magisterium; scilicet Aquila\ncatena Bufoni alligata est. Nunquam autem suis insignibus hoc symbolum inseruisset,\nnisi istius artis vel Magisterii fuisset Possessor. (3) Idem et probant ejus scripta,\ncumprimis Viatorium; symbolae aureae mensae; Arcana arcanissima etc. in quibus\nevidentia et perspicua testimonia istius arcani exstant. (4) ab omnibus inter Adeptos\nrefertur, quoque iis eum annumerai Author Experimentorum Osiandrinorum, et alii\nmulti.\"\n\nPages 255:\n246\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nOslander (1534-1604), a Lutheran professor of theology and chancellor at the\nUniversity of T\u00fcbingen; in that work the lapis is conceived of as both a\nTincture for metals and a miraculous medicine, and the lineage of twelve\nnations given in Maier's Symbola Aureae Mensae is reiterated.42\nWhen enumerating these proofs, perhaps Hanneman was unaware of the\nfact that Maier had only reached the seventeenth rung of the alchemical\nladder leading to the Philosophers' Stone. Nevertheless, his aim was to\nestablish and define for his own purposes an authoritative Tradition in which\nMaier himself appears as a representative, thus lending credence to his own\nconception of the alchemical Art as the means of metallic and human\ntransmutation. Thus Hanneman also identifies in detail an \"unbroken chain\"\nof German adepts, because \"our Germany has brought forth so many who\nhave acquired that golden harvest, and it may in future bring forth more.\" 43\nThis chain is led by Albertus Magnus, the Swabian Dominican and eminent\nscientist whose name adorns a number of alchemical works from the\nfourteenth and fifteenth centuries; it moves through Bernard of Trevisan,\nBasil Valentine of Alsatia, Isaac Hollandus, Johannes Pontanus, Jodocus\nGreverus, Paracelsus, Borrichius, Abbot Trithemius, Johannes Rhenanus,\nValentin Weigel, Heinrich Khunrath, and comes to Michael Maier. We\ncannot fail to note the inclusion in this list of the theosopher Weigel, who\nwas not a laboratory worker but whose work is congruent in Hanneman's\neyes with a practical alchemical endeavour. For Hanneman, Maier was \"an\nincomparable priest of the mysteries,\" a revealer of that sacred knowledge\nheld by the pre-Christian pagans which Maier himself terms a 'theosophy'. 44\nThus Hanneman also lauds Arcana Arcanissima (\"O most learned of\nwritings!\") and he suggests (in concert with Moller) that the fame of the\nJesuit Athanasius Kircher has derived in no small part from Maier's own\nfindings in that work. 45\n42\nOsiandrische Experiment von Sole, Luna et Mercuria, Welche in fiirnehmer\nHerren\nlaboratoriis probirt worden darau\u00df mehr per Exempla als Rationes, oder durch viel\nverwirzte Proce\u00df verkehrte Sophistische und unn\u00fctze B\u00fccher verschrauffte Wort und\nsubtile Reden und die wahre Philosophische Materi, rechte Solution, Gewicht, Glas, Ofen\nund Regierung des Feuers zu fassen, und zumal man richtige Anleitung hat, dem Werck\nzur Tinctur und Arztnei weiter nachzudencken\nund zuergr\u00fcnden. N\u00fcrnberg: Johann\nAndreas, 1659, p. 39.\n43\nHanneman, Ovum Hermetico-Paracelsico-Trismegistum,\np. 127.\nIbid., p. 130: \"Locum decimum sextum sibi vindicat DD. Michael Mejerus Archiater\nRudolphi Imperatoris; de quo sibi nostra gratulate Cimbria, qua hic magnus Vir\noriundus, adeptae Philosophiae ac arcanioris sapientiae mysta incomparabilis, perspicua\ndictione usus est, et caeteris luculentius scripsit; Quare autem ipsum Adeptum faciamus\nnos sequentes rationes movent.\"\n44\n45\nIbid., pp. B5b-B6a: \"Asserit id mecum incluta et Nobilissima Virorum triga, quae rei\nliterariae nostri seculi fulgidissima lumina fuerunt, ut puta praelaudatus DD. Michael\nMayerus adeptus Holsatus; DD. Morhofius et DD. Jacobus Toll; iste in suis arcanis\n\nPages 256:\nThe 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\n247\nAn increasing antagonism emerged in the course of the eighteenth century\ntowards chrysopoeia and the claims of gold-makers such as Hanneman, and\nit is interesting that the name of Maier was also invoked by those who\nwished to discredit alchemy altogether. One of the most intriguing references\nto Maier in this regard comes from a certain 'Tharsander', or the physician\nGeorg Wilhelm Wegner, in his amusingly entitled Adeptus Ineptus (1744).\nThe subtitle of his work reads:\nAn expos\u00e9 of the falsely celebrated art known as Alchemy, wherein the inanity of this art is\nclearly proven, the principles of the alchemists scrutinised and refuted, their beguiling\nexposed, and the likelihood of the impossibility of metallic transmutation is set forth... 46\nIn the course of his polemic Wegner does not distinguish between chrysopoeia and the quest for the Universal Medicine, which he also impugns as a\ndelusion. His definition of alchemy runs as follows:\nBy alchemy I understand that art which teaches the means of transmuting metals, and of\nbringing imperfect metals to their maturity, or making Gold or Silver from imperfect metals.\nOr it is the art of preparing the Philosophers' Stone, which not only makes imperfect metals\ninto Gold and Silver, but also works in the human body as a general medicament for the\npreservation of health and life. I speak therefore not of Chimia, which is the art of opening\nthe natural body, of separating, purifying, and setting it together again, thereby making it\nmore amenable to medicine and other useful applications. I have deemed it necessary to state\nthis in order that no-one should believe that I reject and disapprove of Chimia, which I do in\nfact hold to be the most highly useful art. 4 7\narcanissimis (o doctissimum scriptum) in quibus Aegyptiorum Mythologiam, idololatriam de hac arte felicissime explicavit, ut de Athanasio Kirchero scribat Casalius\nRomanus lib. II. de Ritibus Veter. Aegyptiorum c. 10 p. 35. Difficillimam\nhanc\nantiquitatum Aegyptiarum,\nsacrorumque\nmysteriorum sub hieroglyphicis\ndisciplinis\nlatentium, a nemine hucusque tentatam investigationem etc. Verum nisi arasset Vitulo\nnostri Mayeri haud tanto elogio dignus esset. Preter haec arcana arcanissima edita Mejeri,\nrest\u00e2t adhuc aliud Msc. ejusdem Autoris in eodem argumento conscriptum.\"\n46\nWegner, Adeptus Ineptus, title page.: \"Adeptus Ineptus, Oder Entdeckung der falsch\nber\u00fchmten Kunst ALCHIMIE genannt: Darin die Nichtigkeit solcher Kunst kl\u00e4rlich\nerwiesen, der Alchimisten Principia untersucht und widerlegt, ihre Betr\u00fcgereyen er\u00f6ffnet,\nund die Unm\u00f6glichkeit der Metallen-Verwandlung wenigstens auf das wahrscheinlichste\ndargethan, Wie auch von der Universal-Medicin und anderen vorgegebenen\nAlchimistischen Kunst-St\u00fccken gehandelt wird.\"\n47\nIbid., p. 9: \"Durch die Alchimie verstehe ich diejenige Kunst, welche lehret die Metallen\nzu verwandlen, und die unvollkommenen zu ihrer Reife zu bringen, oder aus denen\nunvollkommenen Metallen Gold und Silber zu machen. Oder es ist eine Kunst den Stein\nder Weisen zu bereiten, welcher nicht allein die unvollkommene Metallen zu Gold und\nSilber macht, sondern auch in dem menschlichen C\u00f6rper, als eine allgemeine Artzney,\nzur Erhaltung der Gesundheit und des Lebens w\u00fcrket. Ich rede also nicht von der Chimie,\nwelches eine Kunst ist die nat\u00fcrlichen C\u00f6rper aufzuschliessen, zu scheiden, zu reinigen,\nsie wieder zusammen zu setzen, und dadurch zur Artzney und anderm n\u00fctzlichen\nGebrauch t\u00fcchtig zu machen. Solches habe ich zu erinnern f\u00fcr n\u00f6thig geachtet, damit\n\nPages 257:\n248\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nThus Wegner makes a clear demarcation between a non-vitalistic conception\nof 'chimia' and a vitalistic 'alchemy' which has as its goal the isolation of a\nuniversal agent of transmutation. He distinguishes between two types of\ndeception carried out by the alchemists - the conscious deception of others,\nand a self-deception brought about by the obscurity of the alchemical corpus\ncombined with the alchemists' greed for worldly wealth. 48 Wegner states that\nsuch laboratory workers are not only thieves to themselves, but also deprive\ntheir needy neighbours through their wasteful practices; he suggests that if\none could only gather together all the money that has been frittered away by\nalchemists through the ages, one could buy not only great cities such as\nLondon, Amsterdam and Paris, but entire kingdoms. 49\nIn the passage pertaining to Michael Maier, Wegner rather unkindly\nstates that those who eventually recognise their self-deception imagine\nthey have thereby achieved something important, and some have flattered\nthemselves by relating their experiences in print.50 On this count he presents\na tract which he attributes to Maier, the \"famous Rosicrucian\" who was\nknown on occasion to \"run around the German courts with the Gold-spear.\" 51\nThe name of this tract is the Treuhertzige Warnungs-Vermahnung, which\nalso appears in the late compendium of alchemical texts, the Deutsches\nTheatrum Chemicum (1728); 52 it is dedicated to \"all lovers of Alchymie\nTransmutatoriae\" from a certain \"faithful lover of Truth\" named 'Riceni\nThrasibuli'. Although Ferguson followed Wegner in attributing this work to\nMaier in his Bibl\u00ecotheca Chemica,5\u00ec Riceni Thrasibuli is actually a\npseudonym of Heinrich Khunrath; the tract itself appears in Khunrath's Von\nHylealischen, Das ist Pri-Materia-lischen Catholischen, oder Algemeinem\nNat\u00fcrlichen Chaos (1597). Nevertheless, we have seen that extracts from\n48\n49\n50\n51\n52\n53\nman nicht meyne, als ob ich die Chimie verwerffen und widerlegen wolte, die ich doch\nf\u00fcr eine h\u00f6chst n\u00fctzliche Kunst halte.\"\nIbid., pp. 79 ff.\nIbid., p. 80: \"Das ist ein gro\u00dfer Selbstbetrug, welcher dabey noch s\u00fcndlich ist: Denn\nsolche Laboranten werden zu Dieben an sich selbst, und auch an ihren nothleidenden\nN\u00e4chsten, dem sie von ihren reichlichen Verm\u00f6gen h\u00e4tten einiger ma\u00dfen dienen\nk\u00f6nnen... Wann ich nur das Geld zusammen haben m\u00f6gte, welches jemahls durch die\nAlchimisten liederlich verlaboriret ist, wolte ich nicht nur fragen ob London, Amsterdam\nund Paris feil waren? Sondern ich getrauete mich ganze gro\u00dfe K\u00f6nigreiche damit zu\nbezahlen, und wenn sie zu Kauf st\u00fcnden an mich zu handeln.\"\nIbid., pp. 80-81.\nIbid., p. 94: \"...der bekannte Rosen-Creuzer Michael Maier, der hin und wider mit dem\nGold-Spie\u00df, an den teutschen H\u00f6fen, weidlich herum gelaufen...\"; I have not been able to\nidentify the precise meaning of this derogatory expression.\nKhunrath, Heinrich. \"Treuhertzige Warnungs-Vermahnung an alle Liebhaber der Naturgemesen Alchemie Transmutatoriae.\" In Deutsches Theatrum Chemicum. N\u00fcrnberg:\nAdam Jonathan Fel\u00dfecker, 1728, pp. 289-313.\nFerguson, John. Bibliotheca\nChemica. London: Starker Brothers, 1906, p. 66.\n\nPages 258:\nAlchemy and the re-emergence of Rosicrucianism\n249\nthe Treuhertzige Warnungs-Vermahnung do in fact feature prominently in\nMaier's Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum.54 Wegner bases his attribution of the work to Maier on a remark made by a certain Felix Maurer, who\nstates that Maier had compiled in one of his works \"the most remarkable\nintrigues and trickery\" that he had met with in the German courts - a work\nwhich Maurer believed should be \"included as a foreword to all alchemical\ntexts hitherto printed.\" 55 It seems his reference was to the Examen Fucorum\nPseudo-chymicorum, with which Wegner was clearly not acquainted.\n4. Alchemy and the re-emergence of Rosicrucianism\nDespite the protests of an increasing number of sceptics such as Wegner, the\npractical laboratory quest for the Philosophers' Stone survived until at least\nthe end of the eighteenth century in Germany - chiefly amongst the inheritors\nof the Rosicrucian mantle, the members of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz. This\nsurvival forms a bridge between early modern and nineteenth century\nconceptions of alchemy - a critical link missing from Principe and Newmans'\nhistoriography.\nThe first sign of the emergence of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz is the\nWarhaffte und vollkommene Bereitung des Philosophischen Steins der\nBr\u00fcder schafft aus dem Orden des G\u00fclden- und Rosen-Creutzes ('The True\nand Complete Preparation of the Philosophers' Stone of the Brotherhood,\nfrom the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross,' 1710), a tract that appeared\nunder the pseudonym of 'Sinceras Renatus' ('genuine rebirth'). 56 The author\nis generally held to be a Protestant pastor from Hartmannsdorf in Silesia by\nthe name of Samuel Richter. True to the example set by seventeenth century\nRosicrucian literature, it is not clear whether an actual secret society lay\nbehind Richter's work. Waite suggested the laws of the Fraternity appended\nto the text demonstrate that \"something had been growing up in the silence,\"\nand the recent discovery of late seventeenth century Italian documents\n54\nSee above, pp. 106-107.\nWegner, Adeptus Ineptus, p. 94: \"...er die merckw\u00fcrdigsten R\u00e4ncke und TaschenSpielerey, so dabey f\u00fcrgehen, in ein Buch zusammen gebracht, welches meritirte, da\u00df es\nallen alchimistischen Schriften als eine Vorrede von neuen angedruckt w\u00fcrde.\"\n56\nRichter, Samuel. Die Warhaffte und vollkommene Bereitung des Philosophischen Steins/\nDer Br\u00fcderschafft aus dem Orden des G\u00fclden- und Rosen-Creutzes/ Darinne die Materie\nzu diesem Geheimni\u00df mit seinem Nahmen genennet/ auch die Bereitung von Anfang bis\nzu Ende mit allen Hand-Griffen gezeiget ist/ Dabey angeh\u00e4nget die Gesetz oder Regeln/\nwelche die gedachte Br\u00fcderschafft unter sich h\u00e4lt/ Denen Filiis Doctrinae zum Besten\npubliciret von S.R. Breslau: Fellgiebel, 1710.\n55\n\nPages 259:\n250\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nreferring to a 'gold and rosy cross' seems to confirm his intuition.57 In any\ncase, the alchemical and theosophical ideology presented by Richter in the\ncourse of his work demonstrates a clear continuity of thought with earlier\nRosicrucianism, and can hardly be dismissed as 'meaningless'. 58\nIn his introduction Richter states that \"some years ago\" the Brethren had\ntaken their leave of Europe and settled in India \"to live there in greater\npeace\" - a reference taken from a Kampfschrift that appeared in the initial\nRosicrucian furore. 59 The main body of the work is concerned with\nlaboratory alchemical procedure; drawing on the thought of Paracelsus, van\nHelmont and Basil Valentine, Richter demonstrates the means of obtaining a\n'perfect metal' through repeated projection of the lapis.60 The appendix of\nlaws begins by stating that in 1624 the Fraternity made an effort to summon\ntheir Brethren from across the world, but that only nine new members and\ntwo apprentices were found due to the strict criteria of admission; in time a\ndecision was made to increase the Fraternity's membership and construct a\nnew set of laws, in order that such an \"invaluable treasure\" as was held by the\nBrethren should not be lost to the world.61 Thus, in contrast to the antiCatholic emphasis of the manifestos, a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy\nconcerning the religious affiliation of members is prescribed; mention is also\nmade of the fact that the society has been divided into two branches, the Rosy\nCross and the Golden Cross.62 Most of the laws govern the use of the\nPhilosophers' Stone, which imparts sixty years to the lifespan of those who\n57\n58\n59\n60\n61\n62\nC.f. chapter I, n. 125 above.\nWaite, Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, p. 403.\nIbid.\nRichter, Die Warhaffte und vollkommene Bereitung des Philosophischen Steins, p. 57:\n\"Diese Materie der andern Ordnung/ wird auf eine andere Art projectiret/ als wie oben\ngesagt/ dreymahl rectificiret/ und reincrudiret worden/ alsdenn sie von vielen gr\u00f6ssern\nKr\u00e4fften zusammen gesetzet. Nimm also I. Theil dieses rectificirten Steines/ und trage\nihn auf 100. Theil geflossen Metall/ diese 100. auf 1000./ diese 1000. auf 10000,/und\ndiese 10000 auf 1000000. Und also procedire bi\u00df auf die 10. Projection, so wird 1. Theil\nauf hundert fallen/ und ein perfectes Metall von allen Proben seyn.\"\nIbid., pp. 99-100: \"Diese unsre Congregation war vor diesem von unsern alten Helden\nmit sehr strengen Clausuln und Gesetzen auffgerichtet worden/ durch welche unsere neue\nBr\u00fcderschaft wahrgenommen/ da\u00df dieses allein die Ursach sey/ warum ietzo so wenig\nderselben gefunden werden/ de\u00dfwegen haben sie um das Jahr 1624. durch die ganze Welt\nihr Votum und Stimme ergehen lassen/ um die Br\u00fcder zu beruffen/ von welchen nur ihren\n9. und 2. Lehrlinge gefunden worden/ welche nach langer und reiffer Unterredung\nendlich beschlossen haben/ da\u00df man diese Br\u00fcderschafft vermehren m\u00fcsse/ damit ein so\nunsch\u00e4tzbares Kleinod/ als dieses/ so das allergr\u00f6ste ist/ unter denen zeitlichen G\u00fctern\ndieser Welt/ nicht verlohren gehen m\u00f6chte. Darum auch die ganze Zusammenkunfft\n\u00fcbereinstimmig worden/ und confirmiret/ nach folgende Puncta zu halten.\"\nIbid., p. 102.\n\nPages 260:\nAlchemy and the re-emergence of Rosicrucianism\n251\ningest it.63 When undertaking their 'renewal' in this manner the brethren must\npermanently remove themselves to another country; they are also enjoined\nnot to use the lapis whilst hunting. 64\nWhilst these peculiar edicts mitigate against the possibility that there\nexisted behind Richter's work an actual cult centred on the miraculous\npowers of the lapis, the Warhaffte und vollkommene Bereitung des\nPhilosophischen Steins was an influence on the emergence of later\nRosicrucianism within Freemasonic circles around the middle of the\neighteenth century.65 The first German Freemasonic Lodge was founded in\n1737; in the following decades there emerged a variety of higher degrees\naugmenting the three Craft degrees (Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, Master\nMason) established in English Freemasonry. The higher degrees differed\nfrom group to group, and have been categorised by Mcintosh according to\nthree different tendencies; a secular, egalitarian and Enlightenment-orientated\ntendency, a 'Templar' chivalric strain, and a Rosicrucian variety marked by\nan emphasis on alchemy, secret gnosis and anti-democratic or theocratic\nsentiments. 66 According to Mcintosh, evidence of the emergence of this latter\ntendency occurs in a Czech manuscript of 1761, which draws from the\nAureum Vellus ('Golden Fleece,' 1749) of Hermann Fictuld and contains\nseven grades and rituals of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz.61 Fictuld was a\ncorrespondent with the famous theosopher Friedrich Christoph Oetinger\n(1702-1782), and has been touted as a possible 'founder' of the Gold- und\nRosenkreutz:68 In the Aureum Vellus he made mention of die goldenen Rosenkreutzer as the inheritors of the 'Golden Fleece' sought by Jason and the\nArgonauts; the work as a whole dealt with the alchemical significance of\nGreek and Egyptian mythology in the tradition of Michael Maier's Arcana\nArcanissima, and gave an alchemical reading of the symbolism of the\nfifteenth century Order of the Golden Fleece (which we also find in the\nsixteenth chapter of Maier's Themis Aurea, albeit in passing). 69 A similar\nalchemical treatment of pagan mythology drawing directly from Maier's\nArcana Arcanissima, Symbola Aureae Mensae and Atalanta Fugiens is to be\nfound in the Fables \u00c9gyptiennes et Grecques D\u00e9voil\u00e9es (1758) of Antoine\nJoseph Pern\u00e9ty, who would become librarian to the most prominent member\n63\n64\n65\n66\n67\n68\n69\nIbid., p. 103.\nIbid., p. 106.\nMcintosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, pp. 33-34.\nIbid., pp. 39,44.\nIbid., pp. 46-47.\nIbid:, Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 179-180.\nFaivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 76, 186; on Maier's reading of the myth of the\nGolden Fleece in his Arcana Arcanissima, Symbola Aureae Mensae and Atalanta\nFugiens, see also Faivre, The Golden Fleece and Alchemy, pp. 24-26.\n\nPages 261:\n252\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nof the Gold- und Rosenkreutz, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia (r.l7861797).70\nFollowing the collapse due to scandal of Baron von Hund's 'Strict\nObservance' Templar strain of Freemasonry in 1782, the Gold- und\nRosenkreutz became the dominant force within the German Craft, alongside\nthe 'Illuminati' who represented the secular, rationalising tendency we\nhave mentioned. 71 The Gold- und Rosenkreutz was marked by its antiEnlightenment stance and its emphasis on Christian piety and alchemy.\nAlchemical ideas and symbols were incorporated into the rituals of initiation\nand the teachings that accompanied each grade; laboratory alchemy was also\nan important part of the work of the order from the third degree onwards, and\nthose members reaching the seventh grade were deemed to have knowledge\nof the Philosophers' Stone.72 Paracelsian and Valentinian alchemy were the\norder of the day, although there were some members who denied the tria\nprima of Paracelsus and worked with the traditional sulphur-mercury theory\nas Maier had done. 73 Ideologically speaking, we find a marked similarity with\nthe thought of early modern alchemists such as Maier, i.e. vitalistic\nconceptions of a correspondence between gold, the sun and God, and a belief\nin a vital spirit conveyed by the blood which is the basis of a miraculous\nmedicine and tincture for metals. 74 Members of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz\nalso defended the complementarity of pagan and Christian belief in the\nmanner of their predecessors; thus Biblical authority was upheld alongside\nthe authority of a Tradition stretching back to ancient Egypt.75\nIn the work that has been described as the 'Bible' of the Gold- und\nRosenkreutz Order, the Compa\u00df der Weisen (1779), we find an extensive\nsurvey of alchemical and Rosicrucian writings, compiled by a frater Roseae\net Aureae Crucis with the partial aim of making them comprehensible within\nthe context of Freemasonry. The author names a number of early modern\nwriters as authorities, including Michael Maier, Heinrich Khunrath, Robert\nFludd, Thomas Vaughan, Gerhard Dorn, Basil Valentine and Adrian von\nMynsicht. The introduction deals with the occult knowledge of the Egyptians,\n70\n71\n72\n73\n74\n75\nPern\u00e9ty, Antoine Joseph. Fables \u00c9gyptiennes et Grecques D\u00e9voil\u00e9es. Paris: Chez Bauche,\n1758, pp. 13, 243, 259, 382, 495, 513, 529 et passim-, Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 76, 178.\nMcintosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, p. 42.\nOn this subject see Mcintosh, Christopher. \"Alchemy and the Gold- und Rosenkreutz.\" In\nMartels, \u0396. R. W. M. von. Alchemy Revisited: Proceedings of the International\nConference on the History of Alchemy at the University of Groningen, 17-19 April 1989.\nLeiden: E.J. Brill, 1990, pp. 239-244.\nBeyer, Das Lehrsystem des Ordens der Gold- und Rosenkreuzer, p. 21.\nMcintosh, \"Alchemy and the Gold- und Rosenkreutz,\" pp. 241-243.\nMcintosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, p. 52.\n\nPages 262:\nThe historiography of alchemy\n253\nGreeks, Brahmans, Druids et. al., and there Maier is named next to the\nantique authors Macrobius and Diodorus Siculus as an authority on\nmythology and the mystery cults, as well as being noted for his Rosicrucian\napologies. 76 In the main body of the text particular attention is directed\ntowards the Symbola Aureae Mensae as a source for information on medieval\nalchemical authors, 77 and as a guide to alchemical procedure itself.78 On this\ncount the Allegor\u00eca Bella is cited concerning the most astrologically\npropitious moment for the commencement of the work, i.e. \"when the moon\nand sun are in the sign of Aries near the head of the Dragon.\" 79 The Atalanta\nFugiens is referred to concerning the nature of certain Decknamen,as\nwell\nas a passage from an unidentified work of Maier's concerning the relation of\nthe alchemical work to the (Aristotelian) properties of the north and west\nwinds.81\n5. The historiography of alchemy\nThis brief sketch of the re-emergence of Rosicrucianism should serve to\nestablish that the alchemy of early modern practitioners such as Maier did not\nbecome 'meaningless' in the hands of later esoteric groupings, as Principe\nand Newman assert. Our goal here has not been to demonstrate the\ntransmission of a Tradition, passed from master to initiate from the time of\nMaier to our own; rather, it is to show that there exists an ideological\ncongruence in the history of esotericism pertaining to matters of alchemy.\nWhen nineteenth century writers such as Buhle, Katsch and von Murr looked\nto Maier as a key figure in the emergence of later Rosicrucianism and\nFreemasonry, they may have erred in constructing their 'lineage';\nnevertheless, their error was prompted by the broad similarities existing\nbetween Maier's thought and that of the secret societies of their own time.\nThese similarities may be enumerated as follows:\n76\n77\n78\n79\n80\n81\nJolyfief, Der Compa\u00df der Weisen, pp. 93-94, 114.\nIbid.,pp. 151-152,311-313,335.\nIbid., pp. 164, 311-313.\nIbid., p. 373.\nIbid., p. 402.\nIbid., pp. 376-377: \"Michael Meier sagt, man m\u00fcsse Achtung geben, da\u00df der Vulcan die\nSonnenhitze, die ohnehin schon von Natur trocken und warm sey, nicht zu stark \u00fcberhand\nnehmen lasse, daher sey es rathsam die Arbeit anzufangen, wenn ein nicht zu rauher\nNordwind wehet, welcher von den hohen Bergen seinen Ursprung nimmt, damit die\nstarke Hitze dieses g\u00f6ttlichen Feuers in etwas nachlassen m\u00f6ge, und die angenehmen\nWestwinde eine geb\u00fchrende M\u00e4\u00dfigung der K\u00e4lte und W\u00e4rme, N\u00e4sse und Trockne mit\nsich bringen.\"\n\nPages 263:\n254\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\n1. A vitalistic conception of alchemy as a universal science, which also\nencompasses the life of the human soul as a 'spiritual alchemy'\nwith pietistic overtones. In the Freemasonic and later Rosicrucian\ntraditions this alchemy was integrated with the Freemasonic system of\ninitiatory grades designed to accomplish a moral transformation in the\nadept.\n2. An alchemical philosophy of Nature focussing on celestial virtues,\nsolar mysticism, cyclical natural processes and correspondences\nbetween the macrocosm and the microcosm. As Mcintosh and\nPeuckert have argued, above all other authors it was Maier who\neffected a definitive binding of such alchemical conceptions with the\nRosicrucian tradition, as alchemy had formed only a part of the\nmessage of the original manifestos and rejoinders. 82\n3. A concern with the deciphering of 'hieroglyphs', in the pansophist\nsense of signs in Nature pointing to universal, divinely instituted laws.\n4. A pseudo-Egyptianism with its origins in the prisca sapientia doctrine\nof the Renaissance. This doctrine was associated with a syncretic\ntendency to harmonise Christian and pagan thought in a unitary\nTradition, and an eclectic attitude towards the integration of diverse\noccult and religious ideologies; Jewish patriarchal origins were also\nheavily emphasised.\nAs we have shown in our introductory preamble to the current work, this\nconjunction of alchemical and associated ideological elements continued to\nprevail in the esoteric circles of the nineteenth century, and formed the basis\nfor the alchemical hermeneutic proposed first by Silberer and then by Jung.\nIn attempting to evaluate Jung's historiography and his claims concerning\nthe nature of alchemy, it is pertinent to note that his argument for the\nexistence of a coherent 'tradition' extending from his own psychology via\nalchemy to ancient Gnosticism is far from new. Indeed, similar ideas are to\nbe found in the Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzer- Historie ('Impartial\nHistory of the Church and Heretics,' 1699) of the Pietist Gottfried Arnold, in\nwhich Rosicrucian and alchemical currents are also traced to the Gnostics,\nwho were to Arnold's mind the 'true' Christians and forebears of the\nReformation. 83 But even if we grant that Paracelsus and his followers were\n82\nMcintosh, Christopher. The Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology and Rituals of an\nOccult Order. Wellingborough: Crucible, 1987, pp. 54-56; Peuckert, Pansophie (1936\nedition), p. 152.\n83\nThe prevalence of alchemical practice in Pietist circles is demonstrated by the fact that\nGoethe himself was healed as a young man by an alchemical medicine produced by the\nPietist Moravian Brotherhood - the origins of a fascination with alchemy that was to play\na central role in German culture, particularly through his Faust.\n\nPages 264:\nThe historiography of alchemy\n255\nbranded as revivers of Gnostic heresy by their contemporaries, 84 a survey of\nthe medieval sources utilised by Maier confirms Obrist's view that the\nsoteriological and Christological motifs therein serve a primarily rhetorical\npurpose, and that Jung's views have their origins in the alchemy of the postReformation era. Certainly, a great deal of medieval texts speak of the\nnecessity of divine inspiration in the Art, and the importance of leading a\nmoral life if one wishes to be granted the divine secrets of the Philosophers'\nStone. There are also widespread conjectures concerning the nature of the\nprima materia and the cyclical transmutation of the four elements, which in\ntheir original antique philosophical context were inseparable from religious\nspeculation on the nature of God and the human soul. But it is only\nsubsequent to the late fifteenth century flowering of Neoplatonism in Italy,\nthe emergence of a syncretic Renaissance Hermeticism with its elaborate\ntheories of sympathy and correspondence, and the re-appearance of overtly\ngnostic and individualistic sentiments in the course of the Reformation, that\ncertain alchemies again attained the overt religiosity of their Hellenistic\nEgyptian and Gnostic counterparts.85\nIt should be noted, however, that Jung placed his own work in the context\nof a lineage of symbolic import rather than a Tradition per se, as he argued\nthat psychological or 'spiritual' elements in alchemical practice prior to the\nsixteenth century 'fission' of physica and mystica remained largely\nunconscious to the 'adepts'. On this matter we might follow the good advice\nof the historian of alchemy E. J. Holmyard, who stated that \"it must be left to\nthe psychologists\" to pronounce judgment on the \"profound psychological\nstudy\" put forward by Jung, rather than intruding into fields which are not\nour rightful domain. 86 We should also keep in mind Holmyard's accurate\ndepiction of Jung's view of medieval alchemy as a \"chemical research work\ninto which there entered, by way of projection, an admixture of unconscious\npsychic material;\" 87 as we have shown, when Principe and Newman speak of\n\"Jung's assertion that alchemy ceases to be alchemy when it becomes clear\nenough to be understood in chemical terms,\" they betray their fundamental\nmisunderstanding of the psychology of the unconscious. 88\n84\n85\n86\n87\n88\nPagel, Paracelsus, p. 315.\nWhilst Merkur has recently argued for a medieval origin to 'spiritual alchemy' with\nreference to the theoretical relation of the quintessence to the soul, his terms are not well\ndefined, and an explicit medieval work on alchemy as a process of spiritual transmutation\nwithin the adept is yet to be uncovered. See Merkur, Dan. \"The Study of Spiritual\nAlchemy: Mysticism, Gold-Making, and Esoteric Hermeneutics,\" Ambix, Vol. 37, No. 1,\nMarch 1990, pp. 35-45.\nHolmyard, Alchemy, p. 160.\nIbid., p. 159.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 414.\n\nPages 265:\n256\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nWhilst it is true that the pursuit which we have defined as 'spiritual\nalchemy' remains a subset of the whole that is early modern alchemy, it is by\nno means an insignificant element in the history of ideas, nor was it limited to\nnon-laboratory practitioners such as Boehme or Weigel. Furthermore, there\ncan be no doubt that the seeds of the early modern emergence of 'spiritual'\nalchemies were contained in medieval alchemy. When dealing with the\npresence (or perceived absence) of spiritual alchemies amongst laboratory\npractitioners of the early modern period, Principe and Newman make\nmention of a little known 'supernatural alchemy' which developed in\nseventeenth century England, and which held that certain alchemical products\nhad supernatural effects; their point is to show that such a pursuit has little in\ncommon with the spiritual alchemies of the nineteenth and twentieth\ncenturies. 89 It is self-evident that this particular alchemy cannot be placed\nunder the rubric of 'spiritual alchemy' in the manner of Maier's practice, and\nthat nothing has been proved by the example. The historiography proposed\nby Principe and Newman can only be upheld by portraying early modern\nlaboratory alchemy as a purely 'chemical' research (conceived in cryptopositivist terms), and by erasing from history the development of alchemical\nthought subsequent to the seventeenth century. For researchers in the history\nof Western esotericism, this modus operandi is entirely inadequate. Rather, it\nis apparent that the categories we encounter in the debate concerning the true\nimport of the ambiguous symbols of the alchemical corpus are not new, and\nthat we are embarking upon the study of living traditions; for just as certain\nvoices in the early modern period called for the separation of matters\ntheological and scientific, so today we find that schismatic outlook expressed\nby apologists (witting or otherwise) for the dominant scientific paradigm.\n89\nIbid., pp. 399-400.\n\nPages 266:\nBibliography\n1. P r i m a r y S o u r c e s\nA. Printed works of Maier\nThe following is a list of Maier's printed works cited in the foregoing pages.\nA forthcoming bibliography prepared by Prof. Dr. Karin Figala and Dr.\nUlrich Neumann of the Technische Universit\u00e4t M\u00fcnchen promises to be an\nexhaustive inventory of Maier's known printed works and manuscripts.\nMaier, Michael. Arcana Arcanissima, hoc est, Hieroglyphica Aegyptio-Graeca, vulgo\nnecdum cognita, ad demonstrandam falsorum apud antiquos deorum, dearum, heroum,\nanimantium et institutorum, pro sacr\u00ecs receptorum, originem, ex uno Aegyptiorum\nartificio, quod aureum animi et Corporis medicamentum peregit, deductam, Unde tot\npo\u00ebtarum allegoriae, scriptorum narrationes fabulosae et pertotam Encyclopaediam\nerrores sparsi clarissima veritatis luce manifestantur, suaeque tribui singula restituuntur,\nsex libris exp\u00f3sita. London: Creede, c. 1614.\n\u2014 Atalanta Fugiens, hoc est, Emblemata nova de secretis naturae chymica, accommodata\npartim oculis et intellectui, figuris cupro incisis, adjectisque sententiis, Epigrammatis et\nnotis, partim auribus et recreationi animi plus minus 50 Fugis musicalibus trium Vocum,\nquarum duae ad unum simplicem melodiam distichis canendis peraptam, correspondeant, non absque, singulari jucunditate videnda, legenda, meditanda, intelligenda,\ndijudicanda, canenda et audienda. Oppenheim: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1617.\n\u2014 Cantilenae Intellectuales, in Triadas 9. distinctae, De Phoenice Redivivo, hoc est,\nMedicinarum omnium pretiosissima, (quae Mundi Epitome et Universi Speculum est) non\ntam alta voce, quam profunda mente dictatae, et pro CLAVE Ternarum irreserabilium in\nChymia arcanum rationabilibus ministratae. Rostock: Mauritii Saxonis, 1622.\n\u2014 Civitas Corporis Humani, a Tyrannide Arthritica vindicata: Hoc est, Podagrae,\nChiragrae, et Gonagrae, quae, velut tyranni immanissimi artus extremos obsident, et\nexcruciant, Methodica Curatio. Duobus auxiliis potissimum institu\u00eda, ac deinde latius\nclarissimorum, praesertim GERMAN1AE, Medicorum testimoniis comprobata, inque\nMedicinae Candidatorum gratiam atque utilitatem concinnata et edita. Frankfurt am\nMain: Lucas Jennis, 1621.\n\u2014 De Circulo Physico, Quadrato: Hoc est, AURO, Eiusque virtute medicinali, sub duro\ncortice instar nuclei latente; An et qualis inde petendo sit, Tractatus haud inutilis.\nOppenheim: Lucas Jennis, 1616.\n\nPages 267:\nPrimary Sources\nDe Medicina Regia et vere heroica, Coelidonia. Copenhagen, Royal Library, 12,-159, 4\u00b0.\nPrague: n.p., 1609.\nExamen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum detectorum et in gratiam veritatis amantium\nsuccincte refutatorum. Frankfurt am Main: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1617.\nHymnosophia, seu Meditatio Laudis Divinae, pro Coelidonia, Medicina mystica, voarchadumica etc. Prague: n.p., n.d.\nJocus Severus, hoc est, Tribunal aequum, quo noctua regina avium, Phoenice arbitro,\npost varias disceptationes et querelas volucrum earn infestantium pronunciatur. Frankfurt\nam Main: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1617.\nLusus Serius, quo Hermes sive Mercurius rex mundanorum omnium sub hom\u00ecne\nexistentium, post longam disceptationem in concilio octovirali habitam, homine rationali\narbitro, judicatus et constitutus est. Oppenheim: Lucas Jennis, 1616.\nSeptimana Philosophica, qua aenigmata aureola de omni naturae genere a Salomone\nIsra\u00eblitarum sapientissimo rege, et Arabiae regina Saba, nec non Hyramo, Tyri principe,\nsibi invicem in modum colloquii proponuntur et enodantur: ubi passim novae, at verae,\ncum ratione et experientia convenientes, rerum naturalium causae exponuntur et\ndemonstrantur, f\u00ecguris cupro incisis singulis diebus adjectis. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas\nJennis, 1620.\nSilentium post Clamores, hoc est, Tractatus apologeticus, quo causae non solum\nclamorum seu revelationum Fraternitatis Germanicae de R.C. sed et silentii, seu non\nredditae ad singulorum vota responsionis, una cum malevolorum refutatione, traduntur\net demonstrantur. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1617.\n\"Subtilis Allegoria super Secreta Chymiae.\" In Museum Hermeticum Reformatum et\nAmpliflcatum. Frankfurt am Main: Sande, 1678, pp. 701-740.\nSymbola Aureae Mensae Duodecim Nationum. Hoc est, Hermaea seu Mercurii Festa ab\nHeroibus duodenis selectis, artis chymicae usu, sapientia et authoritate paribus\ncelebrata, ad Pyrgopolynicem seu Adversarium ilium tot annis iactabundum, virgini\nChemiae lniuriam argumentis tarn vitiosis, quam conuitiis argutis inferentem, confundendum et exarmandum, Artifices vero optime de ea m\u00e9ritos suo honori et famae\nrestituendum. Ubi et artis continuatio et Veritas invicta 36 rationibus, et experientia\nlibrisque authorum plus quam trecentis demonstrantur. Opus, ut Chemiae, sic omnibus\nantiquitatis et rerum scitu dignissimarum percupidis, utilissimum, 12 libris explicatum et\ntraditum, flguris cupro incisis passim adjectis. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1617.\nThemis Aurea, das ist, von den Gesetzen und Ordnungen der l\u00f6blichen Fraternitet R. C.\nFrankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1618.\nThemis Aurea, hoc est, de Legibus Fraternitatis R. C. tractatus, quo earum cum rei\nveritate convenientia, utilitas publica et privata, nec non causa necessaria, evolvuntur et\ndemonstrantur. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1618.\nThemis Aurea, hoc est, de Legibus Fraternitatis R. C. tractatus, quo earum cum rei\nveritate convenientia, utilitas publica et privata, nec non causa necessaria, evolvuntur et\ndemonstrantur. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1624.\n\"Theses de Epilepsia.\" Universit\u00e4tsbibliothek\nBasiliensium, Vol. 3, No. 92.\nBasel,\nDisputationum\nMedicarum\n\nPages 268:\nBibliography\n259\n\u2014 Tractatus de Volucri Arborea, absque patre et matre, in insulis Orcadum forma\nanserculorum proveniente, seu de ortu miraculoso potius quam naturali vegetabilium,\nan\u00ecmalium, hominum et supranaturalium quorundam. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis,\n1619.\n\u2014 Tractatus Posthumus, sive Ulysses, hoc est, Sapientia seu intelligentia, tanquam coelestis\nscintilla beatitudinis, quod si in fortunae et corporis bonis naufragium faciat, adportum\nmeditationis et patientiae remigio feliciter se expediat. Una cum annexis tractatibus de\nfraternitate Roseae Crucis. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1624.\n\u2014 Tripus Aureus, hoc est, Tres tractatus chymici selectissimi, nempe I. Basilii Valentini,\nBenedictini ordinis monachi, Germani. Practica una cum 12. clavibus et appendice, ex\nGermanico; II. Thomae Nortoni, Crede mihi seu Ordinale, ante annos 140 ab authore\nscriptum, nunc ex Anglicano manuscripto in Latinum translatum, phrasi cuiusque\nauthoris ut et sententia retenta; 111. Cremeri cuius Abbatis Westmonasteriensis Angli\nTestamentum, hactenus nondum publicatum, nunc in diversarum nationum gratiam editi,\net figuris cupro affabre incisis ornati opera et studio Michaelis Maieri. Phil, et Med. D.\nCom. P. etc. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1618.\n\u2014 Verum Inventum, Hoc est, Mu\u00f1era Germaniae, Ab ipsa primitus reperto (non ex vino, ut\ncalumniator quidam scoptice inuehit, sed vi animi et corporis) et reliquo ORBI\ncommunicata, quae tanta sunt, ut plaeraque eorum mutationem Mundo singularem\nattulerint, universa longe utilissima extiterint, Tractatu peculiari evoluta et tradita.\nFrankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1619.\n\u2014 Viatorium, Hoc est, de Montibus Planetarum Septem seu metallorum; Tractatus tam\nutilis, quam perspicuus, quo, ut Indice Mercuriali in triviis, vel Ariadneo filo in\nLabyrinthe, seu Cynosura in oceano chymicorum errorum immenso, quilibet rationalis,\nveritatis amans, ad illum, qui in montibus sese abdidit De Rubeapetra Alexicacum,\nomnibus medicis desideratum, investigandum, uti poterit. Oppenheim: Johann Theodor\nde Bry, 1618.\nB. Manuscripts relating to Maier\nHessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg, Bestand 4b, Nr. 266. Draft of Maier's appointment as\nMedicus und Chymicus von Haus Au\u00df at the court of Moritz of Hessen-Kassel.\n\u2014 Bestand 4g, Paket 57- 1619. A letter from Maier to Moritz of Hessen-Kassel dated 18th\nJanuary, 1619.\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 11, 1, pp. 47 recto- 64 verso. \"Scala\nArcis Philosophicae, Gradibus Octodecim Distincta.\" A manuscript from Maier to Moritz\nof Hessen-Kassel dating to shortly before 29th April, 1611.\n\u2014 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 19, 1, pp. 279 recto- 280 verso. A manuscript from Maier to Moritz of\nHessen-Kassel containing four memoranda and dating to around 1618-1619.\n\u2014 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 19, 1, pp. 283 recto- 284 recto. A letter from Maier to Moritz of HessenKassel dated March 16th 1611.\n\u2014 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 19, 1, pp. 285 recto- 286 verso. A letter from Maier to Moritz of HessenKassel dated 17 th April, 1618.\n\nPages 269:\nPrimary Sources\n260\n\u2014 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 19, 1, pp. 287 recto- 287 verso. A letter from Maier to Moritz of HessenKassel dated 29th April, 1611.\nUniversit\u00e4tsbibliothek Leipzig, MS 0396. Maier, Michael. \"De Theosophia Aegyptiorum.\"\nVienna, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv: Palatinat, Prag 29. IX. 1609, (R) u. (WB II, 114),\npp. 1 recto- 12 verso. Patent of nobility from the imperial court listing the privileges and\nobligations associated with Maier's title of Imperial Count Palatine, 1609.\n\u2014 Palatinat, Prag 29. IX. 1609, (R) u. (WB II, 114), pp. 24 recto- 25 recto. A copy of\nMaier's letter to Emperor Rudolf requesting the symbol of Avicenna, 1609.\nC. Other\nmanuscripts\nAbbot Cremer, Pseudo-. \"A Book of the Transmutation of Metals.\" Bodleian Library, MS\nAshmole 1415.\n\u2014 \"Testamentum.\" Wellcome Institute Library, MS 3557.\nArnoldus de Villanova, Pseudo-. \"A Chymicall treatise of the Ancient and highly illuminated\nPhilosopher, Devine and Physitian, Arnoldus de Nova Villa.\" Bodleian Library, MS\nAshmole 1415, pp. 130-146.\nDora, Gerhard. \"A Treatise of John Tritheme concerning the Spagirick Artifice exposed &\ninterpreted by Gerhard Dora.\" British Library, MS Sloane 632, pp. 6-10.\nKhunrath, Heinrich. \"A Naturall Chymicall Symbolum, or a Short Confession of Henry\nKunwrath of Lipsicke, Doctor of Phisick.\" Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1459, II, pp.\n99-106.\nMaria Prophetissa, Pseudo-. \"The Practice of Mary the Prophetess in the Alchemical Art.\"\nBritish Library, MS Sloane 3641, 17th century, pp. 1-8.\nMerlin, Pseudo-. \"The Allegory of Merlin.\" British Library, MS Sloane 3506, 17th \nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 251 to page 269 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 269 to page 290 out of a total of 334:\nPages 269:\nPrimary Sources\n260\n\u2014 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 19, 1, pp. 287 recto- 287 verso. A letter from Maier to Moritz of HessenKassel dated 29th April, 1611.\nUniversit\u00e4tsbibliothek Leipzig, MS 0396. Maier, Michael. \"De Theosophia Aegyptiorum.\"\nVienna, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv: Palatinat, Prag 29. IX. 1609, (R) u. (WB II, 114),\npp. 1 recto- 12 verso. Patent of nobility from the imperial court listing the privileges and\nobligations associated with Maier's title of Imperial Count Palatine, 1609.\n\u2014 Palatinat, Prag 29. IX. 1609, (R) u. (WB II, 114), pp. 24 recto- 25 recto. A copy of\nMaier's letter to Emperor Rudolf requesting the symbol of Avicenna, 1609.\nC. Other\nmanuscripts\nAbbot Cremer, Pseudo-. \"A Book of the Transmutation of Metals.\" Bodleian Library, MS\nAshmole 1415.\n\u2014 \"Testamentum.\" Wellcome Institute Library, MS 3557.\nArnoldus de Villanova, Pseudo-. \"A Chymicall treatise of the Ancient and highly illuminated\nPhilosopher, Devine and Physitian, Arnoldus de Nova Villa.\" Bodleian Library, MS\nAshmole 1415, pp. 130-146.\nDora, Gerhard. \"A Treatise of John Tritheme concerning the Spagirick Artifice exposed &\ninterpreted by Gerhard Dora.\" British Library, MS Sloane 632, pp. 6-10.\nKhunrath, Heinrich. \"A Naturall Chymicall Symbolum, or a Short Confession of Henry\nKunwrath of Lipsicke, Doctor of Phisick.\" Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1459, II, pp.\n99-106.\nMaria Prophetissa, Pseudo-. \"The Practice of Mary the Prophetess in the Alchemical Art.\"\nBritish Library, MS Sloane 3641, 17th century, pp. 1-8.\nMerlin, Pseudo-. \"The Allegory of Merlin.\" British Library, MS Sloane 3506, 17th century,\npp. 74-75.\nMorienus Romanus. \"Morieni Romani Eremitae Hierosolymitani Sermo.\" British Library,\nMS Sloane 3697, 17th century.\nNorton, Thomas. \"The Ordinali of Alchimy written by Thomas Norton of Bristoll.\" Bodleian\nLibrary, MS Ashmole 57, 1577.\nD. Other primary\nsources\nAlbertus Magnus, Pseudo-. \"Scriptum Alberti super Arborem Aristotelis.\" In Theatrum\nChemicum. Vol. 2. Strasbourg: Zetzner, 1659, pp. 457-458.\nal-Ir\u00e4ql, Abu'l-Q\u00e4sim Muhammad ibn Ahmad. Book of the Knowledge Acquired Concerning\nthe Cultivation of Gold. Trans. E. J. Holmyard. Paul Geuthner: Paris, 1923.\nAndreae, Johann Valentin. Turris Babel, sive Judiciorum de Fraternitate Rosaceae Crucis\nCHAOS. Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner, 1619.\nAnthony, Francis. Apologia Veritatis Illucescentis, pro Auro Potabili: seu Essentia Auri ad\nmedicinalem potabilitatem absque corrosivis reducti; ut fere omnibus humani corporis\naegritudinibus, ac praesertim Cordis corroborationi, tanquam Universalis Medicina,\nutilissime adhiberi possit; una cum rationibus intelligibilibus, testimoniis locupletissimis,\n\nPages 270:\nBibliography\n261\net modo convenienti in singulis morbis usurpandi, producta. London: Johannes Legatt,\n1616.\n\u2014 Medicinae Chymicae, et Veri Potabilis Auri Assertio. Cambridge: Ex officina Cantrelli\nLegge, 1610.\nArisleus. \"Visio Arislei.\" In Artis Auriferae. Vol. 1. Basel: Petrum Peraam, 1572, pp. 146154.\nArnold, Gottfried. Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzer- Historie, Vom Anfang des Neuen\nTestaments bi\u00df auf das Jahr Christi 1688. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967.\nAshmole, Elias. Fasciculus Chemicus: or, Chymical Collections. Expressing the Ingress,\nProgress, and Egress, of the Secret Hermetick Science, out of the Choisest and most\nFamous Authors. Collected and digested in such an order, that it may prove to the\nadvantage, not onely of the Beginners, but Proficients of this high Art, by none hitherto\ndisposed in this Method. Whereunto is added, the Arcanum or Grand Secret of Hermetick\nPhilosophy. Both made English by James Hasolle, Esquire, Qui est Mercuriophilus\nAnglicus. London: Printed by J. Flesher for Richard Mynne, at the sign of St.Paul in\nLittle Britain, 1650.\nAugustine. \"City of God.\" In The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 24. Trans. Demetrius B. Zema\net. al. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1954.\nBacon, Roger. The Mirror of Alchimy. London: Richard Olive, 1597.\nBasil Valentine. Letztes Testament und Offenbahrung der Himmlischen und irdischen\nGehmeimni\u00df. Jena: Eyring, 1626.\nBenedictas Hilari\u00f3n. Echo Colloquii Rhodo-staurotici, Das ist: Wider-Schall/ oder Antwort/\nauff das newlicher zeit au\u00dfgegangene Gespr\u00e4ch Dreyer Persohnen, die Fraternitet vom\nRosenCreutz betreffendt. Darinnen zu sehen, Wohin, nicht allein der Author ermeldtes\nGespr\u00e4ches, im Schreiben geziehlet, sondern auch, wie es eigentlich, umb ermeldte\nFraternitet beschaffen sey. Auff Befehl seiner Obern verfertigt Durch Benedictum\nHilarionem, Fr. Colleg. etc. N.p.: n.p., 1622.\n\u2014 Echo Colloquii Rhodo-Staurotici, hoc est: Resolutio sive Responsio ad nupero tempore\neditum trium personarum Colloquium Fraternitatem Roseae Crucis concernens.\nFrankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1624.\nBerthelot, Marcellin Pierre Eugene (ed., trans.). Collection des Anciens Alchimistes Grecs.\nLondon: Holland Press, 1963.\n\u0392. \u039c. I. (Raphael Eglinus?). Assertio Fraternitatis R. C. Quam Roseae Crucis vocant, a\nquodam Fraternitatis eius Socio Carmine expressa. Frankfurt am Main: Johann Bringer,\n1614.\nBorelli, Petrus. Bibliotheca Chimica. Heidelberg: Samuel Broun, 1656.\nC., Ro. A True Historicall Discourse of Muley Hamets rising to the three Kingdomes of\nMoruecos, Fes and Sus: the dis-union of the three Kingdomes, by civili warre, kindled\namongst his three ambitious Sonnes, Muley Sheck, Muley Boferes, and Muley Sidan.\nLondon: Thomas Purfoot, 1609.\n\nPages 271:\n262\nPrimary Sources\nCampion, Thomas. Thomae Campioni Epigrammatum\nlibri primus. London: E. Griffin,\n1619.\nCarrichter, Bartholomaeus. Kr\u00e4utterbuch des Edelen und Hochgelehrten Herzen Doctoris\nBartholomei Carrichters. Stra\u00dfburg: Antony Bertram, 1609.\nC. V. A. I. B. F. Colloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum trium personarum, per Famam et\nConfessionem quodammodo revelatum, de Fraternitate Roseae Crucis. Frankfurt am\nMain: Lucas Jennis, 1624.\n\u2014 Colloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum, Das ist: Gespr\u00e4ch dreyer Personen/ von der vor wenig\nJahren/ durch die Famam et Confessionem etlicher massen geoffenbarten Fraternitet de\u00df\nRosen Creuzes; Darinnen zu sehen/ Was endlich von so vielen unterschiedlichen in ihrem\nNamen publicirten Schriefften/ und denn auch von der Br\u00fcderschafft selbsten zu halten\nsey. Allen trewherzigen/ und aber durch so vielerhand Schreiben irrgemachten\nChristlichen Lesern zu lieb in druck gegeben. N.p.: n.p., 1621.\nd'Espagnet, Jean. Enchyridion Physicae Restitutae, or, A Summary of the Physicks\nRecovered. Ed. Thomas Willard. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999.\nDorn, Gerhard. \"Physica Trithemii.\" In Theatrum Chemicum, Vol. 1. Strasbourg: Zetzner,\n1656, pp. 388-399.\nEcker und Eckhoffen, Hans Heinrich von (Magister Pianco). Der Rosenkreuzer in seiner\nBlosse. Amsterdam: n.p., 1782.\nFama Fraternitatis: Das Urmanifest der Rosenkreuzer Bruderschaft. Ed. Kooij, Pleun van\nder and Carlos Gilly. Haarlem: Rozekruis Pers, 1998.\nFama Fraternitatis, oder Entdeckung der Bruderschafft de\u00df l\u00f6blichen Ordens de\u00df Rosen\nCreutzes/ Beneben der Confession Oder Bekantnu\u00df derselben Fraternitet/ an alle\nGelehrte und H\u00e4upter in Europa geschrieben. Kassel: n.p., 1616.\nFavaro, A. (ed.). Atti della Nazione Germanica Artista nello Studio di Padova. Voi. 2. Padua:\nAntenore, 1967.\nFersius, Johannes. Commendatio Martyrii Beatorum Martyrum loannis Hussi et Hieronymi\nPragensis. Wittemberg: Johannes Cratonis, 1586.\n\u2014 Theses Summam doctrinae de Temperamentis Corporis humani breviter complexae, ad\ndisputandum publice; Propositae a M. Iohanne Fersio Strelensis, de quibus iuvante Deo\nrespondebit Michael Meierus Holsatus. Frankfurt am Main: Sciurianis, 1592.\nFludd, Robert. Apologia Compendiaria, Fraternitatem de Rosea Cruce suspicionis et\ninfamiae maculis asspersam [sic], veritatis quasi Fluctibus abluens et abstergens.\nLeiden: Gottfried Basson, 1616.\n\u2014 Tractatus Apologeticus Integritatem Societatis de Rosea Cruce defendens. In qua\nprobatur contra D. Libavii et aliorum eiusdem farinae calumnias, quod admirabilia\nnobis a Fraternitate R. C. oblata, sine improba Magiae impostura, aut Diaboli\npraestigiis et illusionibuspraestaripossint.\nLeiden: Gottfried Basson, 1617.\n\nPages 272:\nBibliography\n263\nGarasset, Fran\u00e7ois. La Doctrine Curieuse des Beaux Esprits de ce Temps, ou Pretendus Tels.\nContenant Plusieurs Maximes pernicieuses \u00e0 \u0393Est\u00e2t, \u00e0 la Religion, et aux bonnes\nMoeurs. Combattue et Renversee par le P. Fran\u00e7ois Garassus de la Compagnie de\nJESUS. Paris: Sebastien Chappelet, 1623.\nGoethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Poetry and Truth. Vol. 1. Trans. Minna Smith. London: G.\nBell & Sons Ltd., 1911.\nGrasshoff, Johannes. Aperta Arca Arcani Artificiosissimi. Frankfurt am Main: Johan Carl\nUnckel, 1617.\n\u2014 \"Ein g\u00fcldener Tractat vom Philosophischen Steine.\" In Geheime Figuren der\nRosenkreuzer aus dem l\u00f6ten und 17ten Jahrhundert. Vol. 2. Altona: n.p., c. 1785-1790.\n\u2014 \"Ein g\u00fcldener Tractat vom Philosophischen Steine.\" In Dyas Chymica Tripartita.\nFrankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1625, pp. 55-66.\nGreverus, Iodocus. \"Secretum Nobilissimum et Verissimum.\" In Theatrum Chemicum.\nUrsel: Zetzner, 1602, pp. 783-810.\nGrick, Friedrich (Irenaeus Agnostus). Prodromus Fr. R. C. Das ist: Ein Vorgeschmack und\nbeyl\u00e4uffige Anzeig der grossen au\u00dff\u00fchrlichen Apologi \u03b5\u03b9\u03c3 \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd, welche\nbaldt folgen sol, gegen und wider den Zanbrecher, und Fabelprediger Hisaiam sub\nCruce. N.p.: n.p., 1620.\nGwinne, Matthew. Aurum non Aurum: In assertorem chymicae, sed verae medicinae\ndesertorum, Frac. Anthonivm, Matthaei Gwynn succincta adversaria. London: R. Field,\n1611.\nHanneman, Johann Ludwig. Cato Chemicus Tractatus: Quo Verae ac Genuinae\nPhilosophiae Hermeticae, et Fucatae ac Sophisticae Pseudo Chemiae et utriusque\nMagistrorum Characterismi accurate delineantur. Hamburg: Gothofried Liebernickel,\n1690.\n\u2014 Instructissima Pharus. Kiel: n.p., 1712.\n\u2014 Ovum Hermetico-Paracelsico-Trismegistum,\ni.e.\nCommentarius-Philosophico-ChemicoMedicus, In quondam Epistolam Mezahab Dictam de Auro. Et Historia Philosophico\nChemico-Medica de eodem metallo nativo et artificiali. In quo et 108. Quaestiones\nChemicae ab Excellentiss. D. D. Morhofio propositae ab Autore solvuntur. Omnia, juxta\nadeptae Paracelsicae et Eclecticae Philosophiae principia. Frankfurt am Main: Friderich\nKnoch, 1694.\nHartmann, Johannes. Disputationes Chymico-Medicae: Pleraeque sub Praesidio Joh.\nHartmanni, Med. D. et Chymiatriae in Academia Marpurgensi Professons Publici, ab\naliquot Medicinae Candidatis et Studiosis, ibidem censurae publicae expositae...\nMarburg: Paul Egenolph, 1614.\nHermes Trismegistus, Pseudo-. \"Tractatus Aureus de Lapidis physici secreto.\" In Theatrum\nChemicum. Vol. 4. Stra\u00dfburg: Zetzner, 1613, pp. 672-797.\nHomer. The Iliad. Trans. Martin Hammond. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987.\nHorapollo. Hieroglyphica Horapollinis. Trans. David Hoeschel. Augustae Vindelicorum:\nn.p., 1595.\n\nPages 273:\n264\nHorapollo. The Hieroglyphics\nUniversity Press, 1993.\nPrimary Sources\nof Horapollo. Trans. George Boas. Princeton: Princeton\nIamblichus. Iamblichus on the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians. Trans.\nThomas Taylor. London: Stuart and Watkins, 1968.\nJolyfief, Augustin Anton Pocqui\u00e8res de. Der Compa\u00df der Weisen, von einem Mitverwandten\nder innern Verfassung der \u00e4chten und rechten Freym\u00e4urerey. Leipzig: Christian Ulrich\nRingmacher, 1782.\nKepler, Johannes. De Stella Nova in Pede Serpentarii. Prague: Pauli Sessii, 1606.\nKhunrath, Heinrich. Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae. The Amphitheatre Engravings of\nHeinrich Khunrath. Trans. Patricia Tahil. Edinburgh: Magnum Opus Hermetic\nSourceworks, 1981.\n\u2014 \"Treuhertzige Warnungs-Vermahnung an alle Liebhaber der Naturgemesen Alchemie\nTransmutatoriae.\" In Deutsches Theatrum Chemicum. N\u00fcrnberg: Adam Jonathan\nFel\u00dfecker, 1728, pp. 289-313.\n\u2014 Von Hylealischen, Das ist Pri-Materia-lischen\nCatholischen, oder Algemeinem\nNat\u00fcrlichen Chaos. Magdeburg: n.p., 1597.\nKircher, Athanasius. Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Vol. 2. Rome: Vitalis Mascardi, 1653.\nMaier, Michael. \"A Subtle Allegory concerning the Secrets of Alchemy.\" In The Hermetic\nMuseum, Restored and Enlarged. Trans. Arthur Edward Waite. London: J. Elliott and\nCo., 1893, pp. 199-233.\n\u2014 Intellectual Cantilenae in Nine Triads upon the Resurrection of the Phoenix. Trans. Mike\nDickman. Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks No.25. Glasgow: Magnum Opus\nHermetic Sourceworks, 1997.\n\u2014 Lusus Serius, or, Serious Passe-time. A Philosophical Discourse concerning the\nSuperiority of Creatures under Man. London: Moseley and Heath, 1654.\n\u2014 \"The Flying Atalanta, Or Philosophical Emblems of the Secrets of Nature.\" British\nLibrary, MS Sloane 3645, 17th century, pp. 51-102.\n\u2014 Themis Aurea: The Laws of the Fraternity of the Rosie Crosse. Written in Latin by Count\nMichael Maierus, And now in English for the Information of those who seek after the\nknowledge of that Honourable and mysterious Society of wise and renowned\nPhilosophers... Whereto is annexed an Epistle to the Fraternity in Latine, from some here\nin England. London: Printed for N. Brooke at the Angel in Cornhill, 1656.\nMaria Prophetissa, Pseudo-. \"Practica Mariae Prophetissae in Artem Alchimicam.\" In Artis\nAuriferae. Vol. 1. Basel: Conradi Vvaldkirchii, 1593, pp. 319-324.\nMerlin, Pseudo-. \"Merlini Allegoria Profundissimum Philosophici Lapidis Arcanum Perfecte\nContinens.\" In Artis Auriferae. Vol. 1. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1593, pp. 392-396.\nMolther, Georg (E. D. F. O. C. R. Sen.). Antwort, der Hochw\u00fcrdigen und Hocherleuchten\nBr\u00fcderschafft de\u00df RosenCreutzes. N.p.: n.p., 1617.\n\nPages 274:\nBibliography\n265\n\u2014 De quodam peregrino, qui anno superiore MDCXV imperialem Wetzslariam transiens,\nnon modo se fratrem R. C. confessus fuit verum etiam multiplici rerum scientia, verbis et\nfactis admirabilem sepraestitit. Frankfurt am Main: Johann Bringer, 1616.\n\u2014 \"Von einer frembden Mannsperson/ Welche inn j\u00fcngst verflossenem M. DC. XV. Jahr\ndurch de\u00df H. Reichs Statt Wetzslar gerei\u00dft/ und sich nicht allein f\u00fcr ein Bruder de\u00df\nOrdens de\u00df Rosen Creuzes au\u00dfgegeben/ sondern auch durch vielf\u00e4ltige Geschickligkeit/\nunnd allerhand Sachen Wissenschafft/ mit Worten unnd Wercken sich also erzeigt hat/\nda\u00df man sich ab ihme verwundern m\u00fcssen/ Gr\u00fcndtliche Relation.\" In Fama Fraternitatis,\noder Entdeckung der Bruderschafft de\u00df l\u00f6blichen Ordens de\u00df Rosen Creutzes... Sampt\ndem Sendtschreiben Iuliani de Campis, und Georgii Moltheri Med. D. und Ordinarli zu\nWetzlar Relation/ von einer di\u00df Ordens gewissen Person. Frankfurt am Main: Johann\nBringer, 1617.\nMonardes, Nicolas Bautista. Historia Medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias\nOccidentales. Seville: Escrivano, 1574.\nMorhof, D. G. De Metallorum Transmutatione, ad Virum Nobilissimum et Amplissimum\nJoelem Langelottum, Serenissimi Principis Cimbrici Archiatrum Celeberrimum, Epistola.\nHamburg: Ex Officina Gothofredi Schultzen, 1673.\nMorienus Romanus. \"Liber de Compositione Alchemiae quem edidit Morienus Romanus.\"\nArtis Auriferae. Voi. 2. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1593.\nMynsicht, Adrian von (Hinricus Madathanus). \"Aureum Seculum Redivivum,\" in Dyas\nChymica Tripartita, das ist: Sechs Herzliche Teutsche Philosophische Tract\u00e4tlein.\nFrankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1625, pp. 74-87.\nNichols, J. The Progresses, Processions and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First.\nVol. II. London: Nichols, 1828.\nNorton, Thomas. Thomas Norton's Ordinal of Alchemy. Ed. John Reidy. Oxford: Oxford\nUniversity Press, 1975.\nOsiandrische Experiment von Sole, Luna et Mercuria, Welche in f\u00fcrnehmer Herren laboratoriis probirt worden darau\u00df mehr per Exempla als Rationes, oder durch viel verwirzte\nProce\u00df verkehrte Sophistische und unn\u00fctze B\u00fccher verschrauffte Wort und subtile Reden\nund die wahre Philosophische Materi, rechte Solution, Gewicht, Glas, Ofen und\nRegierung des Feuers zu fassen, und zumal man richtige Anleitung hat, dem Werck zur\nTinctur und Arztnei weiter nachzudencken und zuergr\u00fcnden. N\u00fcrnberg: Johann Andreas,\n1659.\nPern\u00e9ty, Antoine Joseph. Fables \u00c9gyptiennes et Grecques D\u00e9voil\u00e9es. Paris: Chez Bauche,\n1758.\nPhysiologus. Trans. Michael J. Curley. 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Beck, 1998, pp. 46-\n\nPages 283:\nSecondary Sources\n274\nNewman, William R. \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language? Eirenaeus Philalethes and\nCarl Jung,\" Revue D'Histoire des Sciences, Vol. 49, No. 2, 1996, pp. 159-188.\n\u2014 \"The Corpuscular Theory of J. B. Van Helmont and its Medieval Sources,\"\nVivarium,\nVol. 31, 1993, pp. 161-191.\nNoll, Richard (ed.). Bizarre Diseases of the Mind. Berkeley: Berkeley Publishing Group,\n1990.\n\u2014 \"C. G. Jung and J. B. Rhine: Two Complementary Approaches to the Phenomenology of\nthe Paranormal.\" In Shapin, Betty and Lisette Coly (eds.). Parapsychology\nand Human\nNature. New York: Parapsychology Foundation, 1989.\n\u2014 Encyclopedia\nof Schizophrenia\nand the Psychotic Disorders. New York: Facts on File,\n2000.\n\u2014 \"Multiple Personality, Dissociation, and C. G. Jung's Complex Theory,\" Journal\nof\nAnalytical Psychology, Vol 34, No. 4, October 1989, pp. 353-370.\n\u2014 The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung. New York: Random House, 1997.\n\u2014 The Jung Cult - Origins of a Charismatic Movement. Princeton: Princeton University\nPress, 1994.\n\u2014 \"The Rose, the Cross and the Analyst,\" The New York Times, October 15, 1994, p. 19.\nObrist, Barbara. Les D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie\nAlchimique\n(XIVe \u2014 XV\" si\u00e8cles). Paris: Le\nSycomore, 1982.\nOestreich, Gerhard. \"Clapmarius.\" In Neue Deutsche Biographie. Vol. 3. Berlin: Duncker &\nHumblot, 1957, p. 260.\nPagel, Walter. \"Jung's Views on Alchemy,\" Isis, Vol. 39, No. 1, May 1948, pp. 44-48.\n\u2014 Paracelsus:\nAn Introduction\nto Philosophical\nMedicine in the Era of the\nRenaissance.\nBasel: Karger, 1982.\n\u2014 William Harvey's Biological Ideas. New York: Karger, 1967.\nPeuckert, Will-Erich. Die Rosenkreuzer:\nzur Geschichte einer Reformation.\nJena: Eugen\nDiedrichs, 1928.\n\u2014 Pansophie. Vol. 3. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1973.\n\u2014 Pansophie:\nein Versuch zur Geschichte der weissen und schwarzen Magie. Stuttgart:\nKohlhammer, 1936.\nPo-Chia Hsia, R. Social Discipline in the Reformation: Central Europe 1550-1750. London:\nRoutledge, 1989.\nPowell, Neil. Alchemy: the Ancient Science. London: Aldus Books, 1976.\nPraz, Mario. Studies\nin Seventeenth-Century\nImagery.\nVol. 1. London: The Warburg\nInstitute, 1939.\nPrincipe,\nLawrence\nM. and Newman,\nWilliam R. \"Alchemy\nvs. Chemistry:\nThe\nEtymological Origins of a Historiographie Mistake,\" Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 3,\nNo. 1, 1998, pp. 32-65.\n\u2014 \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy.\" In Newman, William R. and\nAnthony Grafton (eds.). Secrets of Nature: Astrology\nEurope. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 2001, pp. 385-431.\nand Alchemy\nin Early\nModern\n\nPages 284:\nBibliography\n275\nQuispel, Gilles. \"Gnosis and Culture.\" In Barnaby, Karin and Pellegrino D'Acierno (eds.). C.\nG. Jung and the Humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990, pp. 11-52.\nRead, John. Prelude to Chemistry. London: G. 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New York: Samuel Weiser,\n\nPages 286:\nBibliography\n277\nWestman, Robert S. \"Nature, Art and Psyche: Jung, Pauli and the Kepler-Fludd Polemic.\" In\nVickers, Brian (ed.). Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance. Cambridge:\nCambridge University Press, 1984.\nWhitney, Mark (dir.). Matter of Heart. Los Angeles: C. G. Jung Institute, 1983.\nWolter, F. \u0391. Geschichte der Stadt Magdeburg von ihrem Ursprung bis auf die Gegenwart.\nMagdeburg: Faber, 1901.\nYarker, John. The Arcane Schools; a Review of their Origin and Antiquity; with a General\nHistory of Freemasonry, and its Relation to the Theosophic, Scientific, and Philosophic\nMysteries. Belfast: William Tait, 1909.\nYates, Frances. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Chicago: University of\nChicago Press, 1991.\n\u2014 The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.\n\nPages 287:\nIndex\nAbraham, Jewish patriarch, 81, 119n.\nactive imagination, 12, 17n.\nAdam, Jewish patriarch, 80-81\n\u00c4etes, 224\nAgrippa, Heinrich Cornelius, 98, 120122, 125-126, 164, 183\n\u00e0 Kempis, Thomas, 175\n\u00c2kerman, Susanna, 27, 31, 91, 121-122,\n124-125,209-210\nAkhenaton, 120\nAlbertus Magnus, 130, 139, 140, 246\nalchemici, v. chymia, 1, 5, 235-236, 243\nalembic, see vessel, alchemical\nAlexander the Great, 84, 130n., 165\nAlexandria, 55, 229\nal-Ir\u00e4ql, Abu'l-Q\u00e4sim Muhammad ibn\nAhmad, 95\nal-R\u00e4zT, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn\nZakar\u00eey\u00e2 ('Rhazes'), 42, 230\namber, 220\nAnabaptists, 149\nAnaxagoras, 63n.\nAnaximander, 63n.\nAnaximenes, 63n., 72n.\nAncient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis\n(AMORC), 237\nAndreae, Johann Valentin, lOOn., 127130, 134, 142, 158, 162, 174, 175,\n215,216,221\nAndrewes, Lancelot, 102, 103\nangels, 48, 79, 90n., 203\nAngerona, 164\nAnthony, Francis, 102-106\nanthropos myth, 67\nantimony, 33, 79n., 209\napocalypse, see millennialism\nApollo, 145\naqua Americana, 223\naquafoetida, 171\nArchelaus, 63n.\narchetypes, 8, 17n., 20, 23, 79, 240\nAristides, 161\nAristotle, 43, 48ff., 52n., 59, 63, 68, 119,\n135, 187,212,216, 224, 253\nAristotle, Pseudo-, 43, 186\nArndt, Johann, 175\nArnold, Gottfried, 128, 254\nArnold, Paul, 126-127, 175\nArnoldus de Villanova, Pseudo-, 10, 63,\n64, 139, 188\u03b7.\narthritis, 203-205, 207\nAshmole, Elias, 28, 99, 106, 107\u03b7., 108\u03b7.,\n109-110,241\nAsiatic Brethren, 123\nastral virtues, 34, 38, 51, 140, 154, 206,\n219\nastrology, 17, 19, 38, 45, 47, 51, 65, 70,\n108, 117n., 124n., 146, 150, 152, 153,\n219,226,253\nAthena, 132\nAugust of Anhalt-Pl\u00f6tzkau, 76, 91\nAugustine, 135, 227n.\naurea catena, 71, 72, 78, 84, 186\naurum potabile, 103-106, 188, 206, 209\nAutolycus, 162\nAverroes, 48n.\nAvicenna, 48n., 77, 79, 97, 135, 139, 226,\n245\nAzazel, 79n.\nBackhouse, William, 24 In.\nBacon, Roger, 73n., 139\nBaqsam, 214\nbarnacle goose, 100\nBasil Valentine, 33, 66n., 110, 196n.,\n246, 250, 252, flg. 16\nBattle of the White Mountain, 201-202\nBecanus, Johannes Goropius, 197\nBeck, Wolfgang, 45\nBenedictas Hilari\u00f3n, 176-178\nbennu, 231-232\nBernard of Trevisan, 246\nBerthold the Black, 197-198\nbestiaries, 100, 217, 226\nBetr\u00fcgerei, see charlatanism\nBeyer, Johannes Hartmann, 106n., 113,\n200\nBirghden, Johann von den, 191\nblack phase of the Art, 41-43, 50, 65-68,\n84, 93-94, 111, 146-147, 170, 184,\n187, 188, 206, 212-213, 215, 222, 226227,229n., 234\n\u0392 laue w, Willem, 117\nblue flower, 234\nBoehme, Jacob, 13, 33, 36, 164, 241, 256\nBoerhaave, Hermann, 34\nBook of Enoch, 79\nBook of Nature, see liber mundi\n\nPages 288:\nIndex\nBook of Revelations, 124, 135n.\nBook of the World, see liber mundi\nBorbonius, Matthias, 88, 101\nBorelli, Petro, 41, 93n., 173\nBrahe, Tycho, 46, 70, 86, 117n., 149, 185\nBrahmans, 120, 165, 253\nBranch Davidians, 20\nBreul, Hans, 190\nBricaud, Joanny, 121, 123\nBringer, Johann, 156\u03b7.\nBrotherhood of the Rosy Cross, see\nRosicrucianism, early 17th century\nBrother Phoebron, see L\u00f6wenfeld,\nBernhard Joseph Schlei\u00df von\nBruchaeus, Heinrich, 44, 51, 60\nBruno, Giordano, 70\nBry, Johann Theodor de, 114, 131\nbryony, 154\nbubonic plague, 62, 65\nBucher, Kasper, 129n.\nBudge, Sir E. A. Wallis, 229n.\nBuhle, Johann Gottlieb, 27, 28n., 253\nButterfield, Herbert, 11\nCabala, see Kabbalah\ncalcination, 66\ncalor innatus, 52, 72, 105, 188, 203, 204,\n205\nCalvin, Jean, 35, 198\nCalvinism, 22, 35-36, 53, 70, 87, 90, 91,\n99, 101, 118, 127, 151, 157, 174, 181,\n189ff., 198-199, 201,233\nCampion, Thomas, 103n.\nCarnarius, Matthias, 53-54, 58, 59, 210\nCarpentier, Pieter, 100\nCarrichter, Bartholomaeus, 154n.\ncatharsis, 68, 76, 103-104, 154, 213, 221,\n234, 235n.\nCatholic League, 88, 201\nCeltis, Conrad, 200\ncharlatanism, 13n., 19, 97, 99-100, 106107, 115, 154, 157-158,208,214, 235,\n242-243, 244-245, 247-249\nChrist, 8, 10, 15n., 18, 20, 21, 40-41, 56,\n65, 67, 74, 82, 85-86, 100, 128n., 142,\n163, 180, 203n., 217-218, 224, 227,\n228,237,255\nChristian III, King of Denmark, 46\nChristian IV, King of Denmark, 52\nChristian Albert, King ofNorway, 33,\n232, 243\nChristian of Anhalt-Bernburg, 91, 199,\n279\n202\nChristian of Braunschweig, 202\nChristian Rosenkreutz, 116-117, 119,\n127, 128, 130-131, 141, 148, 149, 150151, 156,216\nChronos, see Saturn\nchrysopoeia, 235, 242-243, 245, 247\nCibinensis, Melchior, 139\nCicero, 46-47\ncinnabar, 66n.\nCirce, 105,212-213\ncircle, as perfect figure, 97, 139, 183-184,\n186-187, 189, 232\nClement VIII, Pope, 150n.\nClement of Alexandria, 217n.\ncoction, 51-52,205\ncoelidonia, 76, 8In.\ncolours, and alchemical phases, 50, 6567, 68, 93-94, 139, 170, 226-227\nColumbus, Christopher, 221, 222n.\ncomets, 194-195, fig. 27\nConfessio Fraternitatis, 116-118, 121,\n133-134, 146, 150n., 172, 175\nconiunctio oppositorum, 23, 43, 48, 66,\n73,78,144,213,234-235\nConsus, 164\nCopernicus, Nicholas, 149, 185\ncoral, 220,fig.29\nCorpus Hermeticum, 37\ncorpuscularianism, 9, 63n.\ncorrespondences, theory of, 14, 17,27,\n33, 34, 38, 41, 42, 50-51, 52, 66, 67,\n71-73, 88, 98, 118, 135, 146-147, 183186, 187, 192, 201, 203ff., 215, 216,\n219-220, 227, 230, 234, 252, 254, 255\ncosmogony, 72-74, 84n., 135, 184, 187,\n232, 240, fig. 5\n'Council of Three', 25n.\nCounter-Reformation, 118, 158\nCraven, Reverend J. \u0392., 27n., 100, 122125,237\nCreation, see cosmogony\nCremer, Abbot John, 107, 109-111, fig.\n16,y?g. 17\nCroll, Oswald, 36, 70, 106-107, 233\nCrosland, Maurice, 6\ncupellation, 62\nCupid, 165\nDaedalus, 94\nDamcar, 118\nde Caus, Salomon, 89\n\nPages 289:\n280\nDecknamen, 1, 9, 13-15, 26, 34, 41, 64,\n84, 111, 144\u03b7., 145,233-234,236,253\nDee, John, 70, 108n., 172, 237\nDefenestration of Prague, 193 ,flg. 26\nde Jong, \u0397. \u039c. E., 97, 187, 235-236\ndella Porta, Giambattista, 38, 164\nde Meung, Pseudo-Jean, 78\ndemocracy, 203, 204, 217n.\nDemocritus, 139,217\nde Rola, Stanislas Klossowski, 133n., 210\nd'Espagnet, Jean, 240, 245n.\nde Strada, Octavio, 79\nDeucalion, 167-168, 223\nDevil, see Satan\nDiana, Greek deity, 170, 172\nDigby, Sir Kenelm, 241n.\nDiodorus Siculus, 84, 253\nDionysus, 84\nDioscorides, 218n.\ndistillation, 40, 72, 86, 195, 216n.\ndivine spark, see scintilla\nDobbs, B. J. T., 6-8, 10, 16\nDora, Gerhard, 12, 16, 23, 73n., 252\ndove, 4 0 - 4 1 , 6 6 , 2 3 1 , 2 3 2\nDragon's Blood, 100, 111\ndreams, 4, 24, 31\ndropsy, see cedema\nDruids, 120, 165,253\nDuchesne, Joseph, 61n., 233\nDuenech, 31, 143\ndung, 66, 95-96\neagle, as alchemical symbol, 77-78, 221,\nfig 30\nEaster, 65, 68, 108, 146, 205\nEcho, 220\nEcker und Eckhoffen, Hans Heinrich von,\n123 ff.\nEco, Umberto, 18, 237n.\nEdighoffer, Roland, 27, 120, 174, 175\nEglinus, Raphael, 156, 196, 233\nEgypt, 37, 47, 56, 76, 80-82, 84, 85n\u201e\n120, 130, 149n., 185, 197, 218, 227,\n229, 232, 252\nEgyptian wisdom, see pseudoEgyptianism\nEirenaeus Philalethes (=George\nStarkey?), 9, 11,33\n'elemental inhabitants of Fez', 118\nelements, four, 49-50, 63, 66, 67-68, 71,\n95, 97, 98, 186-189, 216, 219, 223,\n224, 226, 233, 234, 255\nIndex\nEliade, Mircea, 8-9\nElias Artista, 135, 196\nElijah, 196n.\nelixir vitae, 128n., 225, 235\nElizabeth I, queen of England, 108n.\nElizabeth, consort of Friedrich V, 88, 91,\n101, 103n ,,fig. 15\nemblems, 43, 67, 69n., 79-80, 83-84,\n88n., 95, 145, 147, 167, 183, 186-187,\n221, 225n., 226, 234, 238-239, 240\nEmerald Tablet, see Tabula Smaragdina\nEmpedocles, 63n.\nempiricism, 60-61, 138, 168, 169, 214\nEnlightenment, 7, 251,252\nepilepsy, 59-60, 104\nErasmus, Desiderius, 149\nErastus, Thomas, 198-199\nErnst III of Holstein-Schauenburg, 99,\n139, 140\nErnst von Mansfeld, 202\nErythrasan Sibyl, 227-228, 230-231\nEstland, 55\neternal life, 15, 86, 128n., 215, 225, 231\nEugenius Philalethes, see Vaughan,\nThomas\nEusebius, 227n.\nEvans, R. J. W., 86\nEzra, 134\nFabrici, Girolam, 113n.\nfacultas animalis, 60\nFaivre, Antoine, 2, 17, 238\nFama Fraternitatis, 36, 39n., 88, 98, 116119, 121, 122n\u201e 123n\u201e 124n., 128129, 130n., 133, 135, 140, 141, 146,\n148, 149n., 150-152, 155ff., 166, 167,\n170, 171, 175,241-242\nFarber, Eduard, 6\nFather C. R., see Christian Rosenkreutz\nFaulhaber, Johann, 174\nFerdinand of Styria, 193, 201-202\nFerguson, John, 248\nfermentation, 96-97, 189, 216n.\nFernel, Jean, 48n.\nFersius, Johannes, 48ff.\nFicino, Marsilio, 37, 42-43, 81, 83, 164,\n183\nFictuld, Hermann, 251\nFigala, Karin, 27, 32, 38n.-39n., 45, 48n.,\n53, 55-56, 57, 62n., 76, 88, 91, 131n.,\n132, 171-172, 192n., 199n.,202\nFinxius, Peter, 99\n\nPages 290:\nIndex\nfire, see elements, four\nfish, as alchemical symbol, 145-146, fig.\n19\nfixation, 66, 73\nFlorentinus de Valentia. See M\u00f6gling,\nDaniel\nFludd, Robert, 27-28, 33, 39n., 118,\n123n., 124, 125n., 183,241, 252, flg.\n23\nFormula of Concord, 127\nFranck, Sebastian, 175\nFrankfurt Book Fair, 114-115, 118, 131,\n132, 142, 182, 189\n'Frankfurter Pille', 113\nfraud, see charlatanism\nFreemasonry, 1,18, 22-23, 25-29, 32, 33,\n99, 121, 122n., 123-124, 125, 165n.,\n166, 237, 241, 251-252, 253, 254\nFreud, Sigmund, 15, 19, 23, 24, 26\nFriedrich II, King of Denmark, 38, 52, 53,\n210\nFriedrich III of Schleswig-HolsteinGottorf, 38\u03b7., 210\nFriedrich V, Elector Palatine, 35, 87-91,\n101-102, 103\u03b7., 151, 181, 195\u03b7., 201202, 238, fig. 1 2 , f l g . 15\nFriedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia,\n252\nFromm, Erich, 7\nGabriel, archangel, 90\nGalen, 48n., 55, 60, 119, 168,218\nGalenism, 48ff., 54, 59ff., 63, 66, 185,\n205, 207\nGarasset, Fran\u00e7ois, 147-148, 165, 173\ngarden, alchemical, 104, 105, 170, 200,\n223,225\nGarden of Eden, 225\nGarden of the Hesperides, 105, 223\nGeber Latinus, 33, 63, 69\u03b7., 92\ngeo-heliocentrism, 46, 185-186\nGerman Nation of Padua University, 5758, 77\nGilly, Carlos, 118n., 127-129, 134, 150n.,\n156n.\nGirolamo, Flavio, 43\nGlauber, Johann Rudolf, 196n., 209\ngnosticism, 21, 37, 68, 184-185, 241, 255\nGnosticism, ancient, 3, 21n., 67, 184,\n198,254-255\nGoclenius, Rudolph, 148\nGoebel, Severin, 39n.\n281\nGoethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 21, 22,\n120,254n.\ngold, as repository of divine power, 14,\n39, 52, 74, 78-79, 97, 103-105, 145,\n183-189,220,231,232,252\nmanufacturing of, 19, 97-98, 157-158,\n163, 242, 247; see also charlatanism,\nchrysopoeia\nGold and Rosy Cross, presumed Italian\nsecret society, 30, 3 In., 124, 125, 249250; see also Gold- und Rosenkreutz\nGolden Age, 42, 84, 101, 116, 144, 172,\n177, 196\nGolden Chain, see aurea c\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 269 to page 290 out of a total of 334. 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{"result":["[Summary from page 290 to page 334 out of a total of 334:\nPages 290:\nIndex\nfire, see elements, four\nfish, as alchemical symbol, 145-146, fig.\n19\nfixation, 66, 73\nFlorentinus de Valentia. See M\u00f6gling,\nDaniel\nFludd, Robert, 27-28, 33, 39n., 118,\n123n., 124, 125n., 183,241, 252, flg.\n23\nFormula of Concord, 127\nFranck, Sebastian, 175\nFrankfurt Book Fair, 114-115, 118, 131,\n132, 142, 182, 189\n'Frankfurter Pille', 113\nfraud, see charlatanism\nFreemasonry, 1,18, 22-23, 25-29, 32, 33,\n99, 121, 122n., 123-124, 125, 165n.,\n166, 237, 241, 251-252, 253, 254\nFreud, Sigmund, 15, 19, 23, 24, 26\nFriedrich II, King of Denmark, 38, 52, 53,\n210\nFriedrich III of Schleswig-HolsteinGottorf, 38\u03b7., 210\nFriedrich V, Elector Palatine, 35, 87-91,\n101-102, 103\u03b7., 151, 181, 195\u03b7., 201202, 238, fig. 1 2 , f l g . 15\nFriedrich Wilhelm II, King of Prussia,\n252\nFromm, Erich, 7\nGabriel, archangel, 90\nGalen, 48n., 55, 60, 119, 168,218\nGalenism, 48ff., 54, 59ff., 63, 66, 185,\n205, 207\nGarasset, Fran\u00e7ois, 147-148, 165, 173\ngarden, alchemical, 104, 105, 170, 200,\n223,225\nGarden of Eden, 225\nGarden of the Hesperides, 105, 223\nGeber Latinus, 33, 63, 69\u03b7., 92\ngeo-heliocentrism, 46, 185-186\nGerman Nation of Padua University, 5758, 77\nGilly, Carlos, 118n., 127-129, 134, 150n.,\n156n.\nGirolamo, Flavio, 43\nGlauber, Johann Rudolf, 196n., 209\ngnosticism, 21, 37, 68, 184-185, 241, 255\nGnosticism, ancient, 3, 21n., 67, 184,\n198,254-255\nGoclenius, Rudolph, 148\nGoebel, Severin, 39n.\n281\nGoethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 21, 22,\n120,254n.\ngold, as repository of divine power, 14,\n39, 52, 74, 78-79, 97, 103-105, 145,\n183-189,220,231,232,252\nmanufacturing of, 19, 97-98, 157-158,\n163, 242, 247; see also charlatanism,\nchrysopoeia\nGold and Rosy Cross, presumed Italian\nsecret society, 30, 3 In., 124, 125, 249250; see also Gold- und Rosenkreutz\nGolden Age, 42, 84, 101, 116, 144, 172,\n177, 196\nGolden Chain, see aurea catena\nGolden Fleece, 85, 105, 224, 251\nGolden Medicine, 82, 84, 168\nGold- und Rosenkreutz, 29-30, 32, 121ff,\n236, 249-253\nGould, Robert Freke, 28n., 166\ngout, 6In., 65,203-205\nGrasshoff, 30-32, 125n.\nGreat Schism, 117\nGrick, Friedrich (Irenaeus Agnostus),\n129n., 142, 169n., 174\ngrillus, 105\nGwinne, Matthew, 105\nGymnosophists, 165\nHabrecht, Isaac, 169n.\nHabsburg, house of, 35-36, 193, 195n.,\n201\nHaina, as site of the House of the Holy\nSpirit, 156n.\nHall, Manly P., 237n.\nHalleux, Robert, 9-11, 16\nHanegraaff, Wouter, 15, 57n.\nHanneman, Johann Ludwig, 243-247\nHarpocrates, 165\nHartmann, Johannes, 88, 101, 113n., 151,\n152n.\nHarvey, William, 52n.\nHaslmayr, Adam, 87, 119, 148\nheart, its significance for the alchemical\nwork, 14, 52, 56, 72, 75, 78, 97, 105,\n138, 172, 183-186, 188,203-205,232\nHeisler, Ron, 207, 242n.\nHelen of Troy, 218\nHeliopolis, 227-228\nhellebore, 235\nHelmont, Joan Baptista van, 250\nHelvetius, Johannes, 196\nHenry IV, King of France, 195n.\n\nPages 291:\n282\nHenry, Prince of Wales, 87-89, 100-101,\n144\nHeraclitus, 216n., 217\nHerakles, see Hercules\nherbalism, 60, 144, 152-154, 168, 186,\n212,218\u03b7.\nHercules, 80n., 85\nHermes, Greek deity, 37n., 48n., 84, 132,\n162,212, 225\nHermes Trismegistus, 37, 38, 73-74, 81,\n84, 86, 130, 139, 140, 141, 142, 163,\n165,229-230\nHermeticism, 27, 37, 83, 118, 142, 197,\n255 et passim; see also\ncorrespondences, theory of\nHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 29\nHerodotus, 149n.\nHeru-pa-khered, 165; see also Horus\nHess, Tobias, 127-129\nHeym, Gerhard, 3\nHieroglyphics of Horapollo, 79-80, 82,\n226, 227,228, 231-232\nhieroglyphs, 7, 24, 37, 47, 70, 79ff., 100,\n105, 135, 139, 145, 153, 171, 172,\n185, 211, 215, 219, 227, 231-232,241,\n243, 254, fig. 9\nHippocrates, 168, 217n.\nHiram, 28n., 179\nHitchcock, Ethan Allen, 25-26\nHitchcock, Samuel, 25\nHodges, Nathaniel, 241\nHodges, Thomas, 241\nHoeschel, David, 228\nHoghelande, Theobald de, 15\nHohenburg, Herwarth von, 82, fig. 9\nHoier, Conrad, 99-100\nHollandus, Isaac, 246\nHolmyard, E. J., 255\nHoly Spirit, 40-41, 74\nHomer, 78, 105n., 213\nHorapollo, see Hieroglyphics of\nHorapollo\nHortulanus Anglicus, 63\nHorus, 84, 165\n'Horns Apollo', see Hieroglyphics of\nHorapollo\nHouse of the Holy Spirit, 156ff., 167,\n170, 237n.\nHradschin, 86, 193\nHubicki, 39n., 62n., 65\nhumanism, 35, 37, 42, 43, 45, 46, 49, 5455,70, 97, 118, 119, 127, 128n, 190,\nIndex\n192, 197, 236\nhumours, 16, 48n\u201e 50, 71, 98, 113, 188,\n189,204-208,218,233\nHund, Baron von, 252\nHussites, 192\nHuss, Jan, 49\nhydraulic organ, 89, 225\nIamblichus, 83\niatrochemia, 4, 16, 61, 62, 76, 86, 88, 9899, 142, 154, 158, 191-192, 198,213,\n236, 243; defined, 16n.\niatrochemistry, see iatrochemia\nibis, 85\nIliad, 78\nIlluminati, 236, 252\nIndex, papal, 149-150, 150n., 199, 243\nindividuation, 3, 7, 12, 17n., 23, 26\ninsignia impressa, 38, 163-164, 245\nIrenaeus Agnostus, see Grick, Friedrich\nIsidor of Seville, 135\nIsis, 84-85\nIslam, 102, 111, 149\nIxion, 162\nJabir, Pseudo-, see Geber Latinus\nJaff\u00e9, Aniela, 22n.\nJames I, King of England, 87, 88, 90, 91,\n100, 101, 103, 191,201,207\nJanus, 48n., 101, 164\nJason, Greek hero, 80n., 224, 251\nJennis, Lucas, 114, 173n., 178-180, 208210, 238\nJeremiel, archangel, 134n.\nJesuits, 36, 87, 118, 123, 147-149, 157,\n158,243,246\nJesus, see Christ\nJoachimites, 74\nJohann Adolf of Schleswig-HolsteinGottorf, 53,210\nJohann of Nassau-Dillenburg, 151, 155\nJohnston, John, lOOn.\nJolyfief, Augustin Anton Pocqui\u00e8res de,\n29, 253\u03b7.\nJones, Jim, 20\nJouret, Luc, 20\nJuliana, consort of Moritz of HessenKassel, 182\nJulius Caesar, 172\nJung, Carl Gustav, 1-26, 29, 30, 34, 126,\n231,234, 236,254-255\nJung, Carl Gustav (grandfather of\n\nPages 292:\nIndex\npsychoanalyst), 22\nJung, Carl (supposed ancestor of\npsychoanalyst), 23\nJuno, 162\nJustitia, 167\nJuvenalis, 132, 137\nKabbalah, 70, 116\nKarl the Great, 197\nKatsch, Ferdinand, 27n., 253\nKepler, Johannes, 70, 117n.\nKhunrath, Heinrich, 3 In., 33, 36, 67-68,\n106-107, 240-241, 244, 246, 248-249,\n252\nKiesewetter, Carl, 126-127\nKircher, Athanasius, 243, 246\nKlapmeier, Arnold, 199\nKnights of the Order of Saint John, 111\nKnights Templar, 120, 251, 252\nKoresh, David, 20\nKurland, 55\nLactantius, 227n.\nladder, as alchemical symbol, 9Iff., 235,\n246\nLambechius, Heino, 57-58\nLambsprinck, Abraham von, 145\nLangelott, Joel, 242-243\nlapis philosophorum, see Philosophers'\nStone\nLautensack, Paul, 175\nlead, 14, 42-43, 53, 62n., 93, 96, 98, 144,\n170, 187, 188, 196n., 230\nLennhof, Eugen, 28\nleontocephalus, 2In.\nleopard, as progeny of lion and panther,\n223\nLetter of Majesty, 192-193,202\nLeucippus, 63n.\nliber mundi, 37, 38, 55, 141, 159, 169,\n217,235,239\nLightfoot, John, 84n.\nLight of Grace, 36n., 241\nLight of Nature, 36, 71,241\nlily, as alchemical symbol, 170, 200, 225\nLincoln, Abraham, 25, 26n.\nlion, as alchemical symbol, 31, 220\nLivland, 55\nL\u00f6wenfeld, Bernhard Joseph Schlei\u00df von,\n123\nLoge sub Rosa, 165\u03b7.\nlogos spermatikos, 73\n283\nLondon College of Physicians, 103, 105\nLull, Pseudo-, 110-111, 139\nLutheranism, 35-36, 38, 45, 46, 49, 61,\n67, 70, 75, 118, 120, 127-128, 129,\n181, 182, 190\u03b7., 192, 196, 197, 199,\n201,212, 240,246\nLuther, Martin, 18, 19, 36, 45, 61, 117,\n135, 149, 190, 196-197, 198\nlycanthropes, 20n., 100\nLycophron, 148\nMachiavelli, Niccol\u00f2, 199\nMacrobius, 96, 253\nmacrocosm, see correspondences, theory\nof\nMadathanus, Hinricus, see Mynsicht,\nAdrian von\nMagellan (Fernao de Magalhaes), 221,\nfig- 31\nMagi, biblical, 65, 124\nmagic, natural, 5, 19, 33, 34, 37-38, 120,\n124n, 141, 153-154, 158-159, 163164, 165; diabolic, 38, 158-159, 163\nmagic squares, 98\nMagister Pianco, see Ecker und\nEckhoffen, Hans Heinrich von\nMagnus, Olaus, 197\nMaier, Michael\nLife: childhood, 38ff.; parentage, see\nMeier, Peter and Meier, Anna; Masters\ndegree, 48ff; peregrinano acad\u00e9mica,\n54ff; Poet Laureate, 57; doctoral\ndegree, 58-59; as 'Hermes Malavici',\n57, 104; appointment as Pfalzgraf\n(Count Palatine), 77, 99; journey to\nEngland, 87ff.; involvement with\nRosicrucianism, 87ff., 131ff.;\nmarriage, 181-182; appointment as\nMedicus und Chymicus von Hau\u00df aus,\n189; illness, 113-114, 143,208;\n'entrance' into the Rosicrucian\nFraternity, 161, 173ff., 210; death,\n178-179, 208ff.\nWorks: Allegoria Bella, 31, 32, 41, 43,\n56, 57, 130, 215, 216, 217, 225, 230,\n231,232,253; Aquila Germanica,\n200-201; Arcana Arcanissima, 47, 8086, 102, 103, 122, 141, 168, 170, 172,\n197, 211, 212, 243, 245, 246, 251;\nAtalanta Fugiens, 35n., 42, 44, 69n.,\n78n., 79, 95n., 97, 104n., 122n., 131,\n138, 143, 145, 164n., 171, 183, 186,\n\nPages 293:\n284\n187,200,214,215,221,232,235,\n237, 239, 242, 251, 253; Cantilenae\nIntellectuals, 38\u03b7., 44, 67, 71, 209,\n210, 237n.; Civ\u00ectas Corporis Hum\u00e0ni,\n65, 76, 104\u03b7., 201, 202-208, 214;\u00a3>e\nCirculo Physico, Quadrato, 52, 94,\n131, 182ff., 195n., 201, 203, 208, 232,\n233; De Medicina Regia, 32, 35n.,\n39ff., 44, 52-55, 57, 62n., 63, 68, 69,\n70, 71, 81n., 91, 102, 104, 146, 217;\nDe Theosophia Aegyptiorum, 80-82,\n122, 125-126, 241; Examen Fucorum\nPseudo-chym\u00eccorum, 94-95, 97, 106107, 122n., 131, 157, 242, 244, 249;\nHymnosophia, 71-77, 78, 81, 139,\n184-185, 187; Jocus Severus, 88, 89,\n113, 130, 131-139, 140, 141, 148, 163,\n231 ; Lusus Serius, 88-89, 103, 131,\n132, 242; Scala Arcis Philosophicae,\n94-97; Septimana Philosophica, 28,\n45n., 72, 85, 179, 194-195, 208, 221222; Silentium post Clamores, 120,\n131, 141, 160-165, 175, 178, 179, 199,\n238; Symhola Aureae Mensae, 31,\n32n., 35n., 38, 41, 43, 56, 61, 81, 85n.,\n89n., 95, 99, 111, 114, 131-151, 160,\n163-164, 171-172, 175, 178, 179, 182,\n199, 215ff., 238, 245, 246, 251, 253;\nThemis Aurea, 61, 93n., 131, 147, 148,\n154, 157, 160, 161, 164n., 166-173,\n175, 178, 199n., 223, 225-226, 241242, 251; Theses de Epilepsia, 59-60;\nTheses Summam Doctrinae (defended\nby Maier), 48-52, 59, 185, 224;\nTractatus de Volucri Arborea, 100,\n226; Tripus Aureus, 107ff.; Ulysses,\n111, 179, 180, 208-214,222; Verum\nInventum, 37, 148, 178, 197-200;\nViatorium, 94, 199, 245\nMarcus Aurelius, 48n.\nMaria Prophetissa, 31, 139\nMary, mother of Christ, 40, 67\nMary, sister of Moses, see Maria\nProphetissa\nMatthias, Emperor, 86, 193\nMaurer, Felix, 249\nMaximillian II, Emperor, 154n.\nMayerne, Sir Theodor Turquet de, 101\nMcintosh, Christopher, 251, 254\nMcLean, Adam, 90\nMedea, 224\nMeier, Anna (presumed mother of\nIndex\nMichael Maier), 39n., 47\nMeier, Peter (father of Michael Maier),\n38, 44, 45, 47, 52\nmelancholy, 14, 31, 41-43, 50, 66, 69, 70,\n77, 86, 113, 143,208,217\nMelanchthon, Philipp, 149\nMelpomene, 146n.\nMercurial Medicine, 52, 94, 105, 205-207\nMercurial Water, 145\nmercuric oxide, 76\nmercuric sulphide, see cinnabar\nmercury, 14, 53, 66, 209, 229n.\nmercury, alchemical principle, 40, 42, 53,\n63, 66, 67, 68, 73, 77, 78, 84, 98, 162,\n168, 186, 187, 188,205,206,216,\n221, 223ff., 252\nMercury, planet, 42n., 64, fig. 24\nMercury, Roman deity, see Hermes,\nGreek deity\nmercury, twofold, 68, 188n., 206\nMerian, Matthew, 35n.\nMerkur, Dan, 255n.\nMerlin, Pseudo-, 31, 142\nmetempsychosis, see reincarnation\nMetzger, H\u00e9l\u00e8ne, 9, 34\nMichael, archangel, 90n.\nmicrocosm, see correspondences, theory\nof\nmillennialism, 18, 20, 36, 91, 118, 127,\n134, 135, 181, 194ff.\nmiracles, 219, 228\nMithraism, 2In.\nM\u00f6gling, Daniel, 147, 174-175\nMolther, Georg, 151-156, 166, 169\n'Moly',herb, 212, 213\nmonad, 187, 232\nMontgomery, John Warwick, 120-121,\n127-128\nmoon, 42n., 60, 73, 85, 139, 170, 171172,219, 226, 253, fig. 20, fig. 24\nMoran, Bruce T., 87, 156, 182n., 191\nMoravian Brethren, 21, 254n.\nMorhof, Daniel, 80-81, 126, 242-243, 245\nMorienus, 12, 64n., 95, 139, fig. 14\nMoritz 'the Learned' of Hessen-Kassel,\n35, 41, 61n., 87-99, 116, 118, 151,\n156, 18Iff., 202, 208, 209, 238, fig. 11\nMosanus, Jacob, 89, 103\nMoses, 37, 63n., 119n., 124, 203n.\nMt. Helicon, 95, 170, 172\nMt. Parnassus, 162\nmultiplication, 216n.\n\nPages 294:\nIndex\nMurr, Christoph Gottlieb von, 28, 80, 253\nMuses, 95, 144\nmusic, and alchemy, 44, 64, 108, 138,\n183,222\nMylius, Johann Daniel, 238\nMynsicht, Adrian von, 3 In., 125, 252\nmystery religions, ancient, 27, 67, 83,\n240, 246, 253\nmysticism, 4ff., 14, 16, 17, 19, 67, 71, 75,\n175, 183, 228, 231, 237, 238, 240,\n243-244\nmythology, alchemical interpretation of,\n7, 25, 34, 41, 67, 79ff., 105, 167-168,\n185,212, 224, 2 4 0 , 2 4 3 , 2 5 1\nNarcissus, 220\nnationalism, German, 16, 17, 36, 192,\n197-200\nnatural magic, see magic\nNature, 17, 36-38, 49-50, 56, 63, 68, 70,\n71, 74, 76, 80, 82, 83, 92, 97-98, 100,\n116-117, 135, 141, 153, 159, 163-164,\n169, 172, 191, 206, 217, 218, 223,\n239-241, 254, fig. 32\nNaudon, Paul, 28, 121\nNazism, 21\nnecromancy, 70, 124n., 163\nneo-paganism, 19\nNeoplatonism, 7, 37, 38, 79-80, 83, 183184,231,255\nneo-Pythagoreanism, 64, 165, 183, fig. 23\nnepenthe, 218\nNeumann, Ulrich, 27, 32, 38n.-39n., 45,\n48n., 53, 55-56, 57, 62n., 76, 88, 91,\n131n., 132, 171-172, 192n., 199n., 202\nneurophysiology, 14\nNew Age, 17-18\nNewman, William R., 1, 2, 5, 6, 9-15, 16,\n18, 19, 25, 32, 33, 34, 63n., 104, 163,\n165, 233-236, 249, 253, 255-256\nNewton, Isaac, 6-7, 34, 43, 71, 93n., 115,\n236\nnigredo, see black phase of the Art\nNile, 228-230, 232\nNoll, Heinrich, 61n., 233\nNoll, Richard, 18-21,22\nNorfolk, duchy, 150-151\nNorton, Thomas, 99, 107-109, 111-112,\nfig 16\nObrist, Barbara, 8-9, 10, 16, 17, 41, 255\noccultism, 18-19, 20, 21, 32, 35-36, 38,\n285\n44, 69, 70, 82-83, 87, 89, 98, 99, 114,\n121, 126, 127, 140, 162ff, 170, 172,\n186-187, 191, 200, 219, 240, 252, 254\nOdysseus, see Ulysses\n\u0153dema, 6 In., 76\nOetinger, Friedrich Christoph, 251\nOrder of the Golden Fleece, 251\nOrder of the Lily, 26n.\nOrder of the Solar Temple, 20\nOrtus, 226\nOsiander, Lucas, 245-246\nOsiris, 84-85, 229n\u201e 232, fig. 10\nOtto I, Emperor (Otto the Saxon), 197\nouroboros, 74, 215, 219, fig. 6\nOvid, 46, 167\nowl, 44, 132-137, 163,231\nPaddy, Sir William, 103, 105, 106\nPagel, Walter, 4, 5, 6, 10, 16\nPalombara, Marquise Massimiliano, 30n.\npanacea, 198; see also Universal\nMedicine; nepenthe\npansophia, 70-71, 80, 119, 138, 234, 240,\n254\nParacelsianism, 3, 4, 16, 23, 36, 60-61,\n67-68, 73n., 98, 118, 119, 135, 164,\n168, 175, 187, 196, 202, 239, 241,\n243, 245, 252\nParacelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von\nHohenheim), 3, 13, 16n., 36, 49, 6061, 73n., 98, 118n., 126n., 127, 140,\n141, 145, 149, 159, 168, 187, 196-197,\n198,246, 250, 252,254\npareidolia, 15\nPauli, Wolfgang, 4\nPeace of Augsburg, 35, 181\nPeace of Teusina, 55n.\npeacock, as alchemical symbol, 65-66\nPegasus, 170, 172\npelican, as alchemical symbol, 66-67, 68\nPenot, George, 107\nPeople's Temple, 20\nperegrination, 16, 54-57, 62n., 89n., 156,\n169,221,225,232,234\nPergamom, 55\nPern\u00e9ty, Antoine Joseph, 251-252\nPeuckert, 70, 71, 117n., 124n., 127, 146,\n156, 236,254\nPhillip von Hessen-Butzbach, 174\nPhilosophers' Stone, 31, 41, 53, 59, 62,\n63, 67-68, 74, 86, 93, 96, 175, 176n.,\n177, 186-189, 196n., 212-213, 216n.,\n\nPages 295:\n286\n221, 232, 233, 234, 235, 245-246, 247,\n249, 250-251,252, 255\nphilosophiaperennis,\n37, 238\nPhilosophical Gold, 104\nphilothesia, 143, 144n ,,fig. 18\nphoenix, 31, 56, 66-67, 76, 85n., 130,\n132, 136ff. 140, 146-147, 148, 179,\n185, 216ff.\nPhysiologus, 217\nPietism, 21, 128, 175,254\npiety, 14, 16, 33, 34, 59, 74, 99, 107, 137138, 143, 163, 168, 172, 175, 192,\n203ff\u201e 212-213, 217, 218, 231, 233,\n236, 252, 254\npilgrimage, 32, 56, 118, 159, 169, 216,\n225\nplanets, 14, 42, 51, 64, 98, 108n., 185186, 194, 230, fig. 24\nPlato, 83, 183\nPlatonism, 37, 79n., 21 In.\nPlautus, 139, 149n.\nPlessner, Martin, 63n.\nPliny, 132, 164n., 212n., 218n., 228\nPlotinus, 83\nPlutarch, 161\nPoimandres, 31\nPoints of Improvement, 190n.\nPontanus, Johannes, 246\npositivism, 5-6, 11, 19, 34, 256\npresentism, 5, 34, 236\npre-Socratics, 48n., 63, 72n., 216n.\nprima materia, 63, 66, 74, 216n., 255\nPrincipe, Lawrence M., 1, 2, 5, 6, 9-15,\n16, 18, 19, 25, 32, 33, 34, 104, 163,\n165, 233-236, 249, 253,255-256\nprisca sapientia, 31, 37, 80, 81-82, 130,\n135, 170, 238, 254\nprojection, alchemical, 61, 96, 216n., 250\nprojection, psychological, 4, 6, 9, 11-13,\n20, 24, 126, 255\npseudo-Egyptianism, 34, 236, 254\npsychoanalysis, see Jung; Freud\nPtolemaic system, 185\npurgatives, 76, 104, 205-206, 234\nputrefaction, 41, 43, 66, 84, 170, 184,\n216n.\npyramids, 47, 101\nPyrgopolynices, 139, 143, 149, 160\nPyrrha, 167-168,223\nPythagoras, 63n., 64, 81, 165\nPythagoreans, ancient, 166\nIndex\nQemt, 229n.\nquartan, 50, 113, 143\nQueen of Sheba, 28n., 179\nquicksilver, see mercury\nQuicksilver, 'fixed yellow', 205-207\nquintessence, 171, 243, 255n.\nRa, 232\nrabies, 172\nRadtichs Brotofferr, see Rotbard,\nChristoffer\nRandolph, P. \u0392., 26n.\nRantzau, Heinrich, 38, 39, 45-48, 55, 101,\n200, fig. 3\nRantzau, Johann, 46\nRaphael, archangel, 90n.\nRavaillac, 195\nraven, as alchemical symbol, 65, 111\nRawlin, Thomas, 105-106\nRead, John, 6, 238\nred phase of the Art, see colours, and\nalchemical phases\nReformation, 5, 7, 9, 26, 35, 67, 116, 117,\n118, 123n., 124, 130, 148-149, 177,\n181, 190, 192, 196, 197, 199,254\nReformation of Life, see Second\nReformation\nReichspatriotismus,\n197; see also\nnationalism, German\nreincarnation, 165\nresurrection, alchemical, 67, 76, 185, 225,\n228, 229, 232\nRhazes, see al-R\u00e4zI, Abu Bakr\nMuhammad ibn Zakarly\u00e2\nRhenanus, Johannes, 246\nRiceni Thrasibuli, see Khunrath, Heinrich\nRichter, Samuel, 124, 249, 250-251\nRipley, George, 69, 107, 111\nRomantics, 22, 234\nRosarium Philosophorum, 67, 69n., 186,\n212-213, fig. 25\nrose, 23, 90-91, 148, 165, 170, 200, 225\nRose Cross, see Rosicrucianism\nRosetta Stone, 37n.\nRosicrucianism, early 17th century, 1, 2,\n8, 18, 23, 26-29, 30, 32, 36, 47, 87ff.,\n98, 114ff., 190, 196,215,226, 238,\n250; laws of the Fraternity, early 17th\ncentury, 115, 155, 166ff., 241; letters\nR. C., their meaning, 144ff., 171-173,\n180; Liberi, 118, 130; Liber M., 38,\n140-141, 164, 225; seal of the\n\nPages 296:\nIndex\nFraternity, 172,fig. 21\nRosicrucianism, late 17th and 18th\ncenturies, see Gold- und Rosenkreutz\u00b7,\nalso Gold and Rosy Cross\nRotbard, Christoffer, 13On., 216n.\nRothmann, Christoph, 185, fig. 24\nRoyal Society, 241\nRudbeck, Olaus, 197n.\nRudolf II, Emperor, 35, 69-70, 79, 80, 81,\n86, 87, 88n., 93, lOOn., 154n., 193,\n234, 245, fig. 4\nRuland, Martin, 70, 96, 235\nRumphius, Christian, 89, 101, 103\nrunes, 197n.\nRupescissa, Johannes de, 16n.\nRuska, Julius, 13-14, 63n.\nSacred Congregation of the Index, see\nIndex, papal\nsalt, Paracelsian element, 67, 187\nSatan, 147, 158-159, 163, 198\nSaturn, 14, 15n., 41-43, 84, 93, 95n., 96,\n144, 170, 187, 209, 230, fig. 2,.fig. 13;\nsee also lead\nSaturnalia, 143\nSchick, Hans, 28, 119, 129, 152, 154,\n162-163, 166, 174-175, 176, 240\nSchilling, Heinz, 190n.\nScholasticism, 33, 36, 48n.-49n., 60, 119,\n138, 168,214\nscintilla, 67-68, 179, 184, 208\nSecond Reformation, 190, 192\nSegar, Francis, 191\nSesostris, 149n.\nSet, 84\nSeth, son of Adam, 81\nseven, significance of number, 134-135\nSigalion, 164-165\nsignatures, doctrine of, 38, 70, 80, 163\nSilberer, Herbert, 23-26, 29, 30, 254\nsimples, 55, 59, 61\nSinceras Renatus, see Richter, Samuel\nSmith, Sir Thomas, 103\nSocietas Rosieruciana in Anglia, 29,\n24 In.\nSocrates, 69n.\nsolar mysticism, 16, 17, 34, 65, 75, 76,\n164, 185-186, 187-188, 195, 206, 231,\n254\nSolomon, 28n., 179,217\nsolution, 66, 84, 93, 146, 170-171, 216n.\nspark, divine, see scintilla\n287\nSphinx, 215\nspiritual alchemy, Iff., 30ff., 38, 42, 43,\n56, 184, 215, 231, 233-234, 254;\ndefined, 18\nspiritus, 40, 52, 60, 72, 183, 195, 205,\n227, 232\nSrigley, Michael, 90, 91, 101, 144\nStar Palace, 202, fig. 28\nSteiner, Gustav, 22\u03b7.\nStevenson, David, 28n.\nStiehle, Hans, 60-61\nStoicism, 52n., 73, 211\nStolzenberg, Daniel Stoltzius von, 238,\n239\nStrict Observance, 252\nStrieder, Friedrich Wilhelm, 99, 200-201\nsublimation, 66\nsub rosa, meaning of phrase, 165\nsulphur, 76, 107, 171\nsulphur, alchemical principle, 84, 97; see\nalso sulphur-mercury theory\nsulphur-mercury theory, 63, 66, 67-68,\n78, 98, 168, 186-188, 205, 206, 216,\n221,252, fig. 17\nsun, 14, 19, 20, 21,47, 52, 56, 63, 72, 73,\n74-76, 78, 85, 96, 139, 145, 146, 165,\n172, 183-187, 194-195, 219, 224, 226,\n227,228, 23Iff., 252, 253, fig. 24; see\nalso solar mysticism\nsupernovas, 117n.\nsympathies, doctrine of, 17, 38, 67, 72,\n146, 185, 255; see also\ncorrespondences, theory of\nsynchronicity, 4, 17n.\nTabula Smaragdina, 38, 73, 130\nTacitus, 199-200\nTartaryLamb, 100\nTauler, Johann, 175\nTelemachus, 218\ntemperance/intemperance, 41-43, 48ff.,\n63, 66, 98, 113, 137-138, 143, 148,\n163, 182, 186, 188, 191,203-205,218,\n233; see also humours\ntemple, alchemical, 74, 95, 96n.\nTemple of Solomon, 28n.\nTerminus, 220n.\nTertullian, 229n.\nTeutons, 197\nTharsander, see Wegner, Georg Wilhelm\nThebes, see Heliopolis\nThemis, 167-168\n\nPages 297:\n288\nTheodosius Verax, 241-242\nTheophilus Caelnatus, 241-242\nTheophilus, Church Father, 227\nTheophilus Schweighardt, see M\u00f6gling,\nDaniel\nTheophrast, 43\ntheosophy, 1, 9, 13, 33, 36-37, 80ff., 150,\n164, 173, 175, 177, 179, 240-241, 246,\n250,251\ntheurgy, 83\nThirty Years War, 35, 49, 87, 129, 157,\n199, 201-202,242\nThomas Aquinas, 139\nThoth, 37, 84, 85, 197\nTilman Eulenspiegel, 177\ntincture, 53, 78, 79n., 189, 223, 246, 252\ntoad, 77, 78, 79n.\ntortoise feet, 65n.\nTractatus Aureus Hermetis Trismegisti,\n74-75\nTree Bird, see barnacle goose\nTree of Dragon's Blood, 100\nTrinity, Holy, 71, 73, 74, 86, 128n., 186\nTritheraius, Abbot, 73n., 246\nTrojan War, 80n.\nTrunz, Erich, 55, 132\nTurba Philosophorum, 63, 69n., 214\nTusalmat, 41, 93\nTyphon, 84\nUffsteiner, Weigand, 190\nUlysses, 55, 105,210-213,218\nunicorn, 224\nUnion for the Defence of Protestant\nReligion, 35, 88,91, 181,202\nUniversal Medicine, 16, 38, 43, 57, 71,\n73-74, 76, 86, 91, 113, 133, 143, 163,\n179, 212-213, 215, 217-218, 228, 233,\n236, 243,247\nUrania, 144\nUriel, archangel, 90n.\nVaughan, Thomas, 116n., 118, 126, 241,\n252\nVenerable Bede, 135\nVenus, planet, 42n., 194,fig. 24\nIndex\nVenus, Roman deity, 42, 165, 170, 172,\n204\nverdigris, 14n.\nVespucci, Amerigo (Americus), 221,\n222n.\nvessel, alchemical, 12, 14, 15, 16, 38, 40,\n41, 66, 72-73, 74, 84, 93, 135, 145,\n146, 170, 172, 183-184, 188-189, 195,\n206, 220, 221, 222, 225, 232, 234\nvirtue, 51, 72, 103, 105, 108, 168, 183188, 191, 195, 196,206, 233,236,\n254; see also astral virtues\nvitalism, 8-9, 33-34, 52, 63, 73, 186, 187,\n192, 226, 231, 236, 248, 252, 254\nVitruvius, 89n.\nVleeschouwer, Johannes, 53\nvon Riedesel, family, 181-182\nWaite, Arthur Edward, 18, 19, 22, 27n.,\n29, 32, 39n., 119-120, 123, 126, 130,\n140, 154, 161, 166, 178, 249-250\nwashing, 69n., 170, 172; see also solution\nWegner, Georg Wilhelm, 196\u03b7., 247-249\nWeigel, Valentin, 36, 175, 241, 246, 256\nWestcott, William Wynn, 24In.\nwhite, see colours, and alchemical phases\nWidemann, Carl, 128n.\nWinter King, see Friedrich V, Elector\nPalatine\nWolf, Hermann, 209\nXenophanes, 63n.\nYarker, John, 122-123, 125, 126n.\nYates, Dame Frances, 28, 87, 90, 117n.,\n132, 175, 190,210\u03b7.\nyellow, see colours, and alchemical\nphases\nZagler, Bernhard, 48n.\nZeus, 78, 95, 162\nZodiac, 51, 146, 154, 194\nZosimos, 10, 31, 63n., 74, 79, 96n., 225,\n229\nZwingli, Huldreich, 35\n\nPages 298:\nIllustrations\n\nPages 299:\nIllustration sources:\nFigures 1-6, 9-18, 20-32: Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenb\u00fcttel\nFigures 8, 19: Nieders\u00e4chsische Staats- und Universit\u00e4tsbibliothek, G\u00f6ttingen\nFigure 7: Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv, Wien\n\nPages 300:\n291\nT R E S 5 C H O L A ; T R E 5 COESARTITVLQS DED I T ; H A C MIHI R E S T A N T ,\nPOSSE BENE IN CHRISTO VIVERE, POS SE MORI\nMICHAELMAIERVS COMES IMPERIALIS CON.\nvSISTORII de.\u00b7 PHILOSOPH. E T MEDICINARVM\nDOCTOR, P. C. C. \"NOBIL. EXEMPTV5 FOR OLIM\nMEDICVS CAS.\u00b7 eie.\u00b7\n1. Count Michael Maier (1569-1622).\n\nPages 301:\n292\nSATVRNVS\nHVMECTAT\n^jortintern Solisflores\u03c6 Lane,\nTERRA:\n2. Saturn tending to trees with flowers of gold and silver\n(from the Symbola Aureae Mensae, 1617).\n\nPages 302:\n293\n3. Governor Heinrich Rantzau.\n\nPages 303:\n294\nCV M\n\u2022I'M V I L\n.'M\nA V G V S T I S S I M O E T ' C T F L R T O T I S SIJMO R O M . ' I M P E R A T O R I ,\nRVDOLPHO \u00eftGERMANIA\u00bb HVNGARIA, BOHEMIA ETC REGI DNO SVO\nCLEMENTISSIMO SVBIECTISSIMVS CUENS AGIDIVS SADELER IN DEMISS\u00c4.\nET DI\u00ceB1T/L OBSERVANTIS. SIGNVM DED1CABAT ANNO .M.DCVIHI PRAG/L'\n4. Emperor Rudolf II.\n\nPages 304:\n295\nSeptimana Phi\u00eeofopliica.\n\u038c\u039c\niENIGMATA\n\u0391 V R E\nO L\nA\nDE O M N I N A T V R \u00fc GENERE\n\u00e0SALOMONElila'eiitarumfapientiffimo\nRege,& AiabisReginaS A \u0392 A,nec non\nH V R A M O jTyri Principe, i\u00ecbi inuicem\ni n modum Colloquii proponuntur &\n\u2022enodantuL'\u00ef\nYbipa\u00dfintvoui, at vera, tum ra\u00f1one & exper\u00ecent\u00eda conuenientes, rerum natural\u00ecum caufz expoMmtur&demon\u00dfrantur,figurisa<promcijis\nfinguli\u00ed diebus adie\u00edii\u00ed.\nAVTHORE\n\"MI CH AELE M A IERO , Impcrialis Confii\u00ecoiii Comit\u00e9, Eq.Ex. Med. D. & Ca;\u00ed. Maicft. olim\nAulico, nuncilluftiils Principisac Dn.MA VR ITIljHa\u00edsiscLandgrauiij&c.\nAr chiatto.\nW\nf r a i i c o i u r t i <\u00a7\u00a1S|\n'J\u00edn if l Lirtm/innt PalthcniL_/ .\nSimwti\u00edws L V C A I E N N I S\nU-\"\nlamo r JJrvL\nmitwm Saj\u00f1ai'\u00b7\ntin. Sjjr I.\nirtoqiun\u00cdM Dei\n\u00e2onunv \u00bft omis\nijl.Sj\u00edol- i\n5. The title page of Maier's Septimana Philosophica (1620),\nwith the six days of creation represented in the\nsix circles on either side of the title.\n\nPages 305:\n296\n6. The onroboros, from Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617).\n\nPages 306:\n297\nM \u00c9\n1\n(\u00a1r f i f \u00ed\n* fa\"\n~Qyj}hW&\u00dfA\nA\nr\nw^Mm\u00ed \u00dfp\u00fciV U f f , ^ADr>f \u00abP* \u00ed+\u00c1pjfc OffadL\u00b7,\n'<; csJW\n'/W \u03a8 ^ ^\n\u00bfkky\n^ ^\n'\n^U*\u00ab. ff%f%\n\u00bf\u00a1\u03ad\u03c0\u03c4\u03c5;!,\u00b7^ \u00edie^id>L (fuJ ihstyy\u00b7\nv V Ik+i/fk* QA* irf\nuui. f^y\nCi W ,<\u00ed\u00ab<\u00bfUy,t\nM \u00bb Alzit i\n\u00a3\u00bf4 \u2022\n\u2022\njVt&J* -tr-fifini l<t>M$l\u00b7- y\n^\n1A- 4M*.\u00b7 M\u00ab\u00ae\nJ\nc\u03af\u03c1^\u039b\u00b7^ \u03c6 , CJjiliJ^Ut \u03b2\n\u00bfylf^pn.\n, jk- \u03c8\nyJWtf\nW\u00e4m\n\u03bc\nri\n}luv, \u00bf . \u00bf \u03bc \u00a3\n.\nV* b*\u00b7'*\u00b7 pd+fot+\u00ed/y*\nIH \u039b^\u0397 fnit-ikj \u0393\"\narmfr tu-**h(s\u00b7 af&fo\nd i s - \u00a3 uu*>':,p\nfc\u00b7\u00b7*ivi^&f..\nC i Jy^\nm\n7. The first page of Maier's request to the emperor\nfor the symbol of Avicenna.\n'\n\nPages 307:\n298\nOSIRIS*\ntyphon,;\nARCANA\nL\nA\n*\u2022*\nR\nC\nA\n\u039d\nI\nS\nHOC I S T\nS\nI\nM\nA\nOTONYSVS\nc\n. rj\u00edT'ERO C\u00bf Ly PHlCJ_s\n\u0399\nyEGTPTIO-G\nRJECA,\n1 V u l g o n e c d u m\ncognita,\ni cul \u00e4enionivranddin\u00dfilforum aj>ud ariti'.\nI \u00fblios \u00bfLeonux, deanmjier\u00fbum, an\u00efmannum\nS ef injidutorumjtivpicr\u00ecs receptorim, cruj\u00ed\nI tiem, ex \u03b7 riojE^ticrum artificio, jucd aurea\nPanimi e?Corporis mtdicanmitumj\u0153rajit, deduct\nQim/Vr\u00edde htj>\u00f3\u00bftaivm allf\u0153on\u0153jcript\u00fbrum\n- narrationesj^bulofiz eH>(rlotamiEtwyclo\u00a1\njadiam errores sfarji clarj\u00dfima'veh\u00fcks\u00b7\nluce marufe/t\u00e1nhir,Jiurp tnhui\n\u03b9\nJirujuta rtffftuunturje\u00edc\nlibris Juopof\u00edta,\n\u00eduthxre\n'MICJ\u00cdA ELEJCUERQ CO MITE\nPAL.ATII CZSARgl, EQU ITE \u039e\u03a7\u0388\u039c\u03a4\u03b0 '\nj <PhU: e'i'JlUd. <Doef ert: Ca&\u00b7.\u00b7.\n\u00bfMai:quondam~\u00edulico. *\"\n8. The title page of the Arcana Arcanissima (1614).\n\nPages 308:\n299\n\u03c9\no\na\n\u00f6\n0\n>\n1\n\u03c9\na\no\n\u038c\nS\ns*.\n-\u03b2: O\nI h\nbp <\u039b\n\u03b4 \u00bfr\u00b7\n.cu\n\u03c9\n\u038c\n\u00a3 \u038c\ns \u038c\u03c9\nc KS\nW \u03c9\ng\n\u03c9\n\u03c9\n\u00d6\n\u03bf\nJ;\nbO\n\u039f\n\u038c\n\u00a7\n3\n\u039c\n\u0395\ncri\n\nPages 309:\n300\n10. The resurrection of Osiris as depicted in the\n44th emblem of the Atalanta Fugiens.\n\nPages 310:\n301\n11. Moritz 'the Learned' of Hessen-Kassel.\n\nPages 311:\n302\n12. The Elector Palatine, Prince Friedrich V.\n\nPages 312:\n303\n13. Saturn regurgitating the lapis over Mt. Helicon, as shown in the\n12th emblem of the Atalanta Fugiens.\n\nPages 313:\n304\nHOC AC CIPE, \u00a3roD\nIN s \u00cdER\u00a3\u00bfF I LINI IS S FI S\n\u00c7alt At or \u00b7.finon, abfque fcala afeetifurM cada\nin caput.\n14. Morienus in the Symbola Aureae Mensae: \"When climbing without\na ladder you will fall on your head.\"\n\nPages 314:\n305\nFelicitaci Nuptiarum Illuftnfs J ittffctf\u00f6\nscFlorcntiff. D o . D o . Fridcrici V. EIcftor\u00edsS.R. I. l J u c i s ^ w \u00bb \u00e1 * k \u00ed \u00ed O i W & K \u00c4 t M l t a ^ \u00ab ' ^ \u00b7 \u00b7 \u00bb\nB a v a r i x . C o m u i s Palatini, i t e .\n\u039a,\n\u00d6tricn g r W i r o i f f l N \u00df f t a f r h ' U \u039d \u03af \u03af \u00ab \u039b \u03c6 \u03b9 \u03ba \u03b9 \u03b9 \u00bb\n\u00b7 p t f m f c f !X\u00cd!d\u00bb/t\u00edC< i m i t e n S \u00ed m l S W i S c i \u00ed M\n\u00ab\ngj\ngrettutffcflf\u00ediiimD \u00a1J&iitf\u00fcrfkn.\nS\nti\nm\nM\nDii.Dn.Elizabethx, Sercnifs|^Urg\u00ede\u00cd@\u00edtg\u00edCe\u00ab | | u r f c u i\nac Potentifs. Iacobi E r i t a n n i a r u m , Francia:, H i b c r n i i i i u c g <0\u00effakl&/ \"\u00faui'W t\u00ed|5 \u00a9 w J m \u00e4 l W a f l m \u03a7 \u039b \u03c6 l'on gro\u00df Sr\u00a1\u00ed<\nRegis Fili* unica:,&c.\n1\ntaiiiiii/SraiTttt(ldy3nlai\u00bb/i\u00a3mi\u00e4\u00abi \u00efciljttr/\nQui tot dtjim\u00e2os f\u00a1> actis Dew cgitin\nununu,\nPerpes \u00fc&veftrosexcubet\nante toros:\nPacifero\u00a3 fub imperio det vivere long\u00f9m\nEurope, imo Orbis dulce\nutriMpdecia:\nSor fa beetnatorum eadem longo ordine natos,\nDonee ermt hommes, donee \u00c7S Orbis er it.\nO \u00ae fefjon&cr TFcg war jiiti\u00ed\u00ed($ wr it/\n90nb Iliaci t>a$ SJitardn SOntof\u00e0iil/\n\u03a6-Ott burdj feinen trafen iXa\u00c7.t\nIfftlid} cucfc&to&vtt&unfcn\u00edjaf.\n\u00ae\u00abff!t> audj\u00c7ut tuefcufjjc \u00ab d t /\nS i i #ont>c\u00bbot \u00f6tt Hb\u00fbri\u00efcmcit/\nfljnD lang\u00ab leben cud} werleo\nSamitgUf JWr&taZcctf\u00f3fantfo/\n2(uc$#<n&\u00ab<in3ic*Dmi90fltffrfaR\u00f6\n\u2022OnDwcrbW\u00dfic&\u00f6rt 2ttMf6ifanf.\n? clcfjho^rtS\u00fcm crrvf\u00edu\u00ed>fr\u00edn cntV\nOti&iict\u00f6frfcalf\u00f6.ioOvfgitiunr.\n\u00a9o fang ale mag Die Sit>c fein/\nS\u00dcnD \u00eeO\u00eefnfc^n fmDcrao^ntn brtin.\n15. The contemporary announcement of the wedding of Princess Elizabeth\nto Prince Friedrich V, 1613.\n\nPages 315:\n306\nT R I P YS \u00c4 VREVS;\nH o c eft,\nT R E S\nT R A C T A T V S\nC H Y M I C I SEL E G T IS S I M I ,\nNempe\nI.\nB A S I L 11 V A L E N T I N I , B E N E D I C T I N I O R D \u00cc nis m o n a c h i , G e r m a n i , P R A C T I C A v n a c u m n . c l a u i b u s &\nappendice,ex Germanico;\n31. T H O M i N O R T O N I , A N G L I\nPHILOSOPHI\nCREDE\nIII.\nM I H I feu O R D I N A L E ,\nante annos 14 o. ab au-\nt h o r e f c r i p t u m , n u n c ex Anglicano manufcripto in L a t i n u m\nt r a n s l a t u m , phraii cuiufque authoris vt & fententiaretenta;\nC R E M E R I C V I V S D A M ABB ATIS\nWESTmonafterienfts Angli T e f t a m e n t u m , ha\u00e9tenus n o n d u m Dublic a t u m , n u n c i n d i u e r f a r u m nacionum gratiamediti, & n g u r i s\nc u p r o affabre incii\u00ecs ornati opera & ftudio\nMICHAELIS MAIERl ihil.&Med. D. Gern,?.<\u00a7>c.\nRT\u00cf\n1% k a r \u00ef .\nAneo M,DC. XYIIl\u00b7\n16. The title page of the Tripiis Aureus (1618), in which Basil Valentine,\nThomas Norton and Abbot Cremer are shown conferring in the laboratory.\nThe central furnace unites the library on the left (theory) and the workshop\non the right (practice).\n\nPages 316:\n307\nTESTAMENTVM CRH\nmeri, abbatis\nv e s t m o n a -\nS T E R I E N S I S , A N G L I , ORdmisBenedi\u00e9tini.\nTOMVS\nTERTIVS.\nF R A H C O I V U T I A\u00ceVD J E N N I S *\n17. Abbot Cremer, as depicted in the Triptis Aureus; in the alchemist's\nvessel and within the earth itself metals are formed through the conjunction of mercury and sulphur.\n\nPages 317:\n308\n18. \"Join the brother with the sister, and offer them the cup of love.\"\nAtalanta Fugiens, emblem 4.\n\nPages 318:\n309\n19. The fish of the Philosophical sea, from Lambsprinck's\nDe Lapide Philosophico Libellns (1625).\n\nPages 319:\n310\n20. The virgin Europe, from the Septimana Philosophica. According to\nMaier's accompanying explanation, the dark blemishes on the otherwise white face of Luna are \"the reflected image of parts of the terrestrial\nglobe, so that in Europe may be seen the idea of Europe, in Asia that of\nAsia, in Africa that of Africa, and in America that of America.\" Note that\nthe moon's orbit is in the likeness of the ouroboros.\n\nPages 320:\n21. The seal of the Rosicmcian Fraternity, from the Themis Aurea (1618).\n\nPages 321:\n0ttm\nwm\u00ef%\nja|rw\nbut\u00edf\n\u00ee w F a m a m & C o n f e f f i o n e m ttiif\n\u03c6 \u03af \u0393 mvi|fmgectfcn6atfen >\nFRATERNITE\n\u03a4\nP a t i n n e n 5\u00ab f e ^ n /\n\u00dfc\u00dfritflfftit / \u00bbnD fcenn auc\u00f6 \u00bbon fcer Q k f r\n\u00ed>\u00edrf\u00ed&af\u00edfd6(\u00ed\u20acniu^\u00ed\u00edm\n\u00ed\u00edr^nb e c M m i t t g c m a t & f c n ^\u00efiftii^m\n\u00bf \u00ab f m i j u (k&in\u00f6fucf g\u00ec*\nMatth.\n\u03bd. \u03baS.\nJC\u00e0ffet met\n\u00edeudjte\u00ab fftr t>w Uta*\nt f m / \u00ef > a ^ < t m t gute weref fe&j\u00e7n/.t>n&\n\u00abwc\u00bb V m e t \u00edm \u00edjtmm\u00ed\u00ed pre\u00edf\u00ab\u00ab\u00b7\nANNO\n22.The title page of the German edition of the\nColloquium Rhodo-Stauroticum (1621).\n\nPages 322:\n23. \"If in the imagination a monochord is extended from the summit of\nthe Empyrean heaven to the base of the earth itself, we shall perceive it\nto be divided into parts constituting consonances; and if the half part\nthereof were struck, it would produce the consonant diapason in the\nsame manner as the instrumental monochord.\" Robert Fludd, Utriusque\nCosmi Maioris scilicet et Minoris Metaphysicci, Physicci, atque\nTechnica Historia (1617), p. 85.\n\nPages 323:\n314\n24. Christoph Rothmann's cosmology, as it appears in Maier's Septimana Philosophica: the moon (d) and the sun (1) orbit around the earth\n(a), and the planets revolve around the sun. The paths of the inner planets, Mercury (i) and Venus (g) intersect with the sun's orbit around the\nearth, whilst the paths of the outer planets - Mars (t), Jupiter (x) and\nSaturn (z) - do not. A, B, C and D represent the sphere of the fixed stars,\nwhilst E, F, G and H represent the primum mobile. This cosmology may\nbe distinguished from that of Rothmann 's contemporary, Tycho Brahe,\nby the fact that the orbit of Mars does not intersect with the solar orbit.\n\nPages 324:\n315\n25. \"Make a circle out of a man and a woman, derive from it a square,\nand from the square a triangle: make a circle [again] and you will have\nthe Philosophers' Stone.\" Atalanta Fugiens, emblem 21.\n\nPages 325:\n316\n26. The Defenestration of Prague.\n\nPages 326:\n317\nC O M E T A\nO R I \u0395\nTALIS,\n\u039d-\ncfcrc i t w n a te g n e f \u00f3 r r . ff o m r t e n / f o\nim$\u00ecc>\n\u00bbtntixr cej? abgclauffcncu i \u00bf i 8 .\ni t i C r i f t i \u00ed / o \u00ed v r ge^m\n2tuff\u00e2ang Oer Sonnen allait tr (\"\u03c6 im en l tm\u00f6 Pon miti\nmgficfj gcfc^atrcor\u00f6ot.\n2\u00edtt|] \u00edt>ar\u00ed>afffrn a f h r o f o g f f \u00f3e n \u00ed r n b i j t f t o r i f c f t r n\n\u00ae\u00ab\u0399\u03a4\u03c6\nM \u00bb G o t h a r d u m A r t h u f i u i n D a n t i i c a n u m , P.C.Hiftot.\n&\u00bf Pliilo-Mathcm. j\u00ab Jrantffurt am 2p?apn,\n\u00a1Mr Vi '\u03af\u039b\"\u03b0~':\nHH\n2. T\u00ecmith.j,\nInftabunt tempora pcricul\u00fc\u00edi.\nS m m f furt a r o \u00bb \u00e7 n / \u039d @fe>frownWVMcm<\n\u03c0\n/yh-J\n\u00b7 cm. n e . X I V\n27. The comet of 1618, as depicted in Gotthard's Cometa Orientalis\n(1619); the caption is drawn from the warning in 2 Timothy 3.1 that\n\"in the last days perilous times will come.\"\n\nPages 327:\n318\n28. The Star Palace of Friedrich V near the White Mountain.\n\nPages 328:\n319\n29. Coral as the homologue of the lapis philosophorum:\nAtalanta Fugiens, emblem 32.\n\nPages 329:\n320\n30. The two 'stones' as eagles, from the\nAtalanta Fugiens, emblem 46.\n\nPages 330:\n321\n31. Magellan and the circumnavigation of the earth,\nfromMaier's Viatorium (1618).\n\nPages 331:\n322\n32. Following in the footsteps of Nature;\nAtalanta Fugiens, emblem 42.\n\nPages 332:\n\u2022 Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte\n23 \u03c7 1 5,5 cm. Leinen.\n83 Joachim Weinhardt, Savonarola als Apologet. Der Versuch einer empirischen Begr\u00fcndung des\nchristlichen Glaubens in der Zeit der Renaissance. 2003. XI, 296 S.\n82 Peter Gemeinhardt,\nDie Filioque-Kontroverse zwischen Ost- und Westkiche im Fr\u00fchmittelalter. 2002. XV, 644 S.\n81 Silke-Petra Bergan, Der f\u00fcrsorgliche Gott. Der Begriff der \u03a0\u03a1\u039f\u039d\u039f\u0399\u0391 Gottes in der apologetischen Literatur der Alten Kirche. 2002. XIII, 422 S.\n80/1-2 Hermann Geyer, Verborgene Weisheit. Johann Arndts \u201eVier B\u00fccher vom Wahren Christentum\" als Programm einer spiritualistisch-hermetischen Theologie. 2001. 2 Bde. [Buch 1]:\nXXIX, 821 S. 1 Taf. [Buch 2]: IX, 545 S. 25 Abb.\n79\nVolker Henning\n382 S.\nDrecoll,\nDer Passauer Vertrag (1522). Einleitung und Edition. 2000. XII,\n78\nWenrieh Slenczka, Heilsgeschichte und Liturgie. Studien zum Verh\u00e4ltnis von Heilsgeschichte\nund Heilsteilhabe anhand liturgischer und katechetischer Quellen des dritten und vierten\nJahrhunderts. 2000. IX, 287 S.\n77 Lothar Vogel, Vom Werden eines Heiligen. Eine Untersuchung der Vita Corbiniani des\nBischofs Arbeo von Freising. 2000. XI, 542 S.\n76 Hans Georg Th\u00fcmmel, Die Memorien f\u00fcr Petrus und Paulus in Rom. Die arch\u00e4ologischen\nDenkm\u00e4ler und die literarische Tradition. 1999. X, 102 S. 65 Taf.\n75 Hartmut K\u00fchne, Ostensio reliquiarum. Untersuchungen \u00fcber Entstehung, Ausbreitung,\nGestalt und Funktion der Heiltumsweisungen im r\u00f6misch-deutschen Regnum. 2000. XIV,\n967 S. 35 Abb.\n74\nWolfram Kinzig / Christoph Markschies /Markus Vinzent, Tauffragen und Bekenntnis. Studien\nzur sogenannten \u201eTraditio Apostolica\", zu den \u201eInterrogationes de fide\" und zum \u201eR\u00f6mischen\nGlaubensbekenntnis\". 1999. IX, 484 S.\n73\nUlrich Schneider,\nTheologie als christliche Philosophie. Zur Bedeutung der biblischen\nBotschaft im Denken des Clemens von Alexandria. 1999. XV, 335 S.\n72 Joachim Mehlhausen,\n1999. X, 574 S.\nVestigia Verbi. Aufs\u00e4tze zur Geschichte der evangelischen Theologie.\n71 Friedrich Loop, Patristica. Ausgew\u00e4hlte Aufs\u00e4tze zur Alten Kirche. Hrsg. v. Hanns Christof\nBrennecke und J\u00f6rg Ulrich. 1999. XIX, 453 S.\n70\nUlrich L\u00f6jfler, Lissabons Fall - Europas Schrecken. Die Deutung des Erdbebens von Lissabon\nim deutschsprachigen Protestantismus des 18. Jahrhunderts. 1999. XIII, 721 S.\n69 J\u00f6rg Lauster, Die Erl\u00f6sungslehre Marsilio Ficinos. Theologiegeschichtliche Aspekte des\nRenaissancepiatonismus. 1998. VIII, 268 S.\n68 Rochus Leonhardt, Gl\u00fcck als Vollendung des Menschseins. Die beatitudo-Lehre des Thomas\nvon Aquin im Horizont des Eud\u00e4monismus-Problems. 1998. VIII, 322 S.\n67 Heinz Ohme, Kanon ekklesiastikos. Die Bedeutung des altkirchlichen Kanonbegriffs. 1998.\nXVII, 666 S.\n66 Andreas Miihling,\nKarl Ludwig Schmidt. \u201eUnd Wissenschaft ist Leben\". 1997. XI, 263 S.\n65 Christoph Strohm, Ethik im fr\u00fchen Calvinismus. Humanistische Einfl\u00fcsse, philosophische,\njuristische und theologische Argumentationen sowie mentalit\u00e4tsgeschichtliche Aspekte am\nBeispiel des Calvin-Sch\u00fclers Lambertus Danaeus. 1996. XXI, 789 S.\n64 Knut Sch\u00e4ferdiek, Schwellenzeit. Beitr\u00e4ge zur Geschichte des Christentums in Sp\u00e4tantike und\nFr\u00fchmittelalter. Hrsg. v. Winrich A. Lohr und Hanns Christof Brennecke. 1996. XIII, 546 S.\n\nPages 333:\n63 Bernd Andresen,\n1 Frontispiz.\nErnst von Dryander. Eine biographische Studie. 1995. IX, 435 S. 2 Abb.\n62\nLex et Evangelium. Untersuchungen zur Jesajavorlesung von Johannes\nVolker Gummelt,\nBugenhagen. 1994. XI, 209 S.\n61 Christian Andrete, Ferdinand Christian Baur als Prediger. Exemplarische Interpretationen zu\nseinem handschriftlichen Predigtnachla\u00df. 1993. X, 554 S.\n60 Silke-Petra Bergan, Theodoret von Cyrus und der Neuniz\u00e4nismus. Aspekte der Altkirchlichen\nTrinit\u00e4tslehre. 1994. X, 246 S.\n59 Klaus Seiht, Die Theologie des Markell von Ankyra. 1994. XIV, 558 S.\n58 Rudolf Leeb, Konstantin und Christus. Die Verchristlichung der imperialen Repr\u00e4sentation\nunter Konstantin dem Gro\u00dfen als Spiegel seiner Kirchenpolitik und seines Selbstverst\u00e4ndnisses als christlicher Kaiser. 1992. XlV, 223 S. 28 Taf.\n57 Harry Oelke, Die Konfessionsbildung des 16. Jahrhunderts im Spiegel illustrierter Flugbl\u00e4tter.\n1992.X, 477 S. 52 Abb.\n56 Heinz Ohme, Das Concilium Quinisextum und seine Bischofsliste. Studien zum\nKonstantinopeler Konzil von 692. 1990. XII, 423 S. 5 Karten.\n53 Dietmar Wyrwa, Die christliche Piatonaneignung in den Stromateis des Clemens von\nAlexandrien. 1983. X, 364 S.\n52 Dietrich W\u00fcnsch, Evangelienharmonien im Reformationszeitalter. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte\nder Leben-Jesu-Darstellungen. 1983. XII, 282 S. 11 Graf., 1 Falttab.\n51 Martin Schneider,\nEurop\u00e4isches Waldensertum im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert. Gemeinschaftsform \u2014 Fr\u00f6mmigkeit \u2014 Sozialer Hintergrund. 1981. XII, 157 S.\n50 Text \u2014 Wort - Glaube. Studien zur Uberlieferung, Interpretation und Autorisierung biblischer\nTexte. Kurt Aland gewidmet. Hrsg. v. Martin Brecht. 1980. VIII, 397 S. Frontispiz.\n49 Gerhard Simon, Humanismus und Konfession. Theobald Billican, Leben und Werk. 1980.\nXII, 260 S. 1 Abb.\n48 Gerhard May, Sch\u00f6pfung aus dem Nichts. Die Entstehung der Lehre von der creatio ex nihilo.\n1978. XII, 196 S.\n47 Hans Schneider, Der Konziliarismus als Problem der neueren katholischen Theologie. Die\nGeschichte der Auslegung der Konstanzer Dekrete von Febronius bis zur Gegenwart. 1976.\nVIII, 380 S.\n46 Reinhard Schlieben, Christliche Theologie und Philologie in der Sp\u00e4tantike. Die schulwissenschaftlichen Methoden der Psalmenexegese Cassiodors. 1974. X, 132 S.\n44 Martin Stupperich, Oslander in Preu\u00dfen (1549-1552). 1973. XVI, 402 S. 3 Ktn.\n43 Horst Weigelt,\nSpiritualistische Tradition im Protestantismus. Die Geschichte\nSchwenckfeldertums in Schlesien. 1973. XIV, 325 p. 2 Ktn.\ndes\n42 Klaus Wengst, Tradition und Theologie des Barnabasbriefes. 1971. X, 129 S.\n39 Knut Sch\u00e4ferdiek, Die Kirche in den Reichen der Westgoten und Suewen bis zur Errichtung\nder westgotischen katholischen Staatskirche. 1967. VIII, 186 S.\n29 Carl Hinrichs,\nLuther und M\u00fcntzer. Ihre Auseinandersetzung \u00fcber Obrigkeit und\nWiderstandsrecht. (2. unver\u00e4nd. Aufl. 1962). 1971. VIII, 187 S.\n8 Hans Lietzmann, Messe und Herrenmahl. Eine Studie zur Geschichte der Liturgie. (Nachdr.\nd. 3. Aufl.). 1955. 1967. XII, 263 S.\n\nPages 334:\n\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 290 to page 334 out of a total of 334. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=244\nPages: 244\ndiscarding of the term alchemia in favour of chemia is in accord with the\nrationalising aspect of his work, and may indicate that the exotic otherness\nimparted by the Arabic definite article 'al' was beginning to be associated in\nhis time with equally outlandish and spurious claims (hence the widespread\nseventeenth century misunderstanding of 'al' as signifying the 'great' or\n'sublime' nature of the Art).6 Whatever the case may be, with the progressive\n'disenchantment of the world' associated with the rise of modernity the term\nalchemia became associated exclusively with transmutational pursuits\nexcluded from the domain of 'legitimate' chemical research.\nIn her study of Maier's Atalanta Fugiens de Jong has also made note of\nthe fact that Maier eschewed the term 'alchemy' in favour of chemia or\n5\nSee above, chapter V, n. 15; Hellebore was a plant with violent emetic and cathartic\nproperties much used by the ancients as a remedy for mental disease; it has been used as]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=281\nPages: 281\nNew Haven: Yale University Press, 1968.\nMartin, Luther H. \"A History of the Psychological Interpretation of Alchemy,\" Ambix, Vol.\n22, No. 1, 1975, pp. 10-20.\nMatton, Sylvain. \"Le Ph\u00e9nix dans l'Oeuvre de Michel Maier et la Litt\u00e9rature Alchimique.\"\nIn Bailly, J. C. (ed.). Chansons Intellectuelles sur la R\u00e9surr\u00e9ction du Ph\u00e9nix par Michel\nMaier. Paris: Gutenberg Reprints, 1984.\nMcintosh, Christopher. \"Alchemy and the Gold- und Rosenkreutz.\" In Martels, \u0396. R. W. M.\nvon. Alchemy Revisited: Proceedings of the International Conference on the History of\nAlchemy at the University of Groningen, 17-19 April 1989. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990, pp.\n239-244.\n\u2014 The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason: Eighteenth-Century Rosicrucianism in Central\nEurope and its Relation to the Enlightenment. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992.\n\u2014 The Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology and Rituals of an Occult Order.\nWellingborough: Crucible, 1987.\nMcLean, Adam. \"A Rosicrucian Manuscript of Michael Maier,\" The Hermetic Journal,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=15\nPages: 15\nCrosland wrote in his Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry\n(1962):\nThe psychologist Jung considered the paradox as 'one of our most valued spiritual possessions' and stated that a religion 'becomes inwardly impoverished when it loses or reduces its\nparadoxes', because an unambiguous language is unsuited to express the incomprehensible.\nIt seems clear that, whereas mystical alchemy may well have thrived on paradox, its\nexistence in the literature was stultifying to alchemy as a science. 21\nAlthough more rationalistic sensibilities were offended by the mysticallyminded 'adept', whose \"cloud of obscure nomenclature and speculation\ncontributed nothing to chemistry,\" 22 other historians followed Pagel in\nan attempt to address the complete intellectual output of the alchemists.\nOne such writer was Betty Dobbs, who - in stark contrast to Principe and\nNewman - utilised Jung's ideas to emphasise the continuity of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=41\nPages: 41\nof spiritual alchemy can only be traced to the late eighteenth century, or to\nthe work of nineteenth century occultists as Principe and Newman suggest. If\nwe were to do so, we would not have reckoned with the work of Maier, a\nlaboratory worker who played an influential role in the early Rosicrucian\nmilieu and who has been described as \"the boldest and most consistent of the\nalchemists of the German Renaissance.\" 130 Of particular importance in this\nregard is his Allegoria Bella, which after its initial appearance in 1617 was\nreprinted in Latin in 1678 and 1749, and in English in Waite's translation of\n1893.131 Whilst Principe and Newman have - with some justification characterised Waite's translations of alchemical texts as \"adulterated by the\naddition of occultist elements and slants completely alien to the originals,\" it\nmust be said that Waite's version of Maier's allegory compares favourably\nwith the Latin original, being a slightly abridged but thematically accurate]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=15\nPages: 15\nstudy of alchemy was the Swiss-educated John Read, who commented in\n1947 that it had required 'the discernment of a master' to elucidate the\nintimate relationship of alchemy to psychology. 19 Soon the conception that\nalchemy had involved the projection of unconscious psychological processes\ninto the objective world of the laboratory became a commonplace amongst\nacademics in the field. Even those positivistic writers who were antagonistic\ntowards the role of the irrational in alchemy referred to Jung's theories in\norder to demarcate the realm of 'genuine' science from mere superstition.\nThus Eduard Farber in The Evolution of Chemistry (1952) scorned the\n'mystical' class of alchemical texts as a collection of 'fantastic tales', devoid\nof both art and science, which might interest a psychoanalyst such as Jung\nbut were of no use for the historian of chemistry.20 In similar vein, Maurice\nCrosland wrote in his Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry\n(1962):]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=245\nPages: 245,246\nesoteric traditions, as the alchemical Decknamen of the seventeenth century\nbecame 'meaningless' in the hands of the secret societies.9\n7\n8\n9\nde Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, p. 11.\nPeuckert, Pansophie (1936 edition), pp. 107-108.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 387.\nThe 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\n237\n3. The 'Tradition' and the fate of Maier's thought\nIn order to offer a corrective to this claim, let us proceed to chart the history\nof the reception of Maier's thought amongst later writers. When delving\nthrough this history and uncovering the myriad verdicts pronounced concerning the value of Maier's labour or the moral standing of this man, it must\nbe said that a mercurial figure emerges. Maier has been the subject of a\nspate of recent academic studies, many of which have focussed on his work\nof multimedia, the Atalanta Fugiens, which has been described as \"the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=264\nPages: 264\ntheir original antique philosophical context were inseparable from religious\nspeculation on the nature of God and the human soul. But it is only\nsubsequent to the late fifteenth century flowering of Neoplatonism in Italy,\nthe emergence of a syncretic Renaissance Hermeticism with its elaborate\ntheories of sympathy and correspondence, and the re-appearance of overtly\ngnostic and individualistic sentiments in the course of the Reformation, that\ncertain alchemies again attained the overt religiosity of their Hellenistic\nEgyptian and Gnostic counterparts.85\nIt should be noted, however, that Jung placed his own work in the context\nof a lineage of symbolic import rather than a Tradition per se, as he argued\nthat psychological or 'spiritual' elements in alchemical practice prior to the\nsixteenth century 'fission' of physica and mystica remained largely\nunconscious to the 'adepts'. On this matter we might follow the good advice]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=16\nPages: 16\nupon the ideas of the left-leaning psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. 26 According\nto Fromm, large-scale 'individuation' or reflexive personal development\nemerged in the wake of the collapse of medieval social structures; Dobbs\nsuggested such a socio-historical process may have given rise to 'a\nmore spiritual variety of alchemy'. 27 On the other hand, a more rigorous\nexperimental study of alchemical processes also ensued:\nThat was excellent for chemistry, which was thereby enabled to incorporate into itself a\nrational alchemical paradigm, but it was deadly for the older alchemy. It had been too\nthoroughly chemicalised to carry out its older functions of a religious and psychological\nnature, for those functions required a considerable ignorance about the substances with\nwhich the alchemist worked. From that time on the intertwined halves of the older alchemy\nwere irrevocably separated. 2 8\nSo although Dobbs followed Jung in his distinction between a 'scientific' and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=245\nPages: 245\nthat such use would constitute a 'presentisi' projection of contemporary\ncategories into a time when they did not exist, we would be left with a\nmedieval 'alchemy', an early modern chymia, and a modern 'alchemy', with\nno sense left of the clear ideological continuity between them. Likewise, the\nterm 'alchemy' could not be applied to the pre-Arabic pursuit of metallic\nand spiritual transmutation. Given these difficulties inherent in Principe and\nNewmans' proposal, one may legitimately speak of Maier's place in an\nesoteric tradition of 'alchemy'; for just as the retrospectively-constructed\nterm 'humanism' would have proved a strange conception in the Renaissance\nand early modern periods, so the term 'alchemy' - whilst possessing negative\nconnotations in Maier's work - is indispensable as a category in the history\nof Western esotericism. In making sense of the alchemical past we cannot\nfail to be 'presentisi', as our own schismatic understanding of science and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=261\nPages: 261\n252\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nof the Gold- und Rosenkreutz, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia (r.l7861797).70\nFollowing the collapse due to scandal of Baron von Hund's 'Strict\nObservance' Templar strain of Freemasonry in 1782, the Gold- und\nRosenkreutz became the dominant force within the German Craft, alongside\nthe 'Illuminati' who represented the secular, rationalising tendency we\nhave mentioned. 71 The Gold- und Rosenkreutz was marked by its antiEnlightenment stance and its emphasis on Christian piety and alchemy.\nAlchemical ideas and symbols were incorporated into the rituals of initiation\nand the teachings that accompanied each grade; laboratory alchemy was also\nan important part of the work of the order from the third degree onwards, and\nthose members reaching the seventh grade were deemed to have knowledge\nof the Philosophers' Stone.72 Paracelsian and Valentinian alchemy were the\norder of the day, although there were some members who denied the tria]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27\naspect of alchemical writing Luther praised in passing - the occultists of the nineteenth\ncentury went much further to claim that alchemy itself was an art of internal meditation\nrather than an external manipulation of apparatus and chemicals... The similarity of Jung's\npsychologising view to the 'spiritual evolution' system of A. E. Waite's Azoth is clear, and\nwhat we now know of Jung's juvenile interest in the occult and the currency of Victorian\nesoterica in Jung's early circles supports this observable similarity... we therefore come to\nthe rather surprising conclusion that the residues of Victorian occultism have deeply colored\nthe historical study of the discipline. It seems unlikely that many historians would continue\n74\nOn the history of alchemy as the history of the interpretation of alchemy, see Eco,\nUmberto. The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press,\n1990, pp. 18-20.\n75]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=17\nPages: 17\nacquired the status of a self-evident truth and was no longer questioned by\nhistorians of alchemy. 30 Arguing against its 'monopolisation' of the academic\nstudy of alchemy, Obrist described Jung's theory as an 'ahistorical vision'\nwhich does not take into account the specific political, social and intellectual\ncontexts of the periods and societies in which alchemy has functioned.\nWhilst we have seen that this criticism had been voiced by earlier writers\nmore sympathetic to the Jungian approach, Obrist extended her critique to\nthe historiography proposed by Jung. Thus Jung's 'early' or 'classical'\nalchemy - to which Dobbs had recourse in her work - is an erroneous\nconstruct presented as a 'great timeless unit' framed by late antiquity and the\nseventeenth century. Obrist believed that Jung utilised his theory of universal\narchetypal propensities of the human psyche \"in order to make products as\nstrange as alchemical writings and illustrations, pertaining to fundamentally]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=257\nPages: 257,258\nAdam Jonathan Fel\u00dfecker, 1728, pp. 289-313.\nFerguson, John. Bibliotheca\nChemica. London: Starker Brothers, 1906, p. 66.\nAlchemy and the re-emergence of Rosicrucianism\n249\nthe Treuhertzige Warnungs-Vermahnung do in fact feature prominently in\nMaier's Examen Fucorum Pseudo-chymicorum.54 Wegner bases his attribution of the work to Maier on a remark made by a certain Felix Maurer, who\nstates that Maier had compiled in one of his works \"the most remarkable\nintrigues and trickery\" that he had met with in the German courts - a work\nwhich Maurer believed should be \"included as a foreword to all alchemical\ntexts hitherto printed.\" 55 It seems his reference was to the Examen Fucorum\nPseudo-chymicorum, with which Wegner was clearly not acquainted.\n4. Alchemy and the re-emergence of Rosicrucianism\nDespite the protests of an increasing number of sceptics such as Wegner, the\npractical laboratory quest for the Philosophers' Stone survived until at least]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=34\nPages: 34\nalchemy', as Principe and Newman suggest, then we must follow those\n'secret threads' of which Jung speaks and trace the sources of their (nonexclusive) conception of alchemy as a process of self-transformation within\nthe alchemist.\nIn his Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik, Silberer attributes the\n'rediscovery' of the psychological content of alchemy to the 'profound'\nEthan Allen Hitchcock (1798-1870); throughout his work Silberer states that\nhe is indebted to Hitchcock when he argues that the central subject of the\nHermetic Art is humankind - i.e. its subject is das Subjekt.102 Hitchcock was\na Union general and military adviser to Abraham Lincoln who, like Silberer,\nwas influenced by Freemasonic doctrine: indeed, his father Samuel was a\nprominent Freemason who incorporated the society's motifs into the seal of\nthe state of Vermont. 103 Hitchcock's thesis as set forward in his Remarks\n101\nJung, \"Mysterium Coniunctionis\" (English edition), p. 555; Jung, Mysterium]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=11\nPages: 11\n2\nJung and early modern alchemy\nAlthough Fai vre has dealt extensively with the subject of alchemy from\nthe perspective of the history of Western esotericism,2 the primary historical\nenquiry into the status of laboratory alchemy in early modernity continues\nto take place amongst historians of science. As a consequence the following\nstudy enters both these arenas of discourse. Clearly the arguments of\nPrincipe and Newman deal not only with questions of historiography and\nnomenclature, but concern the very nature of laboratory alchemy in the\nsixteenth and seventeenth centuries and its relation to the esoteric traditions.\nThese introductory pages constitute an extended theoretical preamble on this\ncurrent controversy, which will serve as a prelude for an analysis of the\nconcrete example of the alchemy of Count Michael Maier and his place in the\nhistory of early Rosicrucianism. In the course of that analysis it will be seen]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=10\nPages: 10\ntransmutation remains to be clarified. Indeed, the very term 'alchemy' had\naccumulated a variety of meanings by the turn of the sixteenth century, and\nthe nature of the endeavours to be placed under its rubric remains a\ncontentious issue to this day. Arguing against the implicitly religious\ninterpretation of the ambiguous alchemical corpus put forward by the\nSwiss psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), Lawrence Principe\nand William Newman have recently contended that the symbolic literature\nof laboratory alchemy in the early modern period dealt primarily with\ncode-names (Decknamen) for chemical processes, and for the greater part\nbore no relation to matters of spiritual or psychological transformation.\nFurthermore, Principe and Newman argue that Jung's schema falsely implies\na discontinuity between alchemy and modern chemistry. In their view, there\nis a lack of any clear and widespread demarcation between the words chemia]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=42\nPages: 42\nlanguage and imagery - as extensive as it is - remains clearly of a different order than, for\nexample, the practical and theoretical antimonial exercises of Basil Valentine, Alexander von\nSuchten, Eirenaeus Philalethes and others, or the rigorous Scholastic alchemy of \"Geber,\"\nAlbert the Great, Petrus Bonus, or Gaston Duelo. 1 3 4\nWhilst Principe and Newman make brief mention of the fact that the thought\nof Heinrich Khunrath and 'the Rosicrucian enthusiast', Robert Fludd,\npersisted amongst 'secret societies', the developmental continuity of Western\nesotericism is summarily dismissed on the grounds that, in the hands of such\nsocieties, \"alchemical works deliberately written to be obscure and secretive\nin their own age sometimes became meaningless in the next.\" 135 Of course,\nthe historian of esotericism cannot accept that the use of alchemical\nsymbolism within Rosicrucian or Freemasonic circles was 'meaningless';]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=17\nPages: 17\ndescended intellectually from the mystical Rosicrucians contributed to the new alchemy\nwhich insisted upon full communication of alchemical secrets, experimental study of\nalchemical processes, and full description of experimental results in common chemical\nterminology... The function of the movement towards the rationalization of alchemy was to\njoin alchemy to the mainstream of the scientific revolution, destroy its quasi-religious aspect,\nand set it on a path of gradual evolution into objective chemistry. 29\nThe first major challenge to the historiography promoted by Jung came\nfrom the French historian of alchemy, Barbara Obrist. From the outset of her\nLes D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie Alchimique (XIVe -XVe si\u00e8cles) (1982), a study of\nalchemical illustration in the late medieval period, Obrist felt it necessary\nto dispense with Jung's perspective - a perspective which, she lamented, had\nacquired the status of a self-evident truth and was no longer questioned by]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=200\nPages: 200\npatronage of the occult arts was motivated primarily by \"a form of political\ndespair,\" which in the case of alchemy inspired particular interest in the\nmanipulation and transformation of metals as a possible technological\nsolution for his political problems. 42 Whilst it is certainly true that princely\npatronage in the early modern period was driven by \"practical concerns\nrelating to the demonstration or preservation of political power,\" it was the\nmedical application of alchemy that took the centre stage in Maier's work\nand in his appeals for patronage; thus the particular reasons behind Moritz'\nemployment of an iatrochemist such as Maier remain unclarified by Moran,\nbeyond the very general aim of investigating and gaining control over\nNature. 43 Given the close connection perceived between physical and moral\nstates in the medical worldview of the day, the iatrochemistry of Maier and\nother physicians at the princely court offered not only a means of curing]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=281\nPages: 281\nKiple, K. F. (ed.). The Cambridge World History of Disease. Cambridge: Cambridge\nUniversity Press, 1993.\nKirsch, Thomas B. \"The Rose, the Cross and the Analyst,\" Anima, vol. 21, 1994, pp. 67-69.\nKleinpaul, Johannes. Das Nachrichtenwesen der deutschen F\u00fcrsten im 16. und 17.\nJahrhundert. Leipzig: AdolfKlein, 1930.\nKlibansky, Raymond et. al. Saturn and Melancholy: Studies in the History of Natural\nPhilosophy, Religion and Art. Nelson: London, 1964.\nKrabbe, Otto. Die Universit\u00e4t Rostock im F\u00fcnfzehnten und Sechzehnten Jahrhundert. Vol. 1.\nRostock: Adler's Erben, 1854.\nLennhoff, Eugen. Die Freimaurer. Nachdruck der Ausgabe von 1929. Wien: Locker Verlag,\n1981.\nLippman, E. O. von. Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie. Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1978.\nMacguire, W. et. al. (eds.) Alchemy and the Occult: A Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts\nfrom the Collection of Paul and Mary Mellon given to Yale University Library. Vol. 2.\nNew Haven: Yale University Press, 1968.]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=16\nPages: 16\nupon the ideas of the left-leaning psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. 26 According\nto Fromm, large-scale 'individuation' or reflexive personal development\nemerged in the wake of the collapse of medieval social structures; Dobbs\nsuggested such a socio-historical process may have given rise to 'a\nmore spiritual variety of alchemy'. 27 On the other hand, a more rigorous\nexperimental study of alchemical processes also ensued:\nThat was excellent for chemistry, which was thereby enabled to incorporate into itself a\nrational alchemical paradigm, but it was deadly for the older alchemy. It had been too\nthoroughly chemicalised to carry out its older functions of a religious and psychological\nnature, for those functions required a considerable ignorance about the substances with\nwhich the alchemist worked. From that time on the intertwined halves of the older alchemy\nwere irrevocably separated. 2 8\nSo although Dobbs followed Jung in his distinction between a 'scientific' and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=10\nPages: 10\ntransmutation remains to be clarified. Indeed, the very term 'alchemy' had\naccumulated a variety of meanings by the turn of the sixteenth century, and\nthe nature of the endeavours to be placed under its rubric remains a\ncontentious issue to this day. Arguing against the implicitly religious\ninterpretation of the ambiguous alchemical corpus put forward by the\nSwiss psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), Lawrence Principe\nand William Newman have recently contended that the symbolic literature\nof laboratory alchemy in the early modern period dealt primarily with\ncode-names (Decknamen) for chemical processes, and for the greater part\nbore no relation to matters of spiritual or psychological transformation.\nFurthermore, Principe and Newman argue that Jung's schema falsely implies\na discontinuity between alchemy and modern chemistry. In their view, there\nis a lack of any clear and widespread demarcation between the words chemia]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=244\nPages: 244\ndiscarding of the term alchemia in favour of chemia is in accord with the\nrationalising aspect of his work, and may indicate that the exotic otherness\nimparted by the Arabic definite article 'al' was beginning to be associated in\nhis time with equally outlandish and spurious claims (hence the widespread\nseventeenth century misunderstanding of 'al' as signifying the 'great' or\n'sublime' nature of the Art).6 Whatever the case may be, with the progressive\n'disenchantment of the world' associated with the rise of modernity the term\nalchemia became associated exclusively with transmutational pursuits\nexcluded from the domain of 'legitimate' chemical research.\nIn her study of Maier's Atalanta Fugiens de Jong has also made note of\nthe fact that Maier eschewed the term 'alchemy' in favour of chemia or\n5\nSee above, chapter V, n. 15; Hellebore was a plant with violent emetic and cathartic\nproperties much used by the ancients as a remedy for mental disease; it has been used as]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=265\nPages: 265,266\nby Principe and Newman can only be upheld by portraying early modern\nlaboratory alchemy as a purely 'chemical' research (conceived in cryptopositivist terms), and by erasing from history the development of alchemical\nthought subsequent to the seventeenth century. For researchers in the history\nof Western esotericism, this modus operandi is entirely inadequate. Rather, it\nis apparent that the categories we encounter in the debate concerning the true\nimport of the ambiguous symbols of the alchemical corpus are not new, and\nthat we are embarking upon the study of living traditions; for just as certain\nvoices in the early modern period called for the separation of matters\ntheological and scientific, so today we find that schismatic outlook expressed\nby apologists (witting or otherwise) for the dominant scientific paradigm.\n89\nIbid., pp. 399-400.\nBibliography\n1. P r i m a r y S o u r c e s\nA. Printed works of Maier]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=264\nPages: 264\nunconscious to the 'adepts'. On this matter we might follow the good advice\nof the historian of alchemy E. J. Holmyard, who stated that \"it must be left to\nthe psychologists\" to pronounce judgment on the \"profound psychological\nstudy\" put forward by Jung, rather than intruding into fields which are not\nour rightful domain. 86 We should also keep in mind Holmyard's accurate\ndepiction of Jung's view of medieval alchemy as a \"chemical research work\ninto which there entered, by way of projection, an admixture of unconscious\npsychic material;\" 87 as we have shown, when Principe and Newman speak of\n\"Jung's assertion that alchemy ceases to be alchemy when it becomes clear\nenough to be understood in chemical terms,\" they betray their fundamental\nmisunderstanding of the psychology of the unconscious. 88\n84\n85\n86\n87\n88\nPagel, Paracelsus, p. 315.\nWhilst Merkur has recently argued for a medieval origin to 'spiritual alchemy' with]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=15\nPages: 15\nstudy of alchemy was the Swiss-educated John Read, who commented in\n1947 that it had required 'the discernment of a master' to elucidate the\nintimate relationship of alchemy to psychology. 19 Soon the conception that\nalchemy had involved the projection of unconscious psychological processes\ninto the objective world of the laboratory became a commonplace amongst\nacademics in the field. Even those positivistic writers who were antagonistic\ntowards the role of the irrational in alchemy referred to Jung's theories in\norder to demarcate the realm of 'genuine' science from mere superstition.\nThus Eduard Farber in The Evolution of Chemistry (1952) scorned the\n'mystical' class of alchemical texts as a collection of 'fantastic tales', devoid\nof both art and science, which might interest a psychoanalyst such as Jung\nbut were of no use for the historian of chemistry.20 In similar vein, Maurice\nCrosland wrote in his Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry\n(1962):]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=11\nPages: 11,12\nIn Correspondences\nin Man and World. Eranos Yearbook, 1973. Leiden: E. J. Brill,\n1975, pp. 323-360.\nThe reception of Jung\n3\nreligious nature has held wide currency in the academic study of alchemy. In\n1942 Jung published his Paracelsica: Zwei Vorlesungen \u00fcber den Arzt und\nPhilosophen Theophrastus,3 in which he boldly declared that the Swiss\nalchemist Paracelsus (c.1493-1541) had anticipated the findings of twentieth\ncentury psychoanalysis:\nI had long been aware that alchemy is not only the mother of chemistry, but is also the\nforerunner of our modern psychology of the unconscious. Thus Paracelsus appears as a\npioneer not only of chemical medicine but of empirical psychology and psychotherapy. 4\nIn Jung's opinion the symbols of Paracelsian alchemy, and of alchemical\nliterature in general, make more or less veiled reference to the evolution of\nthe individual psyche - a dialectical process of 'individuation' in which\nconsciousness is confronted with the forces of the unconscious mind.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=244\nPages: 244,245\nproperties much used by the ancients as a remedy for mental disease; it has been used as\na term of invective through the centuries.\n6\nC.f. Principe and Newman, \"Alchemy vs. Chemistry,\" passim.\n236\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nchymia in his work; nevertheless, she continues to use the term herself\nbecause Maier draws from sources prior to the widespread emergence of the\nterm chymia, and because his iatrochemical goals bear a strong resemblance\nto those of his medieval predecessors (i.e. the production of a Universal\nMedicine which imparts its virtue to metals and the human body alike).7 It\nbehoves us to follow this sound reasoning when considering the continuity\nexisting between Maier's work and subsequent esoteric pursuits sequestered\nfrom the scientific mainstream in the course of the eighteenth century. If we\nwere to cease utilising the term 'alchemy' in favour of chymia on the grounds\nthat such use would constitute a 'presentisi' projection of contemporary]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=22\nPages: 22\nof the ilk of the theosopher Boehme. 54\nWhilst Jung's portrayal of medieval and antique alchemy as 'a great\ntimeless unit' is indeed problematic, there remains no justification for the\nassertion of Principe and Newman that Jung believed any alchemical text that\ncould be decoded into modern chemical language must thereby be excluded\nfrom the realms of a 'good' or 'genuine' alchemy.55 In light of this fact, the\ninsistence of these authors that the strange symbols utilised by the alchemists\nare \"the products of a skilled use of traditional techniques of deception\nthat extend back many centuries in the literature of alchemy\" in no way\ncontradicts the Jungian interpretation of alchemy. 56 Indeed, in the early\ntwentieth century it was widely understood that alchemical symbolism was\na secret vocabulary of Decknamen for chemical substances, and Jung cited\nthe definitive works of Ruska on this very matter approvingly. 57 Ruska\n52]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=17\nPages: 17\ndescended intellectually from the mystical Rosicrucians contributed to the new alchemy\nwhich insisted upon full communication of alchemical secrets, experimental study of\nalchemical processes, and full description of experimental results in common chemical\nterminology... The function of the movement towards the rationalization of alchemy was to\njoin alchemy to the mainstream of the scientific revolution, destroy its quasi-religious aspect,\nand set it on a path of gradual evolution into objective chemistry. 29\nThe first major challenge to the historiography promoted by Jung came\nfrom the French historian of alchemy, Barbara Obrist. From the outset of her\nLes D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie Alchimique (XIVe -XVe si\u00e8cles) (1982), a study of\nalchemical illustration in the late medieval period, Obrist felt it necessary\nto dispense with Jung's perspective - a perspective which, she lamented, had\nacquired the status of a self-evident truth and was no longer questioned by]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=14\nPages: 14\ncontemporary categories into a time in which such distinctions were alien.\nFurthermore, they argue that Jung's schema supports the false notion of a\ndiscontinuity in the evolution of chemistry, a disjuncture between a modern\nmechanistic science and an alchemy that is defined by its 'spiritual or psychic\ndimension'. 13\nPrincipe and Newman also see Jung as the chief progenitor of a tendency\n\"to downplay or eliminate any natural philosophical or 'scientific' content in\nalchemy\" 14 - and as we shall see, this has been a common criticism voiced by\nhistorians of science, be they partisans or foes of the Jungian approach.\nIndeed, in his review of Psychologie und Alchemie Pagel also stated that Jung\nwas \"prone to belittle the role of alchemy as a precursor to modern science\"\nby overemphasising the psychological aspect of the texts he studied.15\nNevertheless, he felt that Jung had revolutionised the academic study of\nalchemy:]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=20\nPages: 20\nthey present in the work of Eirenaeus Philalethes or not. Furthermore, if we\nfollow Principe and Newman in counterposing a positively valued 'correct\nchemical analysis' 46 carried out by 'serious historians of alchemy' 47 with a\nnegatively valued 'analysis of unreason' 48 , we not only run the risk of\ncommitting a violence against the texts at hand, but we also perform a\ndisservice to contemporary scholarship on the subject of alchemy by\nexcluding certain voices (principally those of the psychoanalysts) from the\nrealms of valid discourse.\nThis initial criticism should serve to clarify the approach adopted by the\ncurrent author - and it should also be abundantly clear that the criticisms I\nwill shortly direct at the Jungian hermeneutic are not the work of a follower\nof Jung, lest I too should be accused of being \"tinctured with the same type of\nlunacy\" as the people I study.\nThe second error committed by Principe and Newman, and one that]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=10\nPages: 10,11\nis a lack of any clear and widespread demarcation between the words chemia\nand alchemia in the early modern texts, and consequently they have\nrecommended that we dispense with the term 'alchemy' altogether when\nreferring to this period, utilising instead the more common early modern\nappellations of chemia or chymia, whilst reserving the term 'alchemy' for the\nmedieval period alone.1\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. and William R. Newman. \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy.\" In Newman, William R. and Anthony Grafton (eds.). Secrets of\nNature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press,\n2001, pp. 385-431; \"Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographie Mistake,\" Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1998, pp. 32-65; also\nNewman, William R. \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language? Eirenaeus Philalethes\nand Carl Jung,\" Revue D'Histoire des Sciences, Vol. 49, No. 2, 1996, pp. 159-188.\n2\nJung and early modern alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=283\nPages: 283,284\nImagery.\nVol. 1. London: The Warburg\nInstitute, 1939.\nPrincipe,\nLawrence\nM. and Newman,\nWilliam R. \"Alchemy\nvs. Chemistry:\nThe\nEtymological Origins of a Historiographie Mistake,\" Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 3,\nNo. 1, 1998, pp. 32-65.\n\u2014 \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy.\" In Newman, William R. and\nAnthony Grafton (eds.). Secrets of Nature: Astrology\nEurope. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 2001, pp. 385-431.\nand Alchemy\nin Early\nModern\nBibliography\n275\nQuispel, Gilles. \"Gnosis and Culture.\" In Barnaby, Karin and Pellegrino D'Acierno (eds.). C.\nG. Jung and the Humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990, pp. 11-52.\nRead, John. Prelude to Chemistry. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1936.\n\u2014 The Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1947.\nRebotier, Jacques. \"La Musique Cach\u00e9e de \u0393 Atalanta Fugiens,\" Chrysopoeia, Vol. 1, 1987,\npp. 56-76.\nRoberts, Gareth. The Mirror of Alchemy: Alchemical Ideas and Images in Manuscripts and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=16\nPages: 16,17\nSo although Dobbs followed Jung in his distinction between a 'scientific' and\na 'spiritual' alchemy in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, she did\nnot believe Jung's work supported the notion of a radical discontinuity in the\nevolution of chemistry. Rather, she believed modern chemistry had emerged\nfrom a new 'experimental alchemy' that was integrally linked to the scientific\nrevolution of the Enlightenment:\n23\nDobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. The Foundations\nUniversity Press, 1975, pp. 90, 192.\n24\nIbid., p. 230.\nIbid., pp. 34, 42, 80.\nIt should be said that Dobbs incorrectly refers to Fromm as an 'analytical psychologist',\nthe term utilised by Jungian psychoanalysts.\nIbid., p. 42.\nIbid.\n25\n26\n27\n28\nof Newton's Alchemy. Cambridge: Cambridge\nJung and early modern alchemy\n8\n...it seems clear that both the mechanical philosophers and the reformers who were\ndescended intellectually from the mystical Rosicrucians contributed to the new alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nreferred to by Obrist, the views of Jung and Eliade merely echo those of\nH\u00e9l\u00e8ne Metzger, who sought to distinguish alchemy from a mechanistic\nchemistry with reference to its supposed vitalistic and organic view of the\ncosmos - a distinction recently undermined by Newman's identification of a\ncorpuscularian tradition within medieval and early modern alchemy. 35\n3. The arguments of Principe and Newman\nIn a manner similar to Obrist, Principe and Newman reject both Jung's historiography and his theory of projection, although their criticisms focus on the\nalchemy of early modernity rather than that of the medieval period. In his\nfirst foray into the subject of the Jungian interpretation of alchemy and its\nreception, Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language? Eirenaeus Philalethes\nand Carl Jung (1996), Newman draws upon the work of the pseudonymous\nseventeenth century author Eirenaeus Philalethes to demonstrate that the\nsurreal symbols of seventeenth century laboratory alchemy are in fact]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=25\nPages: 25\niatrochemia65 and the production of the Universal Medicine. Furthermore,\nMaier understood his relentless peregrinatici in search of patronage as a\nmacrocosmic image of the operations within the alchemical vessel, a process\nof spiritual purification that was indeed integrally linked to his struggle for\nworldly wealth. And without a detailed understanding of the ultimate goal\nof Maier's laboratory experiments - a 'medicine of piety' that would cure\ndiseases and impious urges alike by restoring the balance of humours in the\nbody - it is not possible to understand the intimate connection of the\n'chemical' and psychological dimensions of his alchemy. Despite the fact\nthat the alchemical canon is littered with pseudonymous and anonymous\ntracts that are difficult to date, and despite the paucity of biographical data\npertaining to many known alchemists, in the case of Count Michael Maier we\nare presented with a wealth of explicit autobiographical allusions that offer]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27\naspect of alchemical writing Luther praised in passing - the occultists of the nineteenth\ncentury went much further to claim that alchemy itself was an art of internal meditation\nrather than an external manipulation of apparatus and chemicals... The similarity of Jung's\npsychologising view to the 'spiritual evolution' system of A. E. Waite's Azoth is clear, and\nwhat we now know of Jung's juvenile interest in the occult and the currency of Victorian\nesoterica in Jung's early circles supports this observable similarity... we therefore come to\nthe rather surprising conclusion that the residues of Victorian occultism have deeply colored\nthe historical study of the discipline. It seems unlikely that many historians would continue\n74\nOn the history of alchemy as the history of the interpretation of alchemy, see Eco,\nUmberto. The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press,\n1990, pp. 18-20.\n75]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=13\nPages: 13,14\nEmpirie und mystische Philosophie sozusagen ununterschieden vorliegen. Der mit dem\nEnde des 16. Jahrhunderts einsetzende Spaltungsproze\u00df, welcher die \u03c6\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c7\u03b1 (das Physische) von den \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c7\u03b1 (das Mystische) trennte, hat nun eine wesentlich phantastischere Literaturgattung hervorgebracht, deren Autoren die seelische Natur der \u201ealchimistischen\" Wandlungsprozesse einigerma\u00dfen bewu\u00dft war.\"\nThe reception of Jung\n5\nIt is this notion of the supposed post-Reformation 'fission' in the alchemical\nliterature of the physica and the mystica, elements that were formerly unified\nin the 'classical' period of ancient and medieval alchemy, which Principe and\nNewman refute on the grounds that no clear distinction between chemia and\nalchemia arises in the literature prior to the eighteenth century.12 In their\neyes, any effort to distinguish a 'mystical' alchemy from a 'physical' chemistry in the seventeenth century is presentisi - that is to say, it projects]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=15\nPages: 15\nCrosland wrote in his Historical Studies in the Language of Chemistry\n(1962):\nThe psychologist Jung considered the paradox as 'one of our most valued spiritual possessions' and stated that a religion 'becomes inwardly impoverished when it loses or reduces its\nparadoxes', because an unambiguous language is unsuited to express the incomprehensible.\nIt seems clear that, whereas mystical alchemy may well have thrived on paradox, its\nexistence in the literature was stultifying to alchemy as a science. 21\nAlthough more rationalistic sensibilities were offended by the mysticallyminded 'adept', whose \"cloud of obscure nomenclature and speculation\ncontributed nothing to chemistry,\" 22 other historians followed Pagel in\nan attempt to address the complete intellectual output of the alchemists.\nOne such writer was Betty Dobbs, who - in stark contrast to Principe and\nNewman - utilised Jung's ideas to emphasise the continuity of the]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=265\nPages: 265,266\nby Principe and Newman can only be upheld by portraying early modern\nlaboratory alchemy as a purely 'chemical' research (conceived in cryptopositivist terms), and by erasing from history the development of alchemical\nthought subsequent to the seventeenth century. For researchers in the history\nof Western esotericism, this modus operandi is entirely inadequate. Rather, it\nis apparent that the categories we encounter in the debate concerning the true\nimport of the ambiguous symbols of the alchemical corpus are not new, and\nthat we are embarking upon the study of living traditions; for just as certain\nvoices in the early modern period called for the separation of matters\ntheological and scientific, so today we find that schismatic outlook expressed\nby apologists (witting or otherwise) for the dominant scientific paradigm.\n89\nIbid., pp. 399-400.\nBibliography\n1. P r i m a r y S o u r c e s\nA. Printed works of Maier]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=265\nPages: 265\nnon-laboratory practitioners such as Boehme or Weigel. Furthermore, there\ncan be no doubt that the seeds of the early modern emergence of 'spiritual'\nalchemies were contained in medieval alchemy. When dealing with the\npresence (or perceived absence) of spiritual alchemies amongst laboratory\npractitioners of the early modern period, Principe and Newman make\nmention of a little known 'supernatural alchemy' which developed in\nseventeenth century England, and which held that certain alchemical products\nhad supernatural effects; their point is to show that such a pursuit has little in\ncommon with the spiritual alchemies of the nineteenth and twentieth\ncenturies. 89 It is self-evident that this particular alchemy cannot be placed\nunder the rubric of 'spiritual alchemy' in the manner of Maier's practice, and\nthat nothing has been proved by the example. The historiography proposed\nby Principe and Newman can only be upheld by portraying early modern]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=42\nPages: 42\nstate that the theosophical alchemy of Jacob Boehme - who was not\npersonally concerned with laboratory process - is of 'a different order' to the\nexperimental outlook of an author such as Basil Valentine, Principe and\nNewman anachronistically sequester religious and magical elements from\ntheir portrait of the worldview of the early modern laboratory worker:\nAlthough the works of many alchemical writers contain (often extensive) expressions of\nperiod piety, imprecations to God, exhortations to morality, and even the occasional\nappearance of an angelic or spiritual messenger, we find no indication that the vast majority\nof alchemists were working on anything other than material substances towards material\ngoals... This is not to say that there was nothing whatsoever in the broad spectrum of\nhistorical alchemy which was akin to a 'spiritual alchemy'... But Boehme's use of alchemical\nlanguage and imagery - as extensive as it is - remains clearly of a different order than, for]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=42\nPages: 42,43\nsymbolism within Rosicrucian or Freemasonic circles was 'meaningless';\nrather, it was drawn directly from the work of early modern alchemists such\nas Count Michael Maier - who did in fact replicate the 'antimonial exercises'\nof Basil Valentine in his laboratory practice. Spiritual alchemy is a natural\nextension of the theory of microcosmic-macrocosmic correspondence, and\nthe notion of a vital spirit animating humans, animals, vegetables and\n133\n134\n135\nSee in particular Newman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" pp. 175-185.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" pp. 397399.\nIbid., p. 387.\n34\nJung and early modern alchemy\nminerals alike - regardless if such vitalism is the defining feature of alchemy,\nas Metzger believed. When considering the worldview of the early modern\nlaboratory worker - and even such influential figures in the development of\nmodern chemistry as Newton and Boerhaave, who both retained vitalistic]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=16\nPages: 16,17\nSo although Dobbs followed Jung in his distinction between a 'scientific' and\na 'spiritual' alchemy in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, she did\nnot believe Jung's work supported the notion of a radical discontinuity in the\nevolution of chemistry. Rather, she believed modern chemistry had emerged\nfrom a new 'experimental alchemy' that was integrally linked to the scientific\nrevolution of the Enlightenment:\n23\nDobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. The Foundations\nUniversity Press, 1975, pp. 90, 192.\n24\nIbid., p. 230.\nIbid., pp. 34, 42, 80.\nIt should be said that Dobbs incorrectly refers to Fromm as an 'analytical psychologist',\nthe term utilised by Jungian psychoanalysts.\nIbid., p. 42.\nIbid.\n25\n26\n27\n28\nof Newton's Alchemy. Cambridge: Cambridge\nJung and early modern alchemy\n8\n...it seems clear that both the mechanical philosophers and the reformers who were\ndescended intellectually from the mystical Rosicrucians contributed to the new alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=13\nPages: 13,14\nEmpirie und mystische Philosophie sozusagen ununterschieden vorliegen. Der mit dem\nEnde des 16. Jahrhunderts einsetzende Spaltungsproze\u00df, welcher die \u03c6\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c7\u03b1 (das Physische) von den \u03bc\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03c7\u03b1 (das Mystische) trennte, hat nun eine wesentlich phantastischere Literaturgattung hervorgebracht, deren Autoren die seelische Natur der \u201ealchimistischen\" Wandlungsprozesse einigerma\u00dfen bewu\u00dft war.\"\nThe reception of Jung\n5\nIt is this notion of the supposed post-Reformation 'fission' in the alchemical\nliterature of the physica and the mystica, elements that were formerly unified\nin the 'classical' period of ancient and medieval alchemy, which Principe and\nNewman refute on the grounds that no clear distinction between chemia and\nalchemia arises in the literature prior to the eighteenth century.12 In their\neyes, any effort to distinguish a 'mystical' alchemy from a 'physical' chemistry in the seventeenth century is presentisi - that is to say, it projects]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=264\nPages: 264,265\nWhilst Merkur has recently argued for a medieval origin to 'spiritual alchemy' with\nreference to the theoretical relation of the quintessence to the soul, his terms are not well\ndefined, and an explicit medieval work on alchemy as a process of spiritual transmutation\nwithin the adept is yet to be uncovered. See Merkur, Dan. \"The Study of Spiritual\nAlchemy: Mysticism, Gold-Making, and Esoteric Hermeneutics,\" Ambix, Vol. 37, No. 1,\nMarch 1990, pp. 35-45.\nHolmyard, Alchemy, p. 160.\nIbid., p. 159.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 414.\n256\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy\nWhilst it is true that the pursuit which we have defined as 'spiritual\nalchemy' remains a subset of the whole that is early modern alchemy, it is by\nno means an insignificant element in the history of ideas, nor was it limited to\nnon-laboratory practitioners such as Boehme or Weigel. Furthermore, there]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=249\nPages: 249\nso fully opened, that as new Perspectives they can present antiquated truth, and remote from\nour age as near unto our eies, and perfectly to be seen by us. 2 3\nAlthough Schick once asserted that Maier was a 'theosopher', 24 the thought\nof laboratory alchemists such as Maier or d'Espagnet is more often described\nas 'pansophist' due to its emphasis on knowing divinity through Nature,\nrather than using gnosis or theosophical speculation on cosmogony as a point\nof departure. 25 Nevertheless, there were a variety of worldviews grouped\nunder the rubric of the term theosophia in early modern Germany, some of\nwhich grew directly from alchemical labours before the furnace fire. Maier's\ncontemporary and fellow Lutheran, Khunrath, spoke of theosophy in terms of\nthe mystical perception of a universal, external and visible fire of Nature, and\nits complement in a universal, internal and invisible fire - that is to say, in\nterms of both a knowledge and a life-imparting entity that transcends the\n22]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=43\nPages: 43\nmodern chemistry as Newton and Boerhaave, who both retained vitalistic\nconceptions alongside their mechanistic innovations - nothing has been said\nwhen we assert that most early modern alchemists worked on \"material\nsubstances towards material goals.\" Such an assertion merely begs the\nquestion as to the nature of matter itself in the early modern worldview, and\ndisplays precisely the presentism and positivism Principe and Newman claim\nto disown, by which contemporary notions of matter are unconsciously\nelevated to the realm of the definitive. It is surely more pertinent to inquire\ninto the nature of materiality and the scope of chemical law in the eyes of the\nearly modern alchemist, rather than counterposing a narrowly 'chemical'\nhermeneutic with a psychological model such as that proposed by Jung.\nIn our conclusion we shall return to the questions of methodology,\nhistoriography and nomenclature we have dealt with here. For now, let us]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=242\nPages: 242\nVI. Conclusion: Maier and the historiography of alchemy\n1. Piety and the coniunctio\noppositorum\nLet us now return to the conjectures of Principe and Newman, and in\nparticular to their argument that the notions of piety and \"exhortations to\nmorality\" to be found in the literature are epiphenomena with little or no\nrelation to the central goal of the early modern alchemist, who merely worked\non \"material substances towards material goals.\"1 As we have seen in our\nanalysis of the life and work of a significant laboratory worker and influential\nwriter on the nature of alchemical Decknamen, notions of morality held an\nimportant place in the early modern medical worldview. This holds true not\nonly for Maier, but also for other alchemists of his time, such as Raphael\nEglinus, Oswald Croll, Joseph Duchesne and Heinrich Noll. 2 In Maier's eyes\ndisease was closely associated with impiety and a sinful lifestyle; and the\nUniversal Medicine which he strove to uncover imparted 'temperance' to the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=210\nPages: 210,211\ntalentum solvatur, ex varie dispersis materiis in unam formam sibi debitam collectum et\nin XII. Sectiones dispositum et concinnatum.\"\nSchiller, Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modem Society, p. 78.\n202\nThe completion of the work\nthe Bohemian and German Protestant forces led by Prince Christian of\nAnhalt-Bernburg. 82 At the time Friedrich was residing nearby in his Star\nPalace (figure 28), an ornate hexagram structure fashioned on Hermetic\nprinciples; such was the haste of his retreat that his crown was left behind,\nand he is reported to have uttered the unhappy words, \"I now know who I\nam.\" 83 Ferdinand's wrath in Bohemia was severe, and he personally rent the\nLetter of Majesty asunder and burnt its seal.84 Thus began the thirty-year\ncycle of war, famine and pestilence that - in a strange confirmation of the\nParacelsian prophecy - would cost the German states one third of their\npopulation.\n4. The Civitas Corporis Humani - procuring a medicine of piety]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=243\nPages: 243\nspiritual, more moral, or more divine state\" - i.e., a 'spiritual alchemy'. Thus\nMaier believed that he was \"destined to imitate the natural succession of\nelements\" to be observed within the vessel, moving from a denser 'earthly'\nstate to a finer 'spiritual' state.3 From the perspective of the history of\nideas, these sentiments are a natural extension of the Hermetic theory of\nmicrocosmic-macrocosmic correspondence, and the traditional alchemical\nconception of an agent able to transmute metals and humans alike; in Maier's\ntime they were fortified on the one hand by the Protestant emphasis on\nreflexivity and the religion of the individual, and on the other by pansophic\nconcerns with the integration of disparate fields in a unified science. Whilst\nNewman has briefly considered in his work the court of Rudolf II, the centre\nof pansophic thought in the early modern period, it is only to state that \"the\ncult of emblems\" adhered to by Maier encouraged the trend of employing]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=245\nPages: 245\nfail to be 'presentisi', as our own schismatic understanding of science and\nreligion is grounded in developments which were nascent in the early modern\nera but which had not fully crystallised by that time.\nOn this count there can be no doubt that Maier stood at a crossroad in the\nhistory of ideas, as Jung suggested; for whilst the rationalising elements\npresent in his work led Peuckert to speak of Maier's \"philosophy of the\nlaboratory\" which \"must lead in the end to Newton,\" 8 it is also clear that the\nspiritual alchemy, vitalism, pietism and pseudo-Egyptianism drawn from his\nwork by the eighteenth century Gold- und Rosenkreutz lay on the wrong side\nof the Aufkl\u00e4rung (a fact demonstrated by that Order's inter-Masonic conflict\nwith the Illuminati). But of course, in the eyes of Principe and Newman there\nis no continuity between early modern laboratory alchemy and the later\nesoteric traditions, as the alchemical Decknamen of the seventeenth century]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=264\nPages: 264\ntheir original antique philosophical context were inseparable from religious\nspeculation on the nature of God and the human soul. But it is only\nsubsequent to the late fifteenth century flowering of Neoplatonism in Italy,\nthe emergence of a syncretic Renaissance Hermeticism with its elaborate\ntheories of sympathy and correspondence, and the re-appearance of overtly\ngnostic and individualistic sentiments in the course of the Reformation, that\ncertain alchemies again attained the overt religiosity of their Hellenistic\nEgyptian and Gnostic counterparts.85\nIt should be noted, however, that Jung placed his own work in the context\nof a lineage of symbolic import rather than a Tradition per se, as he argued\nthat psychological or 'spiritual' elements in alchemical practice prior to the\nsixteenth century 'fission' of physica and mystica remained largely\nunconscious to the 'adepts'. On this matter we might follow the good advice]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=24\nPages: 24,25\nOn the distinction between 'religionist', 'reductionist' and 'empiricist' approaches to\nesotericism, and the necessity of recognising the historicity of religious phenomena\nwhilst maintaining a methodological agnosticism concerning meta-empirical claims in\nthe data at hand, see Hanegraaff, Wouter. \"Empirical Method in the Study of Esotericism,\" Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1995, pp. 99-129;\nsee also Hanegraaff, Wouter. \"Beyond the Yates Paradigm: The Study of Western\nEsotericism between Counterculture and New Complexity,\" Aries, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001,\npp. 5-37.\n16\nJung and early modern alchemy\nrecognised and expressed, and there is no need to draw on reductionist\nassumptions from modern psychoanalysis to identify or explain it. On the\ncontrary, the origins of Rosicrucianism and the emergence of primarily\nGermanic 'spiritual' alchemies from heterodox Protestant sources casts a\nrevealing light on the place of Jung's own psychological theories in the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=14\nPages: 14,15\nreligious beliefs of pre-modern and early modern scientists as retrogressive,\nPagel attempted to demonstrate the 'organic coherence' of such beliefs with\nrecognisably 'modern' elements in the scientific worldviews he studied.17 On\n12\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" pp. 404,\n407-408.\n13\nIbid., pp. 417-418.\nIbid., p. 412.\nPagel, \"Jung's Views on Alchemy,\" p. 48.\nIbid.\nOn this subject, and on the historiography of alchemy in general, see Debus, Allen G.\n\"Chemists, Physicians, and Changing Perspectives on the Scientific Revolution,\" History\n14\n15\n16\n17\n6\nJung and early modern alchemy\nthis count he felt Jung's theories were an antidote to the positivist view of\nscience as progress towards a truth divorced from its philosophical and\npsychological context. 18\nAnother early contributor to the influence of Jung's ideas in the academic\nstudy of alchemy was the Swiss-educated John Read, who commented in]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=201\nPages: 201,202\np. 49.\n47\nSchilling, Religion, Political Culture and the Emergence of Early Modern Society, p.\n290; Cameron, Euan. The European Reformation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, pp.\n369 ff.; Cohn, Henry J. \"The Territorial Princes in Germany's Second Reformation,\n1559-1622.\" In International Calvinism 1541-1715. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986, p.\n141.\n48\nPo-Chia Hsia, Social Discipline in the Reformation,\npp. 35-37, 122 ff.\nMillennialism, nationalism and the descent into war\n193\nEmperor Rudolf in 1609. After an improvised trial, the two men were thrown\nfrom the windows of the Royal Chancellery in the Hradschin, an event\nknown as the Defenestration of Prague (figure 26).49 Although the men\nsurvived their eighty-foot fall with the help of a dunghill in the castle trench,\nthe event and its expected consequences inspired a full-scale Protestant\ninsurrection in Bohemia; and whilst the ailing and childless Emperor\nMatthias made some efforts towards conciliation, his nephew and chosen]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=16\nPages: 16\nupon the ideas of the left-leaning psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. 26 According\nto Fromm, large-scale 'individuation' or reflexive personal development\nemerged in the wake of the collapse of medieval social structures; Dobbs\nsuggested such a socio-historical process may have given rise to 'a\nmore spiritual variety of alchemy'. 27 On the other hand, a more rigorous\nexperimental study of alchemical processes also ensued:\nThat was excellent for chemistry, which was thereby enabled to incorporate into itself a\nrational alchemical paradigm, but it was deadly for the older alchemy. It had been too\nthoroughly chemicalised to carry out its older functions of a religious and psychological\nnature, for those functions required a considerable ignorance about the substances with\nwhich the alchemist worked. From that time on the intertwined halves of the older alchemy\nwere irrevocably separated. 2 8\nSo although Dobbs followed Jung in his distinction between a 'scientific' and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=196\nPages: 196\nspirit and body.\" Although de Jong takes this to be a reference to the\nParacelsian tria prima, there is no mention in Maier's discourse of salt, the\nthird element Paracelsus added to the traditional sulphur-mercury dyad.24\nIndeed, elsewhere Maier clearly states that there are in reality only two\nprimary elements, sulphur and mercury. 25 Rather, this mention of 'soul,\nspirit and body' is another reference to Aristotle's theory of elemental\ntransmutation: thus according to the Atalanta Fugiens the 'body' is the\nblackness of Saturn or lead, corresponding to earth; the 'spirit' is the white\nphase of the work corresponding to water; and the 'soul' is the 'yellowness of\nthe air'. The final 'redness' of fire is the \"unity and eternal peace\" of the\nPhilosophers' Stone (represented in Maier's emblem by the union of man and\nwoman), which marks the perfection of the work through \"the return to the\nMonad.\" 26 In the De Circulo Physico, Quadrato Maier employs the symbols]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=245\nPages: 245\nthat such use would constitute a 'presentisi' projection of contemporary\ncategories into a time when they did not exist, we would be left with a\nmedieval 'alchemy', an early modern chymia, and a modern 'alchemy', with\nno sense left of the clear ideological continuity between them. Likewise, the\nterm 'alchemy' could not be applied to the pre-Arabic pursuit of metallic\nand spiritual transmutation. Given these difficulties inherent in Principe and\nNewmans' proposal, one may legitimately speak of Maier's place in an\nesoteric tradition of 'alchemy'; for just as the retrospectively-constructed\nterm 'humanism' would have proved a strange conception in the Renaissance\nand early modern periods, so the term 'alchemy' - whilst possessing negative\nconnotations in Maier's work - is indispensable as a category in the history\nof Western esotericism. In making sense of the alchemical past we cannot\nfail to be 'presentisi', as our own schismatic understanding of science and]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=265\nPages: 265\nnon-laboratory practitioners such as Boehme or Weigel. Furthermore, there\ncan be no doubt that the seeds of the early modern emergence of 'spiritual'\nalchemies were contained in medieval alchemy. When dealing with the\npresence (or perceived absence) of spiritual alchemies amongst laboratory\npractitioners of the early modern period, Principe and Newman make\nmention of a little known 'supernatural alchemy' which developed in\nseventeenth century England, and which held that certain alchemical products\nhad supernatural effects; their point is to show that such a pursuit has little in\ncommon with the spiritual alchemies of the nineteenth and twentieth\ncenturies. 89 It is self-evident that this particular alchemy cannot be placed\nunder the rubric of 'spiritual alchemy' in the manner of Maier's practice, and\nthat nothing has been proved by the example. The historiography proposed\nby Principe and Newman can only be upheld by portraying early modern]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=265\nPages: 265,266\nby Principe and Newman can only be upheld by portraying early modern\nlaboratory alchemy as a purely 'chemical' research (conceived in cryptopositivist terms), and by erasing from history the development of alchemical\nthought subsequent to the seventeenth century. For researchers in the history\nof Western esotericism, this modus operandi is entirely inadequate. Rather, it\nis apparent that the categories we encounter in the debate concerning the true\nimport of the ambiguous symbols of the alchemical corpus are not new, and\nthat we are embarking upon the study of living traditions; for just as certain\nvoices in the early modern period called for the separation of matters\ntheological and scientific, so today we find that schismatic outlook expressed\nby apologists (witting or otherwise) for the dominant scientific paradigm.\n89\nIbid., pp. 399-400.\nBibliography\n1. P r i m a r y S o u r c e s\nA. Printed works of Maier]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27\nEnglish occultist Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942); the rather insubstantial\nbasis for their assertion is Noll's observation that Waite's works were\ncirculating amongst members of Jung's Zurich Psychological Club in the\n1910's. 75 Principe and Newman point to the supposed influence of Waite in\norder to support their central historiographie thesis that the conception of\nalchemy as a process of personal transmutation from a base, earthly state into\n\"a more noble, more spiritual, more moral, or more divine state\"- a\nconception which we shall follow Principe and Newman 76 in describing as\n'spiritual alchemy' - has its origins in the nineteenth century:\nAlthough it was in fact a commonplace of the early modern period to build extended\nreligious conceits on alchemical processes and to draw theological parallels therefrom - an\naspect of alchemical writing Luther praised in passing - the occultists of the nineteenth]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=20\nPages: 20,21\nlunacy\" as the people I study.\nThe second error committed by Principe and Newman, and one that\nstands closer to the heart of their argument, is their fundamentally inaccurate portrayal of the Jungian theory of projection and its relation to\nthe unconscious. Thus in their most recent work, \"Some Problems with\nthe Historiography of Alchemy,\" Principe and Newman make a general\n44\nButterfield, Herbert. The Origins of Modern Science, 1300-1800. New York: MacMillan,\n1952, p. 98; cited in Principe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of\nAlchemy,\" p. 389.\n45\nNewman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" pp. 165, 188.\nIbid., p. 188.\nIbid., p. 161; Principe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of\nAlchemy,\" p. 401.\n46\n47\n48\nNewman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" p. 174.\n12\nJung and early modern alchemy\ndescription of Jung's approach to alchemy in which they portray the\nprojection of the symbols of 'individuation' onto the elements in the alembic]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=21\nPages: 21,22\ndemonstrated a conscious understanding of the 'interior' dimensions of their\nwork:\nCertainly most of the alchemists handled their nigredo in the retort without knowing what it\nwas they were dealing with. But it is equally certain that adepts like Morienus, Dorn,\nMichael Maier, and others knew in their way what they were doing. It was this knowledge,\n49\n50\n51\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 402.\nIbid.\nJung, \"Psychologie und Alchemie,\" p. 282: \"Im alchemischen Opus handelt es sich zum\ngr\u00f6\u00dften Teil nicht nur um chemische Experimente allein, sondern auch um etwas wie\npsychische Vorg\u00e4nge, die in pseudochemischer Sprache ausgedr\u00fcckt werden\" (emphasis\nmine); Principe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\"\npp. 401-402: \"We are called upon to deal, not with chemical experimentations as such,\nbut with something resembling psychic processes expressed in pseudo-chemical\nlanguage.\"\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n13]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nreferred to by Obrist, the views of Jung and Eliade merely echo those of\nH\u00e9l\u00e8ne Metzger, who sought to distinguish alchemy from a mechanistic\nchemistry with reference to its supposed vitalistic and organic view of the\ncosmos - a distinction recently undermined by Newman's identification of a\ncorpuscularian tradition within medieval and early modern alchemy. 35\n3. The arguments of Principe and Newman\nIn a manner similar to Obrist, Principe and Newman reject both Jung's historiography and his theory of projection, although their criticisms focus on the\nalchemy of early modernity rather than that of the medieval period. In his\nfirst foray into the subject of the Jungian interpretation of alchemy and its\nreception, Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language? Eirenaeus Philalethes\nand Carl Jung (1996), Newman draws upon the work of the pseudonymous\nseventeenth century author Eirenaeus Philalethes to demonstrate that the\nsurreal symbols of seventeenth century laboratory alchemy are in fact]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=283\nPages: 283,284\nImagery.\nVol. 1. London: The Warburg\nInstitute, 1939.\nPrincipe,\nLawrence\nM. and Newman,\nWilliam R. \"Alchemy\nvs. Chemistry:\nThe\nEtymological Origins of a Historiographie Mistake,\" Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 3,\nNo. 1, 1998, pp. 32-65.\n\u2014 \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy.\" In Newman, William R. and\nAnthony Grafton (eds.). Secrets of Nature: Astrology\nEurope. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 2001, pp. 385-431.\nand Alchemy\nin Early\nModern\nBibliography\n275\nQuispel, Gilles. \"Gnosis and Culture.\" In Barnaby, Karin and Pellegrino D'Acierno (eds.). C.\nG. Jung and the Humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990, pp. 11-52.\nRead, John. Prelude to Chemistry. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1936.\n\u2014 The Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1947.\nRebotier, Jacques. \"La Musique Cach\u00e9e de \u0393 Atalanta Fugiens,\" Chrysopoeia, Vol. 1, 1987,\npp. 56-76.\nRoberts, Gareth. The Mirror of Alchemy: Alchemical Ideas and Images in Manuscripts and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=11\nPages: 11\n2\nJung and early modern alchemy\nAlthough Fai vre has dealt extensively with the subject of alchemy from\nthe perspective of the history of Western esotericism,2 the primary historical\nenquiry into the status of laboratory alchemy in early modernity continues\nto take place amongst historians of science. As a consequence the following\nstudy enters both these arenas of discourse. Clearly the arguments of\nPrincipe and Newman deal not only with questions of historiography and\nnomenclature, but concern the very nature of laboratory alchemy in the\nsixteenth and seventeenth centuries and its relation to the esoteric traditions.\nThese introductory pages constitute an extended theoretical preamble on this\ncurrent controversy, which will serve as a prelude for an analysis of the\nconcrete example of the alchemy of Count Michael Maier and his place in the\nhistory of early Rosicrucianism. In the course of that analysis it will be seen]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27\nlonger dealing with a doctrine that stands in the realms of science as it is\nknown today; rather, we are hearing the distant but distinct echoes of\nseventeenth century esotericism and a syncretic Protestant millennialism that\nonce found expression in the Rosicrucian phenomenon.\n4. The origins of Jung's alchemy and the work of Richard Noll\nRather than taking their cue from Jung's explicit claim that the 'historical\nnexus' of his work lies in the Freemasonic and Rosicrucian traditions,\nPrincipe and Newman follow Richard Noll in emphasising certain nineteenth\ncentury occultists as the predecessors of Jung's interpretation of alchemy (we\nmight more simply state 'the predecessors of Jung's alchemy', if we follow\nEco in characterising alchemy primarily as a hermeneutic tradition).74 On this\ncount Principe and Newman ascribe the origins of Jung's views to the\nEnglish occultist Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942); the rather insubstantial]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27,28\n1990, pp. 18-20.\n75\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 402;\nNoll, Richard. The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung. New York: Random\nHouse, 1997, pp. 229-230.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 388.\n76\nThe origins of Jung's alchemy\n19\nto engage in the blithe generalizations criticized in this chapter if they realized their dubious\norigins. 77\nWe shall soon contest the crypto-positivist notion that early modern\nalchemists merely built 'extended religious conceits' on purely 'chemical'\nprocesses, and the assertion of Principe and Newman that the 'yoking' of\nnatural magic and astrology to alchemy was \"consummated only during the\nfinal years of the ancien r\u00e9gime in France.\" 78 For now it will suffice to\nmention that, even if we accept the unsubstantiated theory of Waite's role in\nthe formation of Jung's views, the Englishman did not disregard laboratory]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=23\nPages: 23\nthat concerned themselves with alchemy in the course of two thousand years, gave\ncodenames to the substances utilised in their secret craft, in order to protect the Art against\nthe ignorant masses. The names are taken in part from the characteristics of the bodies\nconcerned, so that quicksilver was known as the \"volatile slave,\" tin the \"gnasher,\" copper\n\"the green\" because of the colour of verdigris and the colour of its flame, or ammonia was\ngiven the names of various birds. Often they are connected with mystical and religious\nconceptions, as when the metals are defined with the names of the planets or their assigned\nGods. Sometimes the names are also arbitrarily invented. 58\nThe central flaw in Principe and Newmans' exposition of the theory of Decknamen as it relates to the Jungian hermeneutic lies in their use of a simplistic\neither-or logic - either the symbols of alchemy are products of the unconscious psyche, or they are secret code-names for chemical substances.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19,20\nObrist, Les D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie Alchimique, p. 21 : \"Dans les textes attribu\u00e9s \u00e0 Arnaud,\nla m\u00e9taphore du Christ figure parmi d'autres qui servent d'exempla, aidant \u00e0 d\u00e9montrer\ndes processus chimiques difficiles \u00e0 comprendre. Ce sont des m\u00e9taphores comme les\nautres, et rien que des m\u00e9taphores, ce qu'Arnaud et les auteurs qui le suivent dans la\nm\u00eame tradition expliquent fort bien et qui vaut aussi pour l'illustration de tels trait\u00e9s.\nRien ne permet de sp\u00e9culer sur la religiosit\u00e9 d'un auteur lorsqu'il utilise consciemment\nun proc\u00e9d\u00e9 rh\u00e9torique.\"\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n11\nThe misappropriation of Halleux by Principe and Newman could be explained as a simple matter of error in translation, and undoubtedly does not\nhinder the main thrust of their arguments; nevertheless, by exaggerating the\nweight of evidence in favour of their own ideas, newcomers to the subject are\nliable to gain a false impression concerning the acceptability of certain]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19\nThey are metaphors like the others, and nothing but metaphors, a fact which Arnold and the\nauthors who follow in his tradition explain extremely well, and which also applies to the\nillustrations of such treatises. Nothing allows us to speculate on the religiosity of an author\nwhen he uses a consciously rhetorical process. 4 3\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\nIbid.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 406:\n\"...the historians Barbara Obrist and Robert Halleux have presented detailed arguments\nagainst Jung's interpretation based upon their extensive reading of late medieval and\nRenaissance alchemical texts, indeed, some of the very same figurative texts that Jung\nfound most attractive.\"\nHalleux, Robert. Les Textes Alchimiques. Brepols: Turnhout, 1977, p. 55.\nIbid., pp. 140 ff.\nIbid., p. 142.\nObrist, Les D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie Alchimique, p. 21 : \"Dans les textes attribu\u00e9s \u00e0 Arnaud,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=174\nPages: 174\npilloried by Principe and Newman laid particular emphasis on a perceived\nharmony of eastern and western esoteric modes of thought, it is clear from\nthe evidence of the Silentium post Clamores that they were only following in\na syncretic tradition stemming from the Renaissance and firmly established in\nRosicrucian circles by Maier.194 According to Maier, all the occult traditions\nof the world are in agreement, and stem from one author: namely, Hermes\nTrismegistus.195 Thus it was from the Egyptians that Pythagoras derived\nhis magic and knowledge of the arcana, as well as the doctrine of\nmetempsychosis or the transmigration of the soul through reincarnation.196\nAs for the Rosicrucian Brethren, Maier asserts that they follow the custom of\n191\nAccording to another tradition, Harpocrates was a Greek philosopher who enjoined\nsilence concerning the nature of the gods.\n192\nSee p. 148 above; the Swiss Freemasonic Lodge, the 'Loge sub Rosa', draws on a\nRosicrucian significance of the phrase.\n193]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=25\nPages: 25,26\nused in this broader sense in the following pages.\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n17\nconfirm Obrist's contention that Jung's views have their origins in precisely\nthe type of 'alchemy' propagated by Maier. However, this fact mitigates\nagainst Obrist's statement that Jung is dealing with worldviews that are\nfundamentally 'other' when it comes to early modern alchemy. For all\nits very tangential relation to the course of modern psychology, Jung's\n'analytical psychology' clearly possesses the four fundamental characteristics\nof modern esotericism set forth by Faivre,66 i.e. a doctrine of correspondences\nand sympathies; 67 a belief in a living and revelatory Nature; 68 an emphasis on\nimagination as the means to revelation;69 and the practical objective of\npersonal 'transmutation' through such revelation.70 When we also consider\nJung's tendencies towards solar mysticism, 71 his rather unflattering\nentanglement with a mystical German nationalism,72 and his explicitly]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=42\nPages: 42\nstate that the theosophical alchemy of Jacob Boehme - who was not\npersonally concerned with laboratory process - is of 'a different order' to the\nexperimental outlook of an author such as Basil Valentine, Principe and\nNewman anachronistically sequester religious and magical elements from\ntheir portrait of the worldview of the early modern laboratory worker:\nAlthough the works of many alchemical writers contain (often extensive) expressions of\nperiod piety, imprecations to God, exhortations to morality, and even the occasional\nappearance of an angelic or spiritual messenger, we find no indication that the vast majority\nof alchemists were working on anything other than material substances towards material\ngoals... This is not to say that there was nothing whatsoever in the broad spectrum of\nhistorical alchemy which was akin to a 'spiritual alchemy'... But Boehme's use of alchemical\nlanguage and imagery - as extensive as it is - remains clearly of a different order than, for]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=17\nPages: 17,18\n29\n30\n31\n32\nIbid., pp. 80-81, 91.\nObrist, Barbara. Les D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie\nSycomore, 1982, p. 14.\nIbid.,p. 16.\nIbid., p. 17.\nAlchimique\n(XIVe -XV\nsi\u00e8cles). Paris: Le\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n9\njustify the notion that laboratory workers of this time were engaged in a\nspiritual quest for selfhood. 33 Rather, she believes Jung projected the\nProtestant myth of the solitary, interior search into the Middle Ages, thus\nportraying the medieval alchemist as a lone pre-Reformer, and all alchemy as\nan enterprise opposed to the dogmas of the Church. These misconceptions of\nJung, Obrist argues, are inspired primarily by the esoteric literature of the\nseventeenth century and its perpetuation into the nineteenth and twentieth\ncenturies in the form of 'theosophy' - a literature in which mystical quests,\nreligion and alchemy are indeed bound together. 34 As for the second error\nreferred to by Obrist, the views of Jung and Eliade merely echo those of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=41\nPages: 41\nof spiritual alchemy can only be traced to the late eighteenth century, or to\nthe work of nineteenth century occultists as Principe and Newman suggest. If\nwe were to do so, we would not have reckoned with the work of Maier, a\nlaboratory worker who played an influential role in the early Rosicrucian\nmilieu and who has been described as \"the boldest and most consistent of the\nalchemists of the German Renaissance.\" 130 Of particular importance in this\nregard is his Allegoria Bella, which after its initial appearance in 1617 was\nreprinted in Latin in 1678 and 1749, and in English in Waite's translation of\n1893.131 Whilst Principe and Newman have - with some justification characterised Waite's translations of alchemical texts as \"adulterated by the\naddition of occultist elements and slants completely alien to the originals,\" it\nmust be said that Waite's version of Maier's allegory compares favourably\nwith the Latin original, being a slightly abridged but thematically accurate]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=242\nPages: 242\nVI. Conclusion: Maier and the historiography of alchemy\n1. Piety and the coniunctio\noppositorum\nLet us now return to the conjectures of Principe and Newman, and in\nparticular to their argument that the notions of piety and \"exhortations to\nmorality\" to be found in the literature are epiphenomena with little or no\nrelation to the central goal of the early modern alchemist, who merely worked\non \"material substances towards material goals.\"1 As we have seen in our\nanalysis of the life and work of a significant laboratory worker and influential\nwriter on the nature of alchemical Decknamen, notions of morality held an\nimportant place in the early modern medical worldview. This holds true not\nonly for Maier, but also for other alchemists of his time, such as Raphael\nEglinus, Oswald Croll, Joseph Duchesne and Heinrich Noll. 2 In Maier's eyes\ndisease was closely associated with impiety and a sinful lifestyle; and the\nUniversal Medicine which he strove to uncover imparted 'temperance' to the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=28\nPages: 28\nto herald the widespread emergence of a conscious recognition of the\npsychological aspects of the alchemical work. 81\nIn any case, we find no mention of Waite's theories on alchemy in Jung's\nworks. On this count it must be said that Principe and Newman rely too\nheavily on the partisan diatribes of Noll, an ex-Jungian who has sought to\nexpose his former mentor as a dangerous right-wing cultist and charlatan.\nConsiderable controversy was aroused in 1994 by the publication of Noll's\nThe Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement, in which Jung's\nanalytical psychology was depicted as an attempt to fuse Freudian\npsychoanalysis with neo-pagan sun worship. Employing loosely Weberian\nconceptions, Noll portrays Jung as a prophet of the v\u00f6lkisch movement\nemergent in German Europe at the fin-de-si\u00e8cle, and a founder of the\n77\n78\n79\nIbid., pp. 388,418.\nIbid., pp. 387-388.\nIbid., p. 394; Waite, Arthur Edward. Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers. London:]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=313\nPages: 313,307\nI tiem, ex \u03b7 riojE^ticrum artificio, jucd aurea\nPanimi e?Corporis mtdicanmitumj\u0153rajit, deduct\nQim/Vr\u00edde htj>\u00f3\u00bftaivm allf\u0153on\u0153jcript\u00fbrum\n- narrationesj^bulofiz eH>(rlotamiEtwyclo\u00a1\njadiam errores sfarji clarj\u00dfima'veh\u00fcks\u00b7\nluce marufe/t\u00e1nhir,Jiurp tnhui\n\u03b9\nJirujuta rtffftuunturje\u00edc\nlibris Juopof\u00edta,\n\u00eduthxre\n'MICJ\u00cdA ELEJCUERQ CO MITE\nPAL.ATII CZSARgl, EQU ITE \u039e\u03a7\u0388\u039c\u03a4\u03b0 '\nj <PhU: e'i'JlUd. <Doef ert: Ca&\u00b7.\u00b7.\n\u00bfMai:quondam~\u00edulico. *\"\n8. The title page of the Arcana Arcanissima (1614).\n299\n\u03c9\no\na\n\u00f6\n0\n>\n1\n\u03c9\na\no\n\u038c\nS\ns*.\n-\u03b2: O\nI h\nbp <\u039b\n\u03b4 \u00bfr\u00b7\n.cu\n\u03c9\n\u038c\n\u00a3 \u038c\ns \u038c\u03c9\nc KS\nW \u03c9\ng\n\u03c9\n\u03c9\n\u00d6\n\u03bf\nJ;\nbO\n\u039f\n\u038c\n\u00a7\n3\n\u039c\n\u0395\ncri\n300\n10. The resurrection of Osiris as depicted in the\n44th emblem of the Atalanta Fugiens.\n301\n11. Moritz 'the Learned' of Hessen-Kassel.\n302\n12. The Elector Palatine, Prince Friedrich V.\n303\n13. Saturn regurgitating the lapis over Mt. Helicon, as shown in the\n12th emblem of the Atalanta Fugiens.\n304\nHOC AC CIPE, \u00a3roD\nIN s \u00cdER\u00a3\u00bfF I LINI IS S FI S\n\u00c7alt At or \u00b7.finon, abfque fcala afeetifurM cada\nin caput.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=266\nPages: 266\nsex libris exp\u00f3sita. London: Creede, c. 1614.\n\u2014 Atalanta Fugiens, hoc est, Emblemata nova de secretis naturae chymica, accommodata\npartim oculis et intellectui, figuris cupro incisis, adjectisque sententiis, Epigrammatis et\nnotis, partim auribus et recreationi animi plus minus 50 Fugis musicalibus trium Vocum,\nquarum duae ad unum simplicem melodiam distichis canendis peraptam, correspondeant, non absque, singulari jucunditate videnda, legenda, meditanda, intelligenda,\ndijudicanda, canenda et audienda. Oppenheim: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1617.\n\u2014 Cantilenae Intellectuales, in Triadas 9. distinctae, De Phoenice Redivivo, hoc est,\nMedicinarum omnium pretiosissima, (quae Mundi Epitome et Universi Speculum est) non\ntam alta voce, quam profunda mente dictatae, et pro CLAVE Ternarum irreserabilium in\nChymia arcanum rationabilibus ministratae. Rostock: Mauritii Saxonis, 1622.\n\u2014 Civitas Corporis Humani, a Tyrannide Arthritica vindicata: Hoc est, Podagrae,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=248\nPages: 248\nemblem and discourse of Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617), in which it is said\nthat Nature, reason, experience and reading should be 'guide, staff, spectacles\nand lamp' to those who are employed in alchemical affairs (figure 32). The\nfirst intention of the alchemist, Maier writes, must be to discover \"through\nintimate contemplation how Nature proceeds in her operations.\" 21 This was a\nstaple theme of the medieval alchemical literature, and one that was\nreinforced by the Paracelsian emphasis on observation and experiment.\nStoltzius adds that such knowledge of Nature aids our proximity to God, and\nthat all our labours should be made to repay His love for us - a restatement of\nMaier's belief that we may know God through His works. The reading of the\nliber mundi remained a central concern of the Tradition as it appeared in later\nParacelsian Naturphilosophie and eighteenth century Rosicrucianism.\npictura recrearet, et mystico sensu animum oblectaret: potissimum in hac Medicinae ergo]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=332\nPages: 332,326\n\u03c0\n/yh-J\n\u00b7 cm. n e . X I V\n27. The comet of 1618, as depicted in Gotthard's Cometa Orientalis\n(1619); the caption is drawn from the warning in 2 Timothy 3.1 that\n\"in the last days perilous times will come.\"\n318\n28. The Star Palace of Friedrich V near the White Mountain.\n319\n29. Coral as the homologue of the lapis philosophorum:\nAtalanta Fugiens, emblem 32.\n320\n30. The two 'stones' as eagles, from the\nAtalanta Fugiens, emblem 46.\n321\n31. Magellan and the circumnavigation of the earth,\nfromMaier's Viatorium (1618).\n322\n32. Following in the footsteps of Nature;\nAtalanta Fugiens, emblem 42.\n\u2022 Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte\n23 \u03c7 1 5,5 cm. Leinen.\n83 Joachim Weinhardt, Savonarola als Apologet. Der Versuch einer empirischen Begr\u00fcndung des\nchristlichen Glaubens in der Zeit der Renaissance. 2003. XI, 296 S.\n82 Peter Gemeinhardt,\nDie Filioque-Kontroverse zwischen Ost- und Westkiche im Fr\u00fchmittelalter. 2002. XV, 644 S.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=106\nPages: 106\nthe power of transmutation and unlimited increase through fermentation, be\nthat in metals or the human heart.109\nAnother aspect of Maier's appeal to Moritz, who was by all accounts a\nman of formidable humanist learning, was the promise to reveal the\ninnermost secrets of Nature. Thus in his Scala Arcis Philosophicae Maier\ndevotes a great deal of space to the subject of gold as the perfection of\nNature, being formed in the likeness of a circle and containing within itself\nthe opposing elements in equal quantity.110 It was this subject that Maier was\nto expound at length in the printed work he dedicated to Moritz, De Circulo\nPhysico Quadrato ( O n the Squaring of the Natural Circle,' 1616), which we\nadmistionem fermenti, qua virtute per spiritum distributa totam p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e2t massam, et in\nsuam materiam immutai...\"\n107\nde Jong, H. M. E. Michael Maier 's Atalanta Fugiens: Sources of an Alchemical Book of\nEmblems. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969, pp. 17, 155-157.\n108]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=106\nPages: 106,107\nEmblems. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969, pp. 17, 155-157.\n108\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 4\u00b0 MS Chem. 39, 12; for a discussion of the\ncontents of this manuscript, see Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court, p.\n104.\n109\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 18: \"Quidam ex antimonio vel ejus stellato Regulo\ncuprum ex cupri odore, eo temporis spacio, quo quis ovum comedat, efficere posse\njactant, imo omnia metalla fecisse: verum illis sua sit debita fides, quamvis in hoc mihi\nnon fiat verisimile... Nihilominus Philosophi affirmant, ut in igne ignificandi principium\nextat, sic in auro aurificandi: verum tinctura quaeritur, cujus medio aurum fiat: Haec\nindaganda est in suis propriis principiis et generationibus non in alienis: Namsi ignis\nignem producat, pyrus pyrum, equus equum tum plumbum plumbum et non argentum,\naurum aurum et non tincturam generabit.\"\n110\nKassel, Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek, 2\u00b0 MS Chem. 11, 1, pp. 47 recto- 64\npassim.\nverso,\n98\nBohemia and England]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=278\nPages: 278\nGilly, Carlos. Adam\nHaslmayr:\nDer Erste\nVerk\u00fcnder\nder Manifeste\nder\nRosenkreuzer.\nStuttgart: Frommann, 1994.\n\u2014 Cimelia Rhodostaurotica:\nentstandenen\nDie Rosenkreuzer\nHandschriften\nund Drucke.\nim Spiegel der zwischen\n1610 und 1660\nAusstellung der Bibliotheca Philosophica\nHermetica Amsterdam und der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenb\u00fcttel. Amsterdam: In\nde Pelikaan, 1995.\n\u2014 \"Iter\nRosicrucianum:\nAuf\nder\nSuche\nnach\nUnbekannten\nRosenkreuzer.\" In Das Erbe des Christian Rosenkreutz:\nAmsterdamer\nSymposiums\nQuellen\nder\nFr\u00fchen\nVortr\u00e4ge gehalten anl\u00e4\u00dflich\ndes\n18.-20. November 1986. Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 1988, pp.\n63-89.\nGodwin, Joscelyn (ed.). \"A Context for Michael Maier's 'Atalanta Fugiens' (1617),\" The\nHermetic Journal, 1985, pp. 4-10.\n\u2014 Atalanta Fugiens: An Edition of the Fugues, Emblems and Epigrams. Grand Rapids, Mi.:\nPhanes Press, 1989.\nGould, Robert Freke. The History of Freemasonry:\nCustoms,\netc. Embracing\nFraternity\nin England,\nan Investigation\nScotland,\nIts Antiquities,\nSymbols,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=230\nPages: 230\nvaguely akin to that portrayed in Andreae's Chymisches Hochzeit.148 From\nthere he sails onwards to America on a ship with an eagle at its prow. The\neagle is the symbol of St. John; yet its significance for Maier is also to be\nfound in the forty-sixth emblem and discourse of the Atalanta Fugiens, in\nwhich Maier speaks of two eagles circumnavigating the globe: one comes\nfrom the east, and one from the west, which together signify the two\nprinciples (masculine Sulphur and feminine Mercury) necessary for the\ncompletion of the work (figure 30). Maier also likens the eagle to the lapis\nphilosophorum because it is said to restore itself to youth by plunging itself\nthree times into a fountain. 149 In this way the eagle is linked with the cyclical\nprocesses in the vessel, in which the alchemical subject eventually returns\nto the point of origin, albeit in a purified and renewed state. In the course\nof his peregrination Maier also returns to the place of his departure by]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=248\nPages: 248\ntreasure\" that has been bequeathed through his work. 19 In a particularly\npoetic passage, Stoltzius describes his re-issuing of the emblems as the\ntransmission to posterity of a tradition based on reason and experience:\nWith this flame before us, we shall not stray into darkness; leaning on this staff, we shall not\nfall in the slippery way; nor will we swear by someone's lengthy words or inane phantasms,\nbut having been guided by Nature, we will examine everything with the precise touchstone\nof reason and pyrotechnic experiment, eagerly seizing the truth and rejecting falsehood. And\nby examining closely the unexhausted abysses of Nature, and the immense miracles in this\ngreat amphitheatre of the contemplated universe, we will be inspired to sing to the praise and\nglory of its Author. 2 0\nHere Stoltzius expresses a similar sentiment to that of the forty-second\nemblem and discourse of Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617), in which it is said]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=305\nPages: 305,307\n296\n6. The onroboros, from Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617).\n297\nM \u00c9\n1\n(\u00a1r f i f \u00ed\n* fa\"\n~Qyj}hW&\u00dfA\nA\nr\nw^Mm\u00ed \u00dfp\u00fciV U f f , ^ADr>f \u00abP* \u00ed+\u00c1pjfc OffadL\u00b7,\n'<; csJW\n'/W \u03a8 ^ ^\n\u00bfkky\n^ ^\n'\n^U*\u00ab. ff%f%\n\u00bf\u00a1\u03ad\u03c0\u03c4\u03c5;!,\u00b7^ \u00edie^id>L (fuJ ihstyy\u00b7\nv V Ik+i/fk* QA* irf\nuui. f^y\nCi W ,<\u00ed\u00ab<\u00bfUy,t\nM \u00bb Alzit i\n\u00a3\u00bf4 \u2022\n\u2022\njVt&J* -tr-fifini l<t>M$l\u00b7- y\n^\n1A- 4M*.\u00b7 M\u00ab\u00ae\nJ\nc\u03af\u03c1^\u039b\u00b7^ \u03c6 , CJjiliJ^Ut \u03b2\n\u00bfylf^pn.\n, jk- \u03c8\nyJWtf\nW\u00e4m\n\u03bc\nri\n}luv, \u00bf . \u00bf \u03bc \u00a3\n.\nV* b*\u00b7'*\u00b7 pd+fot+\u00ed/y*\nIH \u039b^\u0397 fnit-ikj \u0393\"\narmfr tu-**h(s\u00b7 af&fo\nd i s - \u00a3 uu*>':,p\nfc\u00b7\u00b7*ivi^&f..\nC i Jy^\nm\n7. The first page of Maier's request to the emperor\nfor the symbol of Avicenna.\n'\n298\nOSIRIS*\ntyphon,;\nARCANA\nL\nA\n*\u2022*\nR\nC\nA\n\u039d\nI\nS\nHOC I S T\nS\nI\nM\nA\nOTONYSVS\nc\n. rj\u00edT'ERO C\u00bf Ly PHlCJ_s\n\u0399\nyEGTPTIO-G\nRJECA,\n1 V u l g o n e c d u m\ncognita,\ni cul \u00e4enionivranddin\u00dfilforum aj>ud ariti'.\nI \u00fblios \u00bfLeonux, deanmjier\u00fbum, an\u00efmannum\nS ef injidutorumjtivpicr\u00ecs receptorim, cruj\u00ed\nI tiem, ex \u03b7 riojE^ticrum artificio, jucd aurea\nPanimi e?Corporis mtdicanmitumj\u0153rajit, deduct]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=154\nPages: 154\nmay be understood as the Mercurial Water, a universal solvent used to extract\nthe 'miraculous power' from the base metals or primary subject (the 'fish')\nwithin the alchemical vessel. In the twenty-second discourse of his Atalanta\nFugiens Maier follows Paracelsus in referring to the alchemical fish as trout,\nas it was believed that trout hold within themselves traces of the river gold\nthey swallow (and hence, according to Maier's alchemical cosmology, they\nare a model for the divine power of the Sun, the seed of gold, lying at the\nheart of all metals). 112 A good emblematic depiction of the alchemical sea\nand its fish is to be found in Lambsprinck's De Lapide Philosophico Libellus\n(see figure 19), which Maier mentions a little prior to the enigmas in his\nSymbola Aureae Mensae.113\n109\nIbid., p. 289: \"Germani authores Chymici et philosophi, incogniti et anonymi, latentes\nsub symbolo R. C.\"\n110\nIbid., p. 302: \"R. mihi adest aequor, pisces captantur in ilio/ Tempore tres vario, primus]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=152\nPages: 152\nprincipibus in minori authoritate et precio est habitus, dum Saturni morositate et Maitis\ncholera seu iracundia fuerit taxatus: Ipse igitur aut mori aut curari voluit, si id possibile\nsit.\" Maier explains the allegory in terms of the purification of both human and metallic\nbodies.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 289: \"Authoris cum morbo (uti convivarum cum\nPyrgopolynice, conflictu) quarto quoque die.\"\n105\nIbid., p. 291: \"Denique nostri conatus ad Minervae Aenigmata, prout ilia in mentem\nmanumque venerint, eidem Collegio Germanico studiose, ceu philothesia in Saturnalibus\npropinamus hoc est, discumbentes inservientibus pro temporis ratione.\"\n106\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, epigram 4: \"Non hominum foret in mundo nunc tanta\npropago,/ Si fratti conjunx non data prima soror./ Ergo lubens conjunge duos ab utroque\nparente/ Progenitos ut sint foemina masque toro./ Praebibe nectareo Philothesia pocla\nliquore/ Utrisque, et foetus spem generabit amor.\" In the German translation of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=88\nPages: 88\nalchemical secrets were taught to humanity by fallen angels, who wrote the\nprimeval books of alchemy.41 In accordance with that first encounter,\nalchemists through the millennia toiled to manifest divine power in the world.\nMaier's request for the 'symbol of Avicenna' is testament to the great\ncurrency held by Hermetic and emblematic symbolism in Rudolfine Prague.\nThrough his archivist, Octavio de Strada, Rudolf had commissioned the\ncollection of a vast registry of symbols and heraldic insignia; these were\nbrought together in a tome known as the Symbola Divina et Humana, in\nwhich each symbol was illustrated with a copperplate emblem and set\ntogether with a motto and short discourse - in similar style to Maier's\nexclusively alchemical emblem book, the Atalanta Fugiens.42 The emblem\ngained popularity in the sixteenth century as a pictorial allegory, often\naccompanied by a short motto, designed to intuitively convey a message of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=154\nPages: 154,155\n110\nIbid., p. 302: \"R. mihi adest aequor, pisces captantur in ilio/ Tempore tres vario, primus\ncum brachia Cancer/ Exerit, atque alter sub iusto examine Librae,/ Tertius humentes cum\nfundit Aquarius undas:/ Dicite, quos pisces statuam quas Aequoris undas?\"\n111\n\"Aenigmata ex Visione Arislei Philosophi.\" In Artis Auriferae.\nPernam, 1572, p. 162. Reprinted in 1610.\n112\nOn this subject see de Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, pp. 179-180.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 272. De Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, p.\n6, discusses the relationship of Lambsprinck's emblems to those of the Atalanta Fugiens.\n113\nVol. 1. Basel: Petrum\n146\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nIt follows that the \"three different times\" at which the fish are hunted\nrepresent three different phases of solution in the lengthy alchemical process,\nas dictated by astrological law; the first when the sun is in Cancer (from June\n22), the second in Libra (from September 23) and the third in Aquarius (from]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=195\nPages: 195,196\nAula/ Proque suo nutu subdita membra trahit./ Illud spiritibus venas, vegetoque tepore,/\nUnde fluit vitae flammea taeda, beat./ Omnibus, in medio Princeps velut imperai Urbis,/\nArtubus hoc vires datque negatque suas.\"\n22\nIbid., pp. 41-42, 45-46.\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, epigram 21 : \"Fac de masculo et foemina circulum rotundum, et\nde eo extrahe quadrangulum, et quadrangulo triangulum; fac circulum rotundum et\nhabebis lapidem philosophorum.\" From \"Rosarium Philosophorum.\" In Artis Auriferae.\nVoi. 2. Basel: Petrus Pernam, 1572, p. 278.\n23\nThe squaring of the natural circle\n187\nThis puzzling pronouncement ultimately pertains to the secret of Creation, in\nwhich the four elements emerge from the 'monad' or unity that is God. In the\nAtalanta Fugiens the square within the circle is again said to correspond to\nthe four elements, whilst the triangle within the square corresponds to \"soul,\nspirit and body.\" Although de Jong takes this to be a reference to the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=246\nPages: 246\nThe conception of a Tradition prevalent in contemporary esoteric circles\nstems in part from the Renaissance, and the attempt to identify the chain of\n10\nKindlers Literatur Lexikon. Vol. 8. Weinheim: Zweiburgen Verlag, 1982, p. 10478; in\naddition to those works already cited above, we may mention M\u00f6dersheim, Sabine.\n\"Mater et Matrix: Michael Maiers alchimistische Sinnbilder der Mutter.\" In Mutter und\nM\u00fctterlichkeit:\nWandel und Wirksamkeit einer Phantasie in der deutschen\nLiteratur.\nW\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigshausen und Neumann, 1996, pp. 31-56; Rebotier, Jacques. \"La\nMusique Cach\u00e9e de \u0393 Atalanta Fugiens,\" Chrysopoeia, Vol. 1, 1987, pp. 56-76; Allen,\nSally G. \"Outrunning Atalanta: Feminine Destiny in Alchemical Transmutation,\" Journal\nof Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 6, 1980, pp. 210-221; Streich, Hildemarie.\n\"Musikalische und psychologische Entsprechungen in der Atalanta Fugiens von Michael\nMaier.\" In Correspondences in Man and World. Eranos Yearbook, 1973. Leiden: E. J.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=152\nPages: 152\nwas offered up to the table guests during the Saturnalia.105 Although the word\nphilothesia is not to be found in any of the major Latin lexicons, from\nanother reference to this term made by Maier in the fourth epigram of the\nAtalanta Fugiens we may identify it as a love potion (figure 18).106\n103\n104\nSee \"The Allegory of Merlin.\" British Library, MS Sloane 3506, pp. 74-75; also\n\"Merlini Allegoria profundissimum Philosophici Lapidis arcanum perfecte continens.\"\nIn Artis Auriferae. Vol. I. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1610, pp. 252-254. The Duenech\nallegory is to be found in the Theatrum Chemicum. Vol. 3. Ursel: Zetzner, 1602, pp.\n756-757; Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 28: \"Duenech itaque a Pharut in\nLaconicum introducitur, ut ibi sudet, et tertiae concoctionis foeces per poros excernat:\nEst autem hujus regis affectus melancholicus seu atrabilarius, unde omnibus aliis\nprincipibus in minori authoritate et precio est habitus, dum Saturni morositate et Maitis]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=260\nPages: 260,261\nArcanissima, and gave an alchemical reading of the symbolism of the\nfifteenth century Order of the Golden Fleece (which we also find in the\nsixteenth chapter of Maier's Themis Aurea, albeit in passing). 69 A similar\nalchemical treatment of pagan mythology drawing directly from Maier's\nArcana Arcanissima, Symbola Aureae Mensae and Atalanta Fugiens is to be\nfound in the Fables \u00c9gyptiennes et Grecques D\u00e9voil\u00e9es (1758) of Antoine\nJoseph Pern\u00e9ty, who would become librarian to the most prominent member\n63\n64\n65\n66\n67\n68\n69\nIbid., p. 103.\nIbid., p. 106.\nMcintosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, pp. 33-34.\nIbid., pp. 39,44.\nIbid., pp. 46-47.\nIbid:, Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 179-180.\nFaivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 76, 186; on Maier's reading of the myth of the\nGolden Fleece in his Arcana Arcanissima, Symbola Aureae Mensae and Atalanta\nFugiens, see also Faivre, The Golden Fleece and Alchemy, pp. 24-26.\n252\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=44\nPages: 44,45\nAtalanta Fugiens (1617). See Figala, Karin and Neumann, Ulrich. '\"Author cui Nomen\nHermes Malavici': New Light on the Bio-Bibliography of Michael Maier (1569-1622).\"\nIn Rattansi, Piyo and Antonio Clericuzio (eds.). Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and\n17th Centuries. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994, pp. 124, 141 n.20.\n2\nEvans, R. J. W. Rudolf II and his World: A Study in Intellectual\nOxford: Oxford University Press, 1973, p. 3.\nHistory,\n1576-1612.\n36\nMaier's formative years\nas alchemy was not only an important means of displaying the prestige and\npower of his court, but also reflected the hope of making technological\nadvances that might grant him the upper hand in his struggle against\nthe Habsburgs and the Catholic states of the fragmented empire.3 Alchemy in\nparticular promised the development of new techniques for the manipulation\nof metals (the debasement of coinage through alloying practices caused]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=224\nPages: 224\nconstituted the black phase of the work, an impossible task from which the\nfinal release could only be death. Thus in the Atalanta Fugiens Maier clearly\nstates that \"there is nothing that can restore youth to man but death itself,\nwhich is the beginning of eternal life that follows it.\"124 This is the circular\nand paradoxical nature of Maier's spiritual alchemy, which like the\nouroboros devours and emerges out of itself (figure 6).\n6. The phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\nIn concluding our consideration of Maier's life and its relationship to\nhis alchemy, we may turn again to his Allegoria Bella, in which the\ncorrespondence of laboratory process to his own personal odyssey through\nthe world finds its clearest expression. This allegory forms part of the\nconcluding chapter of the Symbola Aureae Mensae (1617); in accordance\nwith his role as 'cook' for the banquet held in honour of 'Queen Chemia', the]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=278\nPages: 278\nGilly, Carlos. Adam\nHaslmayr:\nDer Erste\nVerk\u00fcnder\nder Manifeste\nder\nRosenkreuzer.\nStuttgart: Frommann, 1994.\n\u2014 Cimelia Rhodostaurotica:\nentstandenen\nDie Rosenkreuzer\nHandschriften\nund Drucke.\nim Spiegel der zwischen\n1610 und 1660\nAusstellung der Bibliotheca Philosophica\nHermetica Amsterdam und der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenb\u00fcttel. Amsterdam: In\nde Pelikaan, 1995.\n\u2014 \"Iter\nRosicrucianum:\nAuf\nder\nSuche\nnach\nUnbekannten\nRosenkreuzer.\" In Das Erbe des Christian Rosenkreutz:\nAmsterdamer\nSymposiums\nQuellen\nder\nFr\u00fchen\nVortr\u00e4ge gehalten anl\u00e4\u00dflich\ndes\n18.-20. November 1986. Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 1988, pp.\n63-89.\nGodwin, Joscelyn (ed.). \"A Context for Michael Maier's 'Atalanta Fugiens' (1617),\" The\nHermetic Journal, 1985, pp. 4-10.\n\u2014 Atalanta Fugiens: An Edition of the Fugues, Emblems and Epigrams. Grand Rapids, Mi.:\nPhanes Press, 1989.\nGould, Robert Freke. The History of Freemasonry:\nCustoms,\netc. Embracing\nFraternity\nin England,\nan Investigation\nScotland,\nIts Antiquities,\nSymbols,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=106\nPages: 106\nthe power of transmutation and unlimited increase through fermentation, be\nthat in metals or the human heart.109\nAnother aspect of Maier's appeal to Moritz, who was by all accounts a\nman of formidable humanist learning, was the promise to reveal the\ninnermost secrets of Nature. Thus in his Scala Arcis Philosophicae Maier\ndevotes a great deal of space to the subject of gold as the perfection of\nNature, being formed in the likeness of a circle and containing within itself\nthe opposing elements in equal quantity.110 It was this subject that Maier was\nto expound at length in the printed work he dedicated to Moritz, De Circulo\nPhysico Quadrato ( O n the Squaring of the Natural Circle,' 1616), which we\nadmistionem fermenti, qua virtute per spiritum distributa totam p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e2t massam, et in\nsuam materiam immutai...\"\n107\nde Jong, H. M. E. Michael Maier 's Atalanta Fugiens: Sources of an Alchemical Book of\nEmblems. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969, pp. 17, 155-157.\n108]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=147\nPages: 147\nexpression in his Atalanta Fugiens, in which the truths of chemia and the\nharmony of the spheres are expressed in the form of Maier's (not always\nharmonious) fugues.\nThe words of the Jocus Severus and its preface show us precisely the\nmanner in which Maier approached the Rosicrucian 'furore' that was raging\naround him on his return from England. Whilst he found himself in accord\nwith both the religious and the scientific sentiments of the manifestos, a work\nthat had been written without the 'Fraternity' in mind immediately became\nthe means by which he could define the 'Brethren' as men who value chemia\nas \"the most precious good in all the world after the Word of God.\" 90 Their\nlabour is his labour: to procure \"the most exquisite means of preserving\n87\n88\n89\n90\nIbid., p. 28: \"Qui non virus atrox ovis, sed pharmaci medelam/ Latro bibisti, dignior\ncicuta:/ Ne crimen regeratur, abi, ne morte praeoccuperis,/ Inferre noli funus innocenti.\"]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=99\nPages: 99,100\n'Rosicrucian' nature of Maier's greetings.\n\"VIVE JACOBE DIU REX MAGNE BRITANNICE SALVE TEGMINE QUO VERE\nSIT ROSA LAETA SUO;\" cited in Srigley, Michael. Images of Regeneration: A Study\nof Shakespeare 's The Tempest and its Cultural Background. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis\nUpsaliensis, 1985, p. 100. Accompanying the rose motif is a fugue in four voices\nrepresenting the archangels Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and Uriel, to be sung over a\nrepeated cantus firmus ascribed to the shepherds Menaleas and Thirsis; a transcription of\nthis example of Maier's musical acumen (or lack thereof) is to be found in Godwin,\nJoscelyn (ed.). Atalanta Fugiens: An Edition of the Fugues, Emblems and Epigrams.\nGrand Rapids, Mi.: Phanes Press, 1989, pp. 207-208.\nMcLean, \"A Rosicrucian Manuscript,\" p. 7; Godwin also follows the thesis of Yates in\n\"A Context for Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617),\" The Hermetic Journal, 1985,\np. 5.\nThe seventeenth rung of the alchemical ladder\n91]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=195\nPages: 195,196\nAula/ Proque suo nutu subdita membra trahit./ Illud spiritibus venas, vegetoque tepore,/\nUnde fluit vitae flammea taeda, beat./ Omnibus, in medio Princeps velut imperai Urbis,/\nArtubus hoc vires datque negatque suas.\"\n22\nIbid., pp. 41-42, 45-46.\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, epigram 21 : \"Fac de masculo et foemina circulum rotundum, et\nde eo extrahe quadrangulum, et quadrangulo triangulum; fac circulum rotundum et\nhabebis lapidem philosophorum.\" From \"Rosarium Philosophorum.\" In Artis Auriferae.\nVoi. 2. Basel: Petrus Pernam, 1572, p. 278.\n23\nThe squaring of the natural circle\n187\nThis puzzling pronouncement ultimately pertains to the secret of Creation, in\nwhich the four elements emerge from the 'monad' or unity that is God. In the\nAtalanta Fugiens the square within the circle is again said to correspond to\nthe four elements, whilst the triangle within the square corresponds to \"soul,\nspirit and body.\" Although de Jong takes this to be a reference to the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=246\nPages: 246\nof multimedia, the Atalanta Fugiens, which has been described as \"the\nstrangest, the most beautiful and the most innovative work of esoteric\nalchemy in the seventeenth century.\" 10 Maier has also figured in recent works\nof popular fiction, in which he has been playfully portrayed as the erstwhile\ncorrespondent of John Dee, or the purveyor of an elusive wisdom. 11 Amongst\nProtestant writers of the last century the judgment was mixed; thus Montgomery perceived in Maier's work inclinations towards \"an existential Christ\nmysticism,\" yet the Reverend Craven felt that Maier's desire for \"earthly\nriches\" led him away from \"higher studies.\"12 And in the esoteric circles of\ncontemporary Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, Maier is accepted as an\ninitiate of the mysteries and a representative of the 'Tradition', even if his\nenigmatic style has eluded some writers.13\nThe conception of a Tradition prevalent in contemporary esoteric circles]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=266\nPages: 266\nsex libris exp\u00f3sita. London: Creede, c. 1614.\n\u2014 Atalanta Fugiens, hoc est, Emblemata nova de secretis naturae chymica, accommodata\npartim oculis et intellectui, figuris cupro incisis, adjectisque sententiis, Epigrammatis et\nnotis, partim auribus et recreationi animi plus minus 50 Fugis musicalibus trium Vocum,\nquarum duae ad unum simplicem melodiam distichis canendis peraptam, correspondeant, non absque, singulari jucunditate videnda, legenda, meditanda, intelligenda,\ndijudicanda, canenda et audienda. Oppenheim: Johann Theodor de Bry, 1617.\n\u2014 Cantilenae Intellectuales, in Triadas 9. distinctae, De Phoenice Redivivo, hoc est,\nMedicinarum omnium pretiosissima, (quae Mundi Epitome et Universi Speculum est) non\ntam alta voce, quam profunda mente dictatae, et pro CLAVE Ternarum irreserabilium in\nChymia arcanum rationabilibus ministratae. Rostock: Mauritii Saxonis, 1622.\n\u2014 Civitas Corporis Humani, a Tyrannide Arthritica vindicata: Hoc est, Podagrae,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=248\nPages: 248\nemblem and discourse of Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617), in which it is said\nthat Nature, reason, experience and reading should be 'guide, staff, spectacles\nand lamp' to those who are employed in alchemical affairs (figure 32). The\nfirst intention of the alchemist, Maier writes, must be to discover \"through\nintimate contemplation how Nature proceeds in her operations.\" 21 This was a\nstaple theme of the medieval alchemical literature, and one that was\nreinforced by the Paracelsian emphasis on observation and experiment.\nStoltzius adds that such knowledge of Nature aids our proximity to God, and\nthat all our labours should be made to repay His love for us - a restatement of\nMaier's belief that we may know God through His works. The reading of the\nliber mundi remained a central concern of the Tradition as it appeared in later\nParacelsian Naturphilosophie and eighteenth century Rosicrucianism.\npictura recrearet, et mystico sensu animum oblectaret: potissimum in hac Medicinae ergo]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=106\nPages: 106\npractices. In her analysis of the Atalanta Fugiens (1617), de Jong has argued\nthat Maier followed Avicenna in denying the possibility of an artificial\nconversion of species, be that amongst plants, animals or metals. 107 Nevertheless, the fact that Maier included in his communications with Moritz two\nprocedures for the manufacture of gold - one by means of a wet method\ninvolving argenti vivi coagulanti, and the other by a dry method involving\nsulphuris fixi - demonstrates that gold-making formed part of his early bid\nfor the prince's patronage, even if it was not the main goal of his practice.108\nAlthough they are characteristically unclear, the main aim of Maier's\ncomments in the Atalanta Fugiens is to refute the possibility of artificially\nconverting one metallic species into another \"in the short time needed for\neating an egg;\" the goal of his own quest was to produce an agent possessing\nthe power of transmutation and unlimited increase through fermentation, be]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=44\nPages: 44,45\nAtalanta Fugiens (1617). See Figala, Karin and Neumann, Ulrich. '\"Author cui Nomen\nHermes Malavici': New Light on the Bio-Bibliography of Michael Maier (1569-1622).\"\nIn Rattansi, Piyo and Antonio Clericuzio (eds.). Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and\n17th Centuries. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994, pp. 124, 141 n.20.\n2\nEvans, R. J. W. Rudolf II and his World: A Study in Intellectual\nOxford: Oxford University Press, 1973, p. 3.\nHistory,\n1576-1612.\n36\nMaier's formative years\nas alchemy was not only an important means of displaying the prestige and\npower of his court, but also reflected the hope of making technological\nadvances that might grant him the upper hand in his struggle against\nthe Habsburgs and the Catholic states of the fragmented empire.3 Alchemy in\nparticular promised the development of new techniques for the manipulation\nof metals (the debasement of coinage through alloying practices caused]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=305\nPages: 305,307\n296\n6. The onroboros, from Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617).\n297\nM \u00c9\n1\n(\u00a1r f i f \u00ed\n* fa\"\n~Qyj}hW&\u00dfA\nA\nr\nw^Mm\u00ed \u00dfp\u00fciV U f f , ^ADr>f \u00abP* \u00ed+\u00c1pjfc OffadL\u00b7,\n'<; csJW\n'/W \u03a8 ^ ^\n\u00bfkky\n^ ^\n'\n^U*\u00ab. ff%f%\n\u00bf\u00a1\u03ad\u03c0\u03c4\u03c5;!,\u00b7^ \u00edie^id>L (fuJ ihstyy\u00b7\nv V Ik+i/fk* QA* irf\nuui. f^y\nCi W ,<\u00ed\u00ab<\u00bfUy,t\nM \u00bb Alzit i\n\u00a3\u00bf4 \u2022\n\u2022\njVt&J* -tr-fifini l<t>M$l\u00b7- y\n^\n1A- 4M*.\u00b7 M\u00ab\u00ae\nJ\nc\u03af\u03c1^\u039b\u00b7^ \u03c6 , CJjiliJ^Ut \u03b2\n\u00bfylf^pn.\n, jk- \u03c8\nyJWtf\nW\u00e4m\n\u03bc\nri\n}luv, \u00bf . \u00bf \u03bc \u00a3\n.\nV* b*\u00b7'*\u00b7 pd+fot+\u00ed/y*\nIH \u039b^\u0397 fnit-ikj \u0393\"\narmfr tu-**h(s\u00b7 af&fo\nd i s - \u00a3 uu*>':,p\nfc\u00b7\u00b7*ivi^&f..\nC i Jy^\nm\n7. The first page of Maier's request to the emperor\nfor the symbol of Avicenna.\n'\n298\nOSIRIS*\ntyphon,;\nARCANA\nL\nA\n*\u2022*\nR\nC\nA\n\u039d\nI\nS\nHOC I S T\nS\nI\nM\nA\nOTONYSVS\nc\n. rj\u00edT'ERO C\u00bf Ly PHlCJ_s\n\u0399\nyEGTPTIO-G\nRJECA,\n1 V u l g o n e c d u m\ncognita,\ni cul \u00e4enionivranddin\u00dfilforum aj>ud ariti'.\nI \u00fblios \u00bfLeonux, deanmjier\u00fbum, an\u00efmannum\nS ef injidutorumjtivpicr\u00ecs receptorim, cruj\u00ed\nI tiem, ex \u03b7 riojE^ticrum artificio, jucd aurea\nPanimi e?Corporis mtdicanmitumj\u0153rajit, deduct]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=230\nPages: 230,231\ndebeam.\"\nIbid., pp. 576-577: \"Ratio est, quia pulchra difficilia, et sudor ante virtutem et gloriam\npositus sit: Per terram enim laboris tenditur ad quietem.\"\n148\nIbid., pp. 578-579.\n149\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 46.\n222\nThe completion of the work\nhuman weakness through \"steadfastness and greatness of soul\" - a theme\nfamiliar to us from Maier's Ulysses.150\nIn accordance with this theme, Maier's crossing of the Atlantic is described as a journey by night through the dark surges of the ocean, in which\nperilous encounters with hurricanes and sea monsters mirror the black phase\nof the processes within the vessel. At length, however, he arrives at the\nshores of Brazil, \"a great province of America covered with unbroken\nforests,\" in which colonies are rare and men with knowledge of the liberal\narts such as Maier himself are entirely foreign. 151 Given that the natives of\nthat province have only recently received the art of reading and writing from]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=152\nPages: 152\nprincipibus in minori authoritate et precio est habitus, dum Saturni morositate et Maitis\ncholera seu iracundia fuerit taxatus: Ipse igitur aut mori aut curari voluit, si id possibile\nsit.\" Maier explains the allegory in terms of the purification of both human and metallic\nbodies.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 289: \"Authoris cum morbo (uti convivarum cum\nPyrgopolynice, conflictu) quarto quoque die.\"\n105\nIbid., p. 291: \"Denique nostri conatus ad Minervae Aenigmata, prout ilia in mentem\nmanumque venerint, eidem Collegio Germanico studiose, ceu philothesia in Saturnalibus\npropinamus hoc est, discumbentes inservientibus pro temporis ratione.\"\n106\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, epigram 4: \"Non hominum foret in mundo nunc tanta\npropago,/ Si fratti conjunx non data prima soror./ Ergo lubens conjunge duos ab utroque\nparente/ Progenitos ut sint foemina masque toro./ Praebibe nectareo Philothesia pocla\nliquore/ Utrisque, et foetus spem generabit amor.\" In the German translation of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=224\nPages: 224\nconstituted the black phase of the work, an impossible task from which the\nfinal release could only be death. Thus in the Atalanta Fugiens Maier clearly\nstates that \"there is nothing that can restore youth to man but death itself,\nwhich is the beginning of eternal life that follows it.\"124 This is the circular\nand paradoxical nature of Maier's spiritual alchemy, which like the\nouroboros devours and emerges out of itself (figure 6).\n6. The phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\nIn concluding our consideration of Maier's life and its relationship to\nhis alchemy, we may turn again to his Allegoria Bella, in which the\ncorrespondence of laboratory process to his own personal odyssey through\nthe world finds its clearest expression. This allegory forms part of the\nconcluding chapter of the Symbola Aureae Mensae (1617); in accordance\nwith his role as 'cook' for the banquet held in honour of 'Queen Chemia', the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=180\nPages: 180\ninitials the significance of 'the sea' and 'the sublime laws of a fortress' in the\ntenth enigma of the Symbola Aureae Mensae\u00b7, likewise the seventh enigma\nspeaks of R. as the 'canine letter', which contains in itself war and the\npugnatrix (she who fights), whilst the eighth enigma speaks of C. as the\nwaning moon:\nLo the half moon is resplendent with rays before you!\nHence it is also consecrated to the C.,\nFor just as the horns of Phoebe foretell the demise of dark and shady night,\nThus also by and by the clouds are put to flight,\nAs your public Confession promises.\nSix companions follow, of whom two times two are making a clamour,\nBut two give forth harmonious speech:\nThis will have been enough to reveal to your judgment. 2 1 8\n214\nMaier, Atalanta Fugiens, discourse 10: \"Est quoque eadem aqua acetum acerrimum,quae\ncorpus fecit merum spiritum... Est autem haec aqua ex Parnassi petita fonte, quae praeter]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=260\nPages: 260,261\nArcanissima, and gave an alchemical reading of the symbolism of the\nfifteenth century Order of the Golden Fleece (which we also find in the\nsixteenth chapter of Maier's Themis Aurea, albeit in passing). 69 A similar\nalchemical treatment of pagan mythology drawing directly from Maier's\nArcana Arcanissima, Symbola Aureae Mensae and Atalanta Fugiens is to be\nfound in the Fables \u00c9gyptiennes et Grecques D\u00e9voil\u00e9es (1758) of Antoine\nJoseph Pern\u00e9ty, who would become librarian to the most prominent member\n63\n64\n65\n66\n67\n68\n69\nIbid., p. 103.\nIbid., p. 106.\nMcintosh, The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, pp. 33-34.\nIbid., pp. 39,44.\nIbid., pp. 46-47.\nIbid:, Faivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 179-180.\nFaivre, Access to Western Esotericism, pp. 76, 186; on Maier's reading of the myth of the\nGolden Fleece in his Arcana Arcanissima, Symbola Aureae Mensae and Atalanta\nFugiens, see also Faivre, The Golden Fleece and Alchemy, pp. 24-26.\n252\nMaier and the historiography of alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=246\nPages: 246\nThe conception of a Tradition prevalent in contemporary esoteric circles\nstems in part from the Renaissance, and the attempt to identify the chain of\n10\nKindlers Literatur Lexikon. Vol. 8. Weinheim: Zweiburgen Verlag, 1982, p. 10478; in\naddition to those works already cited above, we may mention M\u00f6dersheim, Sabine.\n\"Mater et Matrix: Michael Maiers alchimistische Sinnbilder der Mutter.\" In Mutter und\nM\u00fctterlichkeit:\nWandel und Wirksamkeit einer Phantasie in der deutschen\nLiteratur.\nW\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigshausen und Neumann, 1996, pp. 31-56; Rebotier, Jacques. \"La\nMusique Cach\u00e9e de \u0393 Atalanta Fugiens,\" Chrysopoeia, Vol. 1, 1987, pp. 56-76; Allen,\nSally G. \"Outrunning Atalanta: Feminine Destiny in Alchemical Transmutation,\" Journal\nof Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 6, 1980, pp. 210-221; Streich, Hildemarie.\n\"Musikalische und psychologische Entsprechungen in der Atalanta Fugiens von Michael\nMaier.\" In Correspondences in Man and World. Eranos Yearbook, 1973. Leiden: E. J.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=88\nPages: 88,87\n118.\n39\n40\nIn his Atalanta Fugiens Maier mentions a contemporary English report that a toad with a\ngolden chain was found inside a quarry stone: \"William of Newberry, an English writer,\nsaith (how truly let others judge) that in a certain quarry in the diocese of Vintonia, a\ngreat stone being split, there was a living Toad found in it, with a golden chain, and it\nwas by the Bishop's command, hidden in the same place and buried in perpetual\ndarkness, lest it might bear an ill omen with it.\" Maier goes on to jestingly question why\na toad should require golden jewellery, \"lest by chance he should meet the beetle in the\nThe reversal of fortune\n79\nthe earliest extant alchemical literature, alchemy was concerned with the\npowers that link heaven and earth; following the apocryphal Book of Enoch,\nthe Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis claimed that the\nalchemical secrets were taught to humanity by fallen angels, who wrote the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=154\nPages: 154,155\n110\nIbid., p. 302: \"R. mihi adest aequor, pisces captantur in ilio/ Tempore tres vario, primus\ncum brachia Cancer/ Exerit, atque alter sub iusto examine Librae,/ Tertius humentes cum\nfundit Aquarius undas:/ Dicite, quos pisces statuam quas Aequoris undas?\"\n111\n\"Aenigmata ex Visione Arislei Philosophi.\" In Artis Auriferae.\nPernam, 1572, p. 162. Reprinted in 1610.\n112\nOn this subject see de Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, pp. 179-180.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 272. De Jong, Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens, p.\n6, discusses the relationship of Lambsprinck's emblems to those of the Atalanta Fugiens.\n113\nVol. 1. Basel: Petrum\n146\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nIt follows that the \"three different times\" at which the fish are hunted\nrepresent three different phases of solution in the lengthy alchemical process,\nas dictated by astrological law; the first when the sun is in Cancer (from June\n22), the second in Libra (from September 23) and the third in Aquarius (from]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=292\nPages: 292,293\n197, 211, 212, 243, 245, 246, 251;\nAtalanta Fugiens, 35n., 42, 44, 69n.,\n78n., 79, 95n., 97, 104n., 122n., 131,\n138, 143, 145, 164n., 171, 183, 186,\n284\n187,200,214,215,221,232,235,\n237, 239, 242, 251, 253; Cantilenae\nIntellectuals, 38\u03b7., 44, 67, 71, 209,\n210, 237n.; Civ\u00ectas Corporis Hum\u00e0ni,\n65, 76, 104\u03b7., 201, 202-208, 214;\u00a3>e\nCirculo Physico, Quadrato, 52, 94,\n131, 182ff., 195n., 201, 203, 208, 232,\n233; De Medicina Regia, 32, 35n.,\n39ff., 44, 52-55, 57, 62n., 63, 68, 69,\n70, 71, 81n., 91, 102, 104, 146, 217;\nDe Theosophia Aegyptiorum, 80-82,\n122, 125-126, 241; Examen Fucorum\nPseudo-chym\u00eccorum, 94-95, 97, 106107, 122n., 131, 157, 242, 244, 249;\nHymnosophia, 71-77, 78, 81, 139,\n184-185, 187; Jocus Severus, 88, 89,\n113, 130, 131-139, 140, 141, 148, 163,\n231 ; Lusus Serius, 88-89, 103, 131,\n132, 242; Scala Arcis Philosophicae,\n94-97; Septimana Philosophica, 28,\n45n., 72, 85, 179, 194-195, 208, 221222; Silentium post Clamores, 120,\n131, 141, 160-165, 175, 178, 179, 199,]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=240\nPages: 240\nwithheld the crux of that particular passage, which is the significance of the\nhieroglyph and the key to Maier's allegory - \"to indicate a traveller who\nreturns from a long journey to his native land, again do the Egyptians draw a\nphoenix.\" 182\nApart from offering concise insight into the nature of Maier's spiritual\nalchemy, the Allegoria Bella sets forth that admixture of vitalism, solar\nmysticism and pietist Christian sentiments that is so characteristic of Maier's\nthought. Although we must continue to designate Maier's doctrines as\n'pseudo-Egyptian' due to the transformation of Egyptian religion by both\nancient and Renaissance Neoplatonism, his works display a very Egyptian\nand pagan fascination with gold, the sun and eternal life. In other passages in\nthe Hieroglyphics of Horapollo from which Maier does not quote, the\nphoenix is also said to denote the sun, the immortality of the soul and a 'long\nenduring restoration', \"for when this bird is born, there is a renewal of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=224\nPages: 224\nconstituted the black phase of the work, an impossible task from which the\nfinal release could only be death. Thus in the Atalanta Fugiens Maier clearly\nstates that \"there is nothing that can restore youth to man but death itself,\nwhich is the beginning of eternal life that follows it.\"124 This is the circular\nand paradoxical nature of Maier's spiritual alchemy, which like the\nouroboros devours and emerges out of itself (figure 6).\n6. The phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\nIn concluding our consideration of Maier's life and its relationship to\nhis alchemy, we may turn again to his Allegoria Bella, in which the\ncorrespondence of laboratory process to his own personal odyssey through\nthe world finds its clearest expression. This allegory forms part of the\nconcluding chapter of the Symbola Aureae Mensae (1617); in accordance\nwith his role as 'cook' for the banquet held in honour of 'Queen Chemia', the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=65\nPages: 65\ncome; therefore we should travel onwards through the regions of the earth,\nfollowing the cyclical processes of Nature, which accomplish something of a\nspiritual transformation in the pilgrim and enable the final homeward return.\nIn his allegory Maier describes the goal of this spiritual 'pilgrimage' as the\nphoenix, the feathers of which constitute a cure for 'anger and grief; that is\n91\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 569: \"Peregrini enim nos omnes sumus in hoc\nmundo, etiam in propria, nempe terrestri patria: Unde ad aetherias illas clarissimas\ndomus, quo Salvator noster, qui praecessit, nos vocat et attrahit, migraturi tandem\nsumus: Respiciam hirundinem veris nunciam, gruem, ciconiam, multasque alias aves,\nquomodo annuatim statis temporibus peregrinentur per aera in ignotas regiones naturae\ninstinctu et documento; ut homini specimen et exemplar edant peregrinationis per mundi\npartes instituendae, ne semper fumo et fimo larium insenesceret: Avibus aer sublunaris]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=41\nPages: 41\nof spiritual alchemy can only be traced to the late eighteenth century, or to\nthe work of nineteenth century occultists as Principe and Newman suggest. If\nwe were to do so, we would not have reckoned with the work of Maier, a\nlaboratory worker who played an influential role in the early Rosicrucian\nmilieu and who has been described as \"the boldest and most consistent of the\nalchemists of the German Renaissance.\" 130 Of particular importance in this\nregard is his Allegoria Bella, which after its initial appearance in 1617 was\nreprinted in Latin in 1678 and 1749, and in English in Waite's translation of\n1893.131 Whilst Principe and Newman have - with some justification characterised Waite's translations of alchemical texts as \"adulterated by the\naddition of occultist elements and slants completely alien to the originals,\" it\nmust be said that Waite's version of Maier's allegory compares favourably\nwith the Latin original, being a slightly abridged but thematically accurate]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=40\nPages: 40,41\nMagnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, 1981.\n129\nSee, for example, Hinricus Madathanus (Adrian von Mynsicht). \"Aureum Seculum\nRedivivum.\" In Dyas Chymica Tripartita, das ist: Sechs Herzliche Teutsche Philosophische Tract\u00e4tlein. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1625, pp. 74-87; Greverus, Iodocus.\n\"Secretum Nobilissimum et Verissimum.\" In Theatrum Chemicum. Ursel: Zetzner, 1602,\npp. 783-810; also the \"Physica Naturali Rotunda\" m Aperta Arca Arcani\nArtificiosissimi.\nFrankfurt am Main: Johan Carl Unckel, 1617, pp. 117 ff. These allegories follow the\ndream-vision formula of Zosimos and the Poimandres.\n32\nJung and early modern alchemy\nGrasshoff s Parabola, which was no doubt interpreted as a tale of spiritual\ninitiation amongst the adherents of the later Gold- und Rosenkreutz and their\nFreemasonic brethren.\nNevertheless, we would be mistaken if we were to imagine that the origins\nof spiritual alchemy can only be traced to the late eighteenth century, or to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=52\nPages: 52\nSaturn in the emblem from the Symbola Aureae Mensae that accompanied his\nAllegoria Bella in its later re-prints; there the alchemist demonstrates the\nmetamorphosis of Saturn (lead), who tends to trees with flowers of gold and\nsilver (figure 2).\nIf a certain aspect of Maier's life was in some way equivalent to\nalchemical putrefaction or the unpurified leaden state of the alchemical\nsubject - as our quotation from the Allegoria Bella explicitly states - what\nexactly were the sources of the 'bitterness, frustration, sadness and\nweariness' that he alludes to in his writings? In the course of this work those\nsources will become evident as we consider the progress of Maier's career,\nand we will discover that his life was governed by a spirit of paradox in\nkeeping with that central motif of the alchemical opus, the coniunctio\noppositorum. For it was precisely his life-long toil to procure the Universal\nMedicine that formed the nigredo phase of Maier's spiritual alchemy.\n31\n32\n33]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=65\nPages: 65\nprocess itself. Maier's clearest remarks on this matter are given in the\naforementioned Allegoria Bella, in which he makes a mythical peregrination\nthrough the four known continents (each representing a part of the human\nbody) to the 'heart' of the world, Egypt. He justifies this great journey with\nreference to a divinely instituted natural order:\nFor we are all strangers in this world, indeed even in our own native land: from which\nplace we migrate at length to those aethereal, most resplendent heavenly homes, to which\nour Saviour who has gone before invites and leads us. I might look to the swallow, the\nmessenger of spring, to the crane, the stork, and many other birds, and see how every year at\nfixed times they travel by instinct and set patterns through the air to unknown regions of\nNature; for in this way they set an example and model of peregrination through the regions\nof the world to man, lest he should grow old amidst the smoke and dung of the house altar.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=94\nPages: 94\n'natural meaning': no longer does the Stone symbolise Christ, but the Christ becomes,\nlike the Phoenix, a simple allegory of the Stone. Thus certain alchemists, vehemently\nopposed by Maier, did not hesitate to subject Biblical and Christian 'myth' to the same\nfate as those of Greece and Egypt, propounding, as it were, a sort of 'alchemie libertine'\nparallel to 'spiritual alchemy'\": Matton, Sylvain. \"Le Ph\u00e9nix dans l'Oeuvre de Michel\nMaier et la Litt\u00e9rature Alchimique.\" In Bailly, J. C. (ed.). Chansons Intellectuelles sur la\nR\u00e9surrection du Ph\u00e9nix par Michel Maier. Paris: Gutenberg Reprints, 1984; an English\ntranslation of this text was kindly provided to me by Mike Dickman. For Maier's\ninvective against this alchemie libertine, see the Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 24: \"Quid\niam dicemus de iis, qui hoc nostro tempore Creationem mundi, nativitatem, passionem,\nmortem, resurrectionem et ascensionem Christi, imo fere omnes art\u00edculos fide, sacrilege]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=265\nPages: 265\nnon-laboratory practitioners such as Boehme or Weigel. Furthermore, there\ncan be no doubt that the seeds of the early modern emergence of 'spiritual'\nalchemies were contained in medieval alchemy. When dealing with the\npresence (or perceived absence) of spiritual alchemies amongst laboratory\npractitioners of the early modern period, Principe and Newman make\nmention of a little known 'supernatural alchemy' which developed in\nseventeenth century England, and which held that certain alchemical products\nhad supernatural effects; their point is to show that such a pursuit has little in\ncommon with the spiritual alchemies of the nineteenth and twentieth\ncenturies. 89 It is self-evident that this particular alchemy cannot be placed\nunder the rubric of 'spiritual alchemy' in the manner of Maier's practice, and\nthat nothing has been proved by the example. The historiography proposed\nby Principe and Newman can only be upheld by portraying early modern]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=234\nPages: 234\nNevertheless, in Maier's failure to reach his goal we may also see a very\nChristian allusion to the afterlife awaiting us when our earthly toils are at an\nend. Although the divine law of death and resurrection is to be observed in\nthe microcosm of the vessel, and the elixir vitae Maier sought to procure\npartakes of the divine nature and power in some lesser measure, we have seen\nthat Maier believed eternal life can ultimately be found only through our\ndeparture from this life. Thus the Edenic symbolism of the Allegoria Bella\nrecalls the passage in 1 Corinthians to which Maier alludes when describing\nthe Rosicrucian Brotherhood's Liber M. in the third chapter of the Themis\n162\n163\nIbid., pp. 591-592.\nIbid., p. 592; see Taylor, \"The Visions of Zosimos.\" A representation of the Work as a\nhuman figure with a golden head is to be found in the sixth parable and emblem of the\nSplendor Solis.\n164\nIbid., p. 593: \"Nec defuit Musica arte Instrumentalis, quae facta erat cum rota suis clavis]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=284\nPages: 284\nSpiritualit\u00e4t in Antike, Mittelalter und Fr\u00fcher Neuzeit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp\nVerlag, 1998.\nSchmitt, Charles B. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy. Cambridge:\nCambridge University Press, 1992.\nSegal, Robert. \"Critical Notice,\" Journal of Analytical Psychology, vol. 40, 1995, pp. 597608.\nShamdasani, Sonu. Cult Fictions: C. G. Jung and the Founding of Analytical\nLondon: Routledge, 1998.\nPsychology.\nSheppard, H. J. \"The Ouroboros and the Unity of Matter in Alchemy: A Study in Origins,\"\nAmbix, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1962, pp. 91-110.\nSilberer, Herbert. Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik. Vienna: Hugo Deller & Co.,\n1914.\nSmith, Henry Perry. History of Addison County Vermont. Syracuse, N.Y.: D. Mason & Co.,\n1886.\nSrigley, Michael. Images of Regeneration: A Study of Shakespeare's The Tempest and its\nCultural Background. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 1985.\nStapleton, H. E. \"The Antiquity of Alchemy,\" Ambix, Vol. 5, No. 1, 1953, pp. 9-15.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=42\nPages: 42,43\nsymbolism within Rosicrucian or Freemasonic circles was 'meaningless';\nrather, it was drawn directly from the work of early modern alchemists such\nas Count Michael Maier - who did in fact replicate the 'antimonial exercises'\nof Basil Valentine in his laboratory practice. Spiritual alchemy is a natural\nextension of the theory of microcosmic-macrocosmic correspondence, and\nthe notion of a vital spirit animating humans, animals, vegetables and\n133\n134\n135\nSee in particular Newman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" pp. 175-185.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" pp. 397399.\nIbid., p. 387.\n34\nJung and early modern alchemy\nminerals alike - regardless if such vitalism is the defining feature of alchemy,\nas Metzger believed. When considering the worldview of the early modern\nlaboratory worker - and even such influential figures in the development of\nmodern chemistry as Newton and Boerhaave, who both retained vitalistic]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=40\nPages: 40\nMaier's Symbola Aureae Mensae Duodecim Nationum (1617). 126 The whole\nis a treatise on alchemical natural philosophy drawn primarily from medieval\nsources, which Grasshoff concludes with the allegorical Parabola in much\nthe same manner that the Allegor\u00eca Bella is presented as the summation of\nMaier's Symbola Aureae Mensae. As in Maier's allegory, Grasshoff begins\nhis Parabola with a melancholic proclamation of the wretchedness of earthly\nlife before setting off on a quest for the Philosophers' Stone - in this case\nsymbolised by the Lion rather than Maier's phoenix. 127 The alchemical\nallegory was much in vogue in the early modern period; authors of that time\ndrew their inspiration from medieval alchemical allegories such as those of\nDuenech, Maria Prophetissa and Merlin, or mimicked the late antique dreamrevelations of the Greco-Egyptian alchemist Zosimos and the Hermetic\nPoimandres.m Most early modern allegories demonstrate a similar intent to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=40\nPages: 40\nPoimandres.m Most early modern allegories demonstrate a similar intent to\nthat of their medieval and ancient counterparts, being mere tropes for natural\nphilosophical conceptions and laboratory procedure rather than consciously\nconstructed allusions to self-transformation. 129 Such may also be said for\nautografo della Bugia. Rome: Editrice lamia, 1986, p. 90; the manuscript in question is\nin the Vatican Library, MS Reginensis Latini 1521. Research is also said to be pending\non certain 'statutes and articles' dating to 1678 and relating to an Italian 'Gold and Rosy\nCross'; kind information of Susanna \u00c2kerman.\n126\nGrasshoff, \"G\u00fcldener Tractat,\" p. 17; Maier, Michael. Symbola\nDuodecim Nationum. Frankfurt am Main: Lucas Jennis, 1617.\n127\nGrasshoff, \"G\u00fcldener Tractat,\" p. 55.\nAureae\nMensae\n128 p o r t ij e D u e n e c h allegory, see the Theatrum Chemicum. Vol. 3. Ursel: Zetzner, 1602, pp.\n756-757; for the allegory of Maria, see \"Practica Mariae Prophetissae in Artem]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=225\nPages: 225\nsymbolises seven stages of the alchemical work, whilst the wedding itself\ndenotes the perfection of the opus through the union of Mercury and\nSulphur. 127 As we have mentioned, Maier's Allegoria Bella is constructed in\na very similar fashion, portraying the alchemical process as the author's\npilgrimage through four continents in search of the phoenix, the feathers of\nwhich constitute a cure for \"anger and grief.\" However, given Maier's own\nunsettled life of roaming it is clear that this allegorical pilgrimage was not\ncomposed merely as a didactic analogy for the laboratory work; Maier tells\nus at the outset that he himself was \"destined to imitate the natural\nprogression of elements,\" which tend from density to subtlety - that is to say,\nthe pattern of elemental transmutation described in Aristotle's De\nGeneratione et Corruptione to which we have referred. 128 Thus he begins his\nquest in Europe (earth), travels through America (water) to Asia (air) and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=234\nPages: 234\ncould see an organ in the Edenic garden driven by a water-wheel and\nwindsocks, which gave forth wonderful multi-voiced melodies - a device that\nwas very similar to one he once saw near Florence.164 We may take this as\nanother indication that the peregrinatio acad\u00e9mica which Maier undertook\nsome twenty years earlier served as an important experiential source for the\npilgrimage described in the Allegoria Bella, as his only recorded visit to\nFlorence occurred on that journey. 165\nNevertheless, for want of a boat Maier is unable to cross the river to the\nearthly paradise, and so he decides to return to his quest for the phoenix,\nconfident in the knowledge that he will one day come back to this\nmagnificent place. In this passage we may see another reference to the\nsecluded alchemical garden with its roses and lilies - a symbol for the\nperfection of the work, in which things heavenly and earthly coalesce.\nNevertheless, in Maier's failure to reach his goal we may also see a very]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=225\nPages: 225\nquest in Europe (earth), travels through America (water) to Asia (air) and\nfinally arrives in the deserts of Africa (fire) - for \"air may not come from\nearth except by the mediation of water, and fire may not come from water\nexcept by the mediation of air.\"129 Whilst Andreae's Chymische Hochzeit is\nreplete with an intensely surreal imagery, Maier's allegory is permeated with\na veritable cornucopia of bizarre facts drawn from history, astronomy, botany\nand zoology, each of which possesses a microcosmic or macrocosmic\ncorrespondence to laboratory process.\nMaier begins his allegory with an explanation of the origins of his quest\nfor the phoenix. Having spent the greater part of his life in the study of\nrefined literature and the liberal arts, and having conversed with men of\ngreater wisdom than the common folk, his contemplation of the masses had\nled him to the conclusion that they prefer ostentation, carnality and lust to\n127\n128]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=179\nPages: 179\nGermany - for Europe is like unto a virgin (figure 20), and although it is not\nmeet for a virgin to uncover herself, nevertheless she has brought forth the\nhitherto unknown arts and sciences of the Brethren from that secret place.\nIn this way Maier relates the rise of the occult sciences in Germany to a\nmiraculous virgin birth, an allegorical means of depicting the late Renaissance in Germany. This efflorescence of the prisca sapientia will not be\nviolated by its enemies; thus Maier also likens Germany to an alchemical\nrose garden, where roses and lilies secretly grow \"lest wanton hands damage\nor indeed pluck those little flowers.\"212 Here he uses the traditional symbols\nfor the final white and red stages of the work to denote the Brethren or true\nalchemists of Germany, 'known and unknown'. The second reference to the\nHouse of the Holy Spirit given by Maier in the Themis Aurea further\naccentuates his alchemical reading of the manifestos. He tells us that]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=76\nPages: 76\n67\nwhich they served as symbols for Christ - the former on account of its\nmiraculous powers of self-renewal through a fiery death, the latter because of\nits reputed habit of feeding its young with its own blood. Indeed, alchemical\nallegory since the medieval period had linked the black phase of the\nalchemical process to the passion of Christ on the cross, the white phase to\nthe release of his spirit at death, and the perfection of the red phase to the\nspirit's re-incorporation into a pure and sinless body at resurrection. Thus the\nearly sixteenth century Rosarium Philosophorum, a favourite text of Maier's,\ndepicts the completion of the alchemical work with an emblem showing the\nemergence of Christ from his tomb, and a caption that reads: \"after my many\nsufferings and great martyrdom, I rise again transfigured, free of all blemish.\"\nWith the advent of the Reformation the synthesis of Christian mythology\nand alchemical lore became a prominent component of Protestant alchemy;]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=226\nPages: 226\nmost useful things hidden in Nature and man,\" be that \"at home in books\nbequeathed by others, which lead the way for meditation and experience, or\nto go out of the house and range through that great book of the world.\" 133\nAlthough Maier's autobiographical testimony in the De Medicina Regia\npoints to the medieval alchemists as the inspiration for his quest to uncover\nthe structure of the cosmos and the Universal Medicine, his allusion here is to\nthe harmony of the two great works of God - the Bible and the Book of\nNature. This harmony is expressed in the Allegoria Bella in the figure of the\nphoenix, by which both Christ and the Universal Medicine are signified. The\nphoenix had constituted a symbol for Christ since the time of the\nPhysiologus, an allegorical bestiary produced by Alexandrian Christians\naround the fourth century CE, and this significance would have been clear to\nmany of Maier's Christian readers.134 In Maier's eyes Jesus Christ was the\n130]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=240\nPages: 240,241\n183\nIbid., pp. 42-44, 96.\nThe completion of the work\n232\nsun. Hieroglyphic inscriptions speak of the phoenix as \"the soul of Ra\" and\n\"the heart of the renewed Ra;\" the Papyrus of Ani also relates the creature to\nthe cult of the resurrected Osiris, and Egyptian funerary trappings represent\nthe deceased with the words \"I am in the form of the phoenix.\" 184 In this\nway the phoenix represents a typically pagan concern with natural cyclical\nprocesses of ebb and flow, death and resurrection - processes that appear to\nhave first given rise to the association of the bennu with the returning sun in\nancient Egypt, as the meaning of the \"returning traveller\" given by Horapollo\nderives from the said heron's periodic migrations. 185 When we view these\nfacts in light of Maier's discourse in the Allegoria Bella on the \"model of\nperegrination\" set for man by birds and the sun,186 it is clear that for all\nMaier's errors the ethos of the Egyptian cults was not entirely lost to him.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=2\nPages: 2,5\nHereward Tilton\nThe Quest for the Phoenix\nw\nDE\nG\nArbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte\nBegr\u00fcndet von\nKarl Hollf und Hans Lietzmannf\nherausgegeben von\nChristoph Markschies und Gerhard M\u00fcller\nBand 88\nWalter de Gruyter \u00b7 Berlin \u00b7 New York\n2003\nHereward Tilton\nThe Quest for the Phoenix\nSpiritual Alchemy and Rosicrucianism\nthe Work of Count Michael Maier (1569 \u2014\nWalter de Gruyter \u00b7 Berlin \u00b7 New York\n2003\n\u00a9 Printed on acid-free paper which falls within the guidelines of the ANSI\nto ensure permanence and durability.\nISBN 3-11-017637-8\nBibliographic\ninformation published\n\u00bf7 Die Deutsche\nBibliothek\nDie Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed\nbibliographic data is available in the Internet at <http://dnb.ddb.de>.\n\u00a9\nCopyright 2003 by Walter de Gruyter G m b H & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin\nAll rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. N o part of this book may]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=227\nPages: 227\n...like Tantalus, the more I learnt, the more I thirsted: and I had heard moreover that there is a\ncertain bird unparalleled in the entire sphere of the earth called the phoenix, and that its skin\nstripped away from its body (that is to say, its feathers) constitute the pre-eminent medicine\nof all medicines, as it is the remedy for anger and grief, or Nepenthe\u00b7, concerning which it is\nwritten in the ancient texts, that Helena, having been seized by Paris to Troy, supplied it to\nTelemachus, who was rapt in the greatest joy, having forgotten all his past toils, cares and\ngrief. Therefore I was forced to search for this bird - wherever it may have been hidden - by\na certain impulse of Nature and my mind, as if willingly compelled. Not that I hoped to\npossess this bird in its entirety (for I could see that was impossible for me), but at least in\norder that I might obtain a little feather of it, whatever labour, expense or travel I may need\nto undergo. 1 3 8\n135\n136]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=148\nPages: 148,149\nChamaeleon versipellis nullo modo imitari aut exprimere possit.\"\n140\nThe Rosicrucian 'imposture'\nsuccinctly by the gathered alchemists. And whilst the phoenix was the chief\njudge of the avian court in the Jocus Severus, in his dedication Maier invites\nCount Ernst himself to act as arbiter of the dispute.94\nAccording to Waite, Maier's Symbola Aureae Mensae marks the first\nusage of the denomination Collegium Philosophorum Germanorum de\nR. '. C. '., or 'College of German Philosophers R.\u00c9. C . . ', which was propagated\nin the nineteenth century amongst certain esoteric initiatory societies.95 The\npassage in the Symbola Aureae Mensae concerning the Rosicrucian Brethren\noccurs in the midst of the sixth chapter, which is dedicated to the German\nalchemists, and in particular to the great German scientist and theologian\nAlbertus Magnus (c.1200-1280), who is said by Maier to have \"produced the\nphoenix,\" and was moreover the first to perfect the Art after the Arabs. 96 In]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=226\nPages: 226\nmost useful things hidden in Nature and man,\" be that \"at home in books\nbequeathed by others, which lead the way for meditation and experience, or\nto go out of the house and range through that great book of the world.\" 133\nAlthough Maier's autobiographical testimony in the De Medicina Regia\npoints to the medieval alchemists as the inspiration for his quest to uncover\nthe structure of the cosmos and the Universal Medicine, his allusion here is to\nthe harmony of the two great works of God - the Bible and the Book of\nNature. This harmony is expressed in the Allegoria Bella in the figure of the\nphoenix, by which both Christ and the Universal Medicine are signified. The\nphoenix had constituted a symbol for Christ since the time of the\nPhysiologus, an allegorical bestiary produced by Alexandrian Christians\naround the fourth century CE, and this significance would have been clear to\nmany of Maier's Christian readers.134 In Maier's eyes Jesus Christ was the\n130]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=155\nPages: 155,156\nitself; it is analogous to the nest of the bird of the Rosicrucians, which, from\nthe references given in Maier's fifth enigma, we may identify as his beloved\nphoenix. 116 From its nest, unassailable in the heights of an oak-tree, new life\n114\nPeuckert, Pansophie (1936 edition), p. 152.\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 302: \"C. vobis Castri sublimia iura dat, et non/ Inter\naves est, quae valeat pernicibus alis/ Aut oculis ante hanc volucrem, quae vestra putatur,/\nEt cuius nutu est constructus in arbore nidus,/ Qui pridem Aurigenos produxit in ordine\npullos.\"\n116\nThe fifth enigma, dedicated to the muse of Tragedy, Melpomene, describes the nest of\nthe Phoenix built high in a gnarled oak where it rears its chicks; the bird is to be found in\nthe remote Arabian forests of Sheba, where it prepares for its long flight through all the\nworld: \"lovis volucris olim/ Quercu plicasset alta/ Nidos, suos penates,/ Pullos ut\n115\nAn invitation to Rosicrucians\n147]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=240\nPages: 240\nwithheld the crux of that particular passage, which is the significance of the\nhieroglyph and the key to Maier's allegory - \"to indicate a traveller who\nreturns from a long journey to his native land, again do the Egyptians draw a\nphoenix.\" 182\nApart from offering concise insight into the nature of Maier's spiritual\nalchemy, the Allegoria Bella sets forth that admixture of vitalism, solar\nmysticism and pietist Christian sentiments that is so characteristic of Maier's\nthought. Although we must continue to designate Maier's doctrines as\n'pseudo-Egyptian' due to the transformation of Egyptian religion by both\nancient and Renaissance Neoplatonism, his works display a very Egyptian\nand pagan fascination with gold, the sun and eternal life. In other passages in\nthe Hieroglyphics of Horapollo from which Maier does not quote, the\nphoenix is also said to denote the sun, the immortality of the soul and a 'long\nenduring restoration', \"for when this bird is born, there is a renewal of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=236\nPages: 236\nstartled by Maier's arrival and castigates him for approaching a lone virgin\nthus, the Sibyl consents to tell him what she knows. She begins her discourse\nby stating that the very land in which Maier now stands is the birthplace of\nthe phoenix, and she goes on to describe the bird in order that Maier may\nbetter apprehend it:\nIn ancient times felicitous Arabia and its neighbour Egypt rejoiced in this bird, the neck of\nwhich is of flashing gold, the body is covered with purple feathers, and on the head there is a\ncrest like a crown. It is sacred to the sun, and it lives 660 years; at which time, with old age\napproaching, it constructs a nest with twigs of cinnamon and frankincense which it fills with\nfragrance. Then it stirs up flames by shaking its wings towards the sun's rays, and is burnt to\nashes. Out of these ashes there is produced a worm, and from thence a little bird, which gives\nits father a proper funeral by carrying the entire nest to Heliopolis in Egypt, the city sacred to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=226\nPages: 226,227\naut antiquius inveni, quam rerum abditarum in natura existentium, hominique maxime\nutilium, investigationem, qualicunque modo institutam, sive domi per libros ab aliis\nrelictos, meditatione praevia et experientia manuali pedisse qua, sive foris magnum ilium\nMundi codicem pervoluendo.\"\n134\nPhysiologus. Trans. Michael J. Curley. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979, pp. 1314; the phoenix-Christ analogy is also used by certain Church Fathers, such as Clement\n218\nThe completion of the work\ngreatest of physicians, and the agent of transmuting the hearts and minds of\nmen, turning them from lives of sin to piety.135 In his reference to the Bible,\ntherefore, we may discern the experiential genesis of Maier's concern with a\ncure for anger, as Christ promises emancipation from base impulses of the\nkind that had once jeopardised his own career in Padua. Nevertheless, as a\ndoctor Maier also understands that anger has a very physical basis, and that]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=237\nPages: 237\nritual,\" the reasoning behind the 'mystical' wording of the Sibyl's account is\nclear; for she goes on to tell Maier that \"these words are enough to teach you\nthat the phoenix was understood mystically by the Egyptians, just as it was\ncared for 'mystically'.\" 172\nThis 'mystical' significance of the phoenix becomes apparent when Maier\nis directed by the Erythr\u0153an Sybil to the seven mouths of the Nile, the\ndwelling-place of Mercury himself, who has \"the power to show you\nthe phoenix and the Medicine derived from it.\" 173 In using the Christprophesying Sybil to demonstrate the path to the phoenix in this way, it is\nclear that Maier understands the fabled bird as a symbol for both the\nalchemical Universal Medicine and Christ, whose life-giving power of\nrenewal was manifested not only in His passion and resurrection, but also in\nthe resurrection of those saved by Him. Thus, whilst en route to the mouths\nof the Nile, Maier passes by a famous hill where the bodies of a number of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=227\nPages: 227\ndoctor Maier also understands that anger has a very physical basis, and that\nChrist has the temperance-imparting Universal Medicine as a physical\ncorollary - for \"the habits of the mind follow the temperament of the body,\"\nas Galen has stated, and just as the bravest soldier may be ground down by a\nlong and squalid imprisonment, so also the mind of man, whilst not being\notherwise predisposed to anger, may be overcome through 'contamination'\nwith yellow bile or other humours. 136 The Universal Medicine also promises\nto assuage unspeakable sorrows such as those inflicted upon Maier by his\n'harsh fortune'. For we are told in the Allegoria Bella that the phoenix is\nsynonymous with nepenthe,137 the cure of worldly cares given by the queen\nof Egypt to Helen of Troy, who administered it to the son of Odysseus,\nTelemachus:\n...like Tantalus, the more I learnt, the more I thirsted: and I had heard moreover that there is a]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=65\nPages: 65\ncome; therefore we should travel onwards through the regions of the earth,\nfollowing the cyclical processes of Nature, which accomplish something of a\nspiritual transformation in the pilgrim and enable the final homeward return.\nIn his allegory Maier describes the goal of this spiritual 'pilgrimage' as the\nphoenix, the feathers of which constitute a cure for 'anger and grief; that is\n91\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 569: \"Peregrini enim nos omnes sumus in hoc\nmundo, etiam in propria, nempe terrestri patria: Unde ad aetherias illas clarissimas\ndomus, quo Salvator noster, qui praecessit, nos vocat et attrahit, migraturi tandem\nsumus: Respiciam hirundinem veris nunciam, gruem, ciconiam, multasque alias aves,\nquomodo annuatim statis temporibus peregrinentur per aera in ignotas regiones naturae\ninstinctu et documento; ut homini specimen et exemplar edant peregrinationis per mundi\npartes instituendae, ne semper fumo et fimo larium insenesceret: Avibus aer sublunaris]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=237\nPages: 237,238\nsatis erudiunt, quod mystice accipiatur Phoenix ab Aegyptiis, prout mystice curatur.\"\nHoeschel's 1595 edition runs as follows: \"Haec enim in Aegyptum, cum tempus mortis\ninstat, quingent\u00e9simo demum anno regreditur: ubi si naturae debitum persolverit, magna\nsolennitate ac ritu funeratur. Quaecunque enim in caeteris sacris animantibus religiose\nobservant Aegyptii, ea et Phoenici tribui debent. Fertur siquidem Sole magis apud\nAegyptios gaudere, quam apud caeteras gentes.\" Hieroglyphica Horapollinis. Trans.\nDavid Hoeschel. Augustae Vindelicorum: n.p., 1595, p. 44. For an English translation of\nthis passage, see Boas, George. The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo. Princeton: Princeton\nUniversity Press, 1993, p. 61.\n173\nMaier, Symbola Aureae Mensae, p. 599: \"Pater enim filio dedit potestatem monstrandi\ntibi Phoenicem et ex ea petendam Medicinam.\"\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n229\nresurrection of the body at Judgment Day, \"just as the new phoenix arises]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=238\nPages: 238\nannua miracula, relatu dignissima, hie praeterire nequeo: Num certo quodam die Mensis\nMaii cadavera seu ossa sepultorum ab oriente sole usque in meridiem sensim ad\nsuperficiem usque tumbae elevantur ex sese, donee in conspectum eo concurrentium\nhominum devenerint, alicubi magis, alibi minus, tum a meridie versus occasum solis\neodem modo deprimuntur, donee omnia ad pristinum statum redierint: Quae si quis\nnon divina virtute, sed diabolica prorsus fieri affirmet, videat ne a superstitione\nnimium discedendo ad incredulitatem seu impietatem inclinet, Deique omnipotentiae\net liberrimae voluntati haec aut his similia miraculosa facta deneget ac subtrahat: Haec\nsi vera sunt, ut testantur multi, qui viderunt, suis scriptis publicatis, Resurrectionis\ncorporum humanorum evidentissimum exemplar exhibent, quemadmodum quoque Phoenicis novi ex ci\u00f1ere mortui resuscitatio.\" Tertullian also used the phoenix as a symbol for]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=240\nPages: 240,239\n179\nIbid.: \"Verum cum singula, quae contigerant in itinere, revolverem; me forte ab\ninquilinis quorumcunque locorum pessime deceptoria responsione circumventum conjectavi, ea ratione quod innata quadam ferocia omnes peregrinos fastidirent ac odissent:\nIdeoque quid circa primum, secundum ac tertium, aliaque ostia, ab illis responsum fuerit,\nbene consideravi, ex quibus quam plurima occurrerunt, quae dubium ante conceptum\naugerent potius, quam eximerent: Unde retorsum vestigia relegendo ab ultimo versus\nprimum regressus sum, ac tandem antequam ad primum redierim Mercurium inveni, in\naliquo ostiorum, ubi incolae visi essent antea negasse.\"\n177\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n231\nhe returns empty-handed to Europe. The phoenix has taken flight - just as a\ndove once flew beyond the grasp of Maier's mother's hands - and the oftrepeated warning of the alchemists has been realised: when the seeker thinks]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=145\nPages: 145\ndetractors, who bestow insults upon chemia and defame her with clamorous\nreviling, are divided by Maier into three different classes. The first are the\nfoolish, unlearned and ignorant mob, represented under the names of the Jay,\nMagpie, Raven, Goose and Swallow; at their head is the quarrelsome Crow,\nthe pre-eminent enemy of the Owl, denoting those \"ignoble and unrefined\ncensors\" who do not consider the true causes of things, but rather judge\nchemia prejudicially as a vain and frivolous pursuit.82 Thus the Crow argues\nbefore the court that his dispute with the Owl is an ancient one, and as he was\nborn of what he imagines to be a noble seed, that is enough reason for him to\nfollow his forefathers in attacking the Owl. Although he asks the court to\nexcuse his somewhat coarse mode of speech, the sentence of the Phoenix is\nemphatic:\nThe words that you have uttered, which fill the air with droning, do not help at all; if you]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=229\nPages: 229,230\nQuod quaeris, dicebant, nusquam invenies, ac quod invenies, non est, quod quaeris:\nDeceptus es ab aliis, qui te, quod non est, indagare impulerunt: Parce labori, sumptui et\ninquisitioni vocalis sine pondere bombi, qui velut Echo te Narcissum proprii ingenii\nadmiratorem sequitur et ad omnia vocata, prout videntur, apta respondet, ad rem vero,\nquam inquir\u00eds, ineptissima: Nonnulli eorum, haec est res abstrusior et intricatior, aiebant,\nquem ut tibi, tuisque studiis conveniat: Demus enim, esse eiusmodi Medicinam ex\nPhoenice petendam, at hominis vita per se admodum brevis perit, antequam i n d a g e t e . \"\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n221\nEven if truly I may not possess such great gifts, nevertheless I do not know by which\nbeckoning or command (surely divine, I believe) I am being swept into these troubles, at\nonce willing and unwilling, with the unwavering and preconceived hope that the sought]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=233\nPages: 233,234\ndefunctus, quamvis revera mortuus non sim, sed fama, ut semper, vegetus et superstes.\"\nThe phoenix and the return of the long-absent traveller\n225\nconcerning its whereabouts. 162 Having crossed to the mainland of Persia he\ntravels by road until he comes to a fork in the way, where there stands a\nstatue of Mercury; like the \"man of silver who becomes a man of gold\" in the\nVisions of Zosimos, his body is made of silver and his head is golden, and\nwith his right arm he gestures towards the 'earthly paradise' which Maier\nseeks.163 Setting forth in this direction, Maier reaches a broad river - on the\nother shore lies a magnificent garden replete with the sound of birds, exotic\nfragrances, evergreen trees and flowers such as amaranths, lilies, roses and\nhyacinths. The parallels between the peregrination of the Allegoria Bella and\nMaier's own biography are demonstrated here when Maier also tells us he\ncould see an organ in the Edenic garden driven by a water-wheel and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=225\nPages: 225\nquest in Europe (earth), travels through America (water) to Asia (air) and\nfinally arrives in the deserts of Africa (fire) - for \"air may not come from\nearth except by the mediation of water, and fire may not come from water\nexcept by the mediation of air.\"129 Whilst Andreae's Chymische Hochzeit is\nreplete with an intensely surreal imagery, Maier's allegory is permeated with\na veritable cornucopia of bizarre facts drawn from history, astronomy, botany\nand zoology, each of which possesses a microcosmic or macrocosmic\ncorrespondence to laboratory process.\nMaier begins his allegory with an explanation of the origins of his quest\nfor the phoenix. Having spent the greater part of his life in the study of\nrefined literature and the liberal arts, and having conversed with men of\ngreater wisdom than the common folk, his contemplation of the masses had\nled him to the conclusion that they prefer ostentation, carnality and lust to\n127\n128]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=231\nPages: 231\nthat province have only recently received the art of reading and writing from\nthe Spanish, and hold it in low esteem as \"the betrayal of deeds,\" Maier\nwonders whom he might question concerning the phoenix. For although there\nare birds of many species and diverse colours in Brazil, he knows that the\nphoenix is of a different nature and is not to be found amongst them. In any\ncase, he takes to wandering through the fragrant and multi-coloured forests,\nwhere the flowers and trees refresh his eyes and the \"natural music\" of the\nbirds frees his mind from troubles.152 There he discovers an extraordinary and\nmarvellously elegant apple, on the side of which is the following inscription:\n150 Maier, Septimana Philosophica, pp. 199-200: \"Magna fuit hominum illorum audacia\nprudentiae coniuncta, qui, relicta terra, quae humanae genti incolenda concessa est, aliud\nelementum, utpote vastum ingressi Oceanum, compactis lignis seu navibus, vitam suam,]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nreferred to by Obrist, the views of Jung and Eliade merely echo those of\nH\u00e9l\u00e8ne Metzger, who sought to distinguish alchemy from a mechanistic\nchemistry with reference to its supposed vitalistic and organic view of the\ncosmos - a distinction recently undermined by Newman's identification of a\ncorpuscularian tradition within medieval and early modern alchemy. 35\n3. The arguments of Principe and Newman\nIn a manner similar to Obrist, Principe and Newman reject both Jung's historiography and his theory of projection, although their criticisms focus on the\nalchemy of early modernity rather than that of the medieval period. In his\nfirst foray into the subject of the Jungian interpretation of alchemy and its\nreception, Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language? Eirenaeus Philalethes\nand Carl Jung (1996), Newman draws upon the work of the pseudonymous\nseventeenth century author Eirenaeus Philalethes to demonstrate that the\nsurreal symbols of seventeenth century laboratory alchemy are in fact]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=22\nPages: 22\nof the ilk of the theosopher Boehme. 54\nWhilst Jung's portrayal of medieval and antique alchemy as 'a great\ntimeless unit' is indeed problematic, there remains no justification for the\nassertion of Principe and Newman that Jung believed any alchemical text that\ncould be decoded into modern chemical language must thereby be excluded\nfrom the realms of a 'good' or 'genuine' alchemy.55 In light of this fact, the\ninsistence of these authors that the strange symbols utilised by the alchemists\nare \"the products of a skilled use of traditional techniques of deception\nthat extend back many centuries in the literature of alchemy\" in no way\ncontradicts the Jungian interpretation of alchemy. 56 Indeed, in the early\ntwentieth century it was widely understood that alchemical symbolism was\na secret vocabulary of Decknamen for chemical substances, and Jung cited\nthe definitive works of Ruska on this very matter approvingly. 57 Ruska\n52]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27\nlonger dealing with a doctrine that stands in the realms of science as it is\nknown today; rather, we are hearing the distant but distinct echoes of\nseventeenth century esotericism and a syncretic Protestant millennialism that\nonce found expression in the Rosicrucian phenomenon.\n4. The origins of Jung's alchemy and the work of Richard Noll\nRather than taking their cue from Jung's explicit claim that the 'historical\nnexus' of his work lies in the Freemasonic and Rosicrucian traditions,\nPrincipe and Newman follow Richard Noll in emphasising certain nineteenth\ncentury occultists as the predecessors of Jung's interpretation of alchemy (we\nmight more simply state 'the predecessors of Jung's alchemy', if we follow\nEco in characterising alchemy primarily as a hermeneutic tradition).74 On this\ncount Principe and Newman ascribe the origins of Jung's views to the\nEnglish occultist Arthur Edward Waite (1857-1942); the rather insubstantial]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=20\nPages: 20,21\nlunacy\" as the people I study.\nThe second error committed by Principe and Newman, and one that\nstands closer to the heart of their argument, is their fundamentally inaccurate portrayal of the Jungian theory of projection and its relation to\nthe unconscious. Thus in their most recent work, \"Some Problems with\nthe Historiography of Alchemy,\" Principe and Newman make a general\n44\nButterfield, Herbert. The Origins of Modern Science, 1300-1800. New York: MacMillan,\n1952, p. 98; cited in Principe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of\nAlchemy,\" p. 389.\n45\nNewman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" pp. 165, 188.\nIbid., p. 188.\nIbid., p. 161; Principe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of\nAlchemy,\" p. 401.\n46\n47\n48\nNewman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" p. 174.\n12\nJung and early modern alchemy\ndescription of Jung's approach to alchemy in which they portray the\nprojection of the symbols of 'individuation' onto the elements in the alembic]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=20\nPages: 20\nthey present in the work of Eirenaeus Philalethes or not. Furthermore, if we\nfollow Principe and Newman in counterposing a positively valued 'correct\nchemical analysis' 46 carried out by 'serious historians of alchemy' 47 with a\nnegatively valued 'analysis of unreason' 48 , we not only run the risk of\ncommitting a violence against the texts at hand, but we also perform a\ndisservice to contemporary scholarship on the subject of alchemy by\nexcluding certain voices (principally those of the psychoanalysts) from the\nrealms of valid discourse.\nThis initial criticism should serve to clarify the approach adopted by the\ncurrent author - and it should also be abundantly clear that the criticisms I\nwill shortly direct at the Jungian hermeneutic are not the work of a follower\nof Jung, lest I too should be accused of being \"tinctured with the same type of\nlunacy\" as the people I study.\nThe second error committed by Principe and Newman, and one that]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19\nThey are metaphors like the others, and nothing but metaphors, a fact which Arnold and the\nauthors who follow in his tradition explain extremely well, and which also applies to the\nillustrations of such treatises. Nothing allows us to speculate on the religiosity of an author\nwhen he uses a consciously rhetorical process. 4 3\n38\n39\n40\n41\n42\n43\nIbid.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 406:\n\"...the historians Barbara Obrist and Robert Halleux have presented detailed arguments\nagainst Jung's interpretation based upon their extensive reading of late medieval and\nRenaissance alchemical texts, indeed, some of the very same figurative texts that Jung\nfound most attractive.\"\nHalleux, Robert. Les Textes Alchimiques. Brepols: Turnhout, 1977, p. 55.\nIbid., pp. 140 ff.\nIbid., p. 142.\nObrist, Les D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie Alchimique, p. 21 : \"Dans les textes attribu\u00e9s \u00e0 Arnaud,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=23\nPages: 23\nthat concerned themselves with alchemy in the course of two thousand years, gave\ncodenames to the substances utilised in their secret craft, in order to protect the Art against\nthe ignorant masses. The names are taken in part from the characteristics of the bodies\nconcerned, so that quicksilver was known as the \"volatile slave,\" tin the \"gnasher,\" copper\n\"the green\" because of the colour of verdigris and the colour of its flame, or ammonia was\ngiven the names of various birds. Often they are connected with mystical and religious\nconceptions, as when the metals are defined with the names of the planets or their assigned\nGods. Sometimes the names are also arbitrarily invented. 58\nThe central flaw in Principe and Newmans' exposition of the theory of Decknamen as it relates to the Jungian hermeneutic lies in their use of a simplistic\neither-or logic - either the symbols of alchemy are products of the unconscious psyche, or they are secret code-names for chemical substances.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18,19\nof J. \u0392. Van Helmont and its Medieval Sources,\" Vivarium, Vol. 31, 1993, pp. 161-191.\nNewman, \"Decknamen or Pseudochemical Language?,\" pp. 160, 174.\nIbid., pp. 160-161.\n10\nJung and early modern alchemy\nwheat from the chaff and dispense with a number of methodological and\nfactual errors in their analyses from the outset. On this count, it must be\nstated that Halleux by no means holds \"an overtly anti-Jungian position.\" 38\nOn the contrary, in the passage cited by Newman (and referred to again by\nPrincipe and Newman in their most recent work on the matter 39 ) Halleux\npraises Jung's scrupulous adherence to the fruits of erudition concerning the\ndating and authorship of texts, and speaks of Jung's 'brilliant' exegesis of\ncertain particularly 'mystical' texts such as the Hellenistic Egyptian Visions\nof Zosimos,40 Indeed, Halleux draws directly from Jung's writings in his\nexposition of medieval alchemy; his only caveat is that put forward by]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=11\nPages: 11\n2\nJung and early modern alchemy\nAlthough Fai vre has dealt extensively with the subject of alchemy from\nthe perspective of the history of Western esotericism,2 the primary historical\nenquiry into the status of laboratory alchemy in early modernity continues\nto take place amongst historians of science. As a consequence the following\nstudy enters both these arenas of discourse. Clearly the arguments of\nPrincipe and Newman deal not only with questions of historiography and\nnomenclature, but concern the very nature of laboratory alchemy in the\nsixteenth and seventeenth centuries and its relation to the esoteric traditions.\nThese introductory pages constitute an extended theoretical preamble on this\ncurrent controversy, which will serve as a prelude for an analysis of the\nconcrete example of the alchemy of Count Michael Maier and his place in the\nhistory of early Rosicrucianism. In the course of that analysis it will be seen]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=25\nPages: 25,26\nused in this broader sense in the following pages.\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n17\nconfirm Obrist's contention that Jung's views have their origins in precisely\nthe type of 'alchemy' propagated by Maier. However, this fact mitigates\nagainst Obrist's statement that Jung is dealing with worldviews that are\nfundamentally 'other' when it comes to early modern alchemy. For all\nits very tangential relation to the course of modern psychology, Jung's\n'analytical psychology' clearly possesses the four fundamental characteristics\nof modern esotericism set forth by Faivre,66 i.e. a doctrine of correspondences\nand sympathies; 67 a belief in a living and revelatory Nature; 68 an emphasis on\nimagination as the means to revelation;69 and the practical objective of\npersonal 'transmutation' through such revelation.70 When we also consider\nJung's tendencies towards solar mysticism, 71 his rather unflattering\nentanglement with a mystical German nationalism,72 and his explicitly]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=14\nPages: 14\ncontemporary categories into a time in which such distinctions were alien.\nFurthermore, they argue that Jung's schema supports the false notion of a\ndiscontinuity in the evolution of chemistry, a disjuncture between a modern\nmechanistic science and an alchemy that is defined by its 'spiritual or psychic\ndimension'. 13\nPrincipe and Newman also see Jung as the chief progenitor of a tendency\n\"to downplay or eliminate any natural philosophical or 'scientific' content in\nalchemy\" 14 - and as we shall see, this has been a common criticism voiced by\nhistorians of science, be they partisans or foes of the Jungian approach.\nIndeed, in his review of Psychologie und Alchemie Pagel also stated that Jung\nwas \"prone to belittle the role of alchemy as a precursor to modern science\"\nby overemphasising the psychological aspect of the texts he studied.15\nNevertheless, he felt that Jung had revolutionised the academic study of\nalchemy:]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=17\nPages: 17,18\n29\n30\n31\n32\nIbid., pp. 80-81, 91.\nObrist, Barbara. Les D\u00e9buts de l'Imagerie\nSycomore, 1982, p. 14.\nIbid.,p. 16.\nIbid., p. 17.\nAlchimique\n(XIVe -XV\nsi\u00e8cles). Paris: Le\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n9\njustify the notion that laboratory workers of this time were engaged in a\nspiritual quest for selfhood. 33 Rather, she believes Jung projected the\nProtestant myth of the solitary, interior search into the Middle Ages, thus\nportraying the medieval alchemist as a lone pre-Reformer, and all alchemy as\nan enterprise opposed to the dogmas of the Church. These misconceptions of\nJung, Obrist argues, are inspired primarily by the esoteric literature of the\nseventeenth century and its perpetuation into the nineteenth and twentieth\ncenturies in the form of 'theosophy' - a literature in which mystical quests,\nreligion and alchemy are indeed bound together. 34 As for the second error\nreferred to by Obrist, the views of Jung and Eliade merely echo those of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=24\nPages: 24\n15\nsome credence to Jung's ideas,61 one need not adhere to the Jungian theory\nof a phylogenetically determined collective unconscious to see that Principe\nand Newmans' 'explanation' is no explanation at all. When Theobald de\nHoghelande describes \"the wonderful variety of figures that appear in\nthe course of the work... just as we sometimes imagine in the clouds or in the\nfire strange shapes of animals, reptiles or trees,\" there can be no doubt that\nthe 'arbitrary' symbols of alchemy are evoked from the psyche of the\nindividual alchemist as much as from the physical processes in the vessel.62\nThe psychoanalyst, of course, admits of no 'arbitrary invention' of the\npsyche - there is a hidden cause behind every product of consciousness, and\neach symbol thrown up by imaginative association betrays an unconscious\ncomplex of ideas. That the processes in the alchemical vessel were guided by\na recognised chemical logic in no way precludes the possibility that another]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=25\nPages: 25\nrevealing light on the place of Jung's own psychological theories in the\nhistory of ideas.\nThis point leads us back to the criticism voiced by Pagel, Dobbs, Halleux,\nObrist, Principe and Newman alike, namely the ahistorical nature of the\nJungian approach. By consciously eschewing an historical analysis of\nalchemical literature, and treating its symbolism as a mythology of timeless\norigin in the collective psyche, Jung failed to give an adequate account of the\ncultural matrix from which his own ideas emerged, and consequently failed\nto recognise the bewildering diversity of endeavours that - for better or worse\n- have been gathered together under the rubric of the term 'alchemy'. Thus\nwe would not expect alchemists such as the Paracelsian Gerhard Dorn or the\ntraditionalist Michael Maier to be motivated by greed for gold - as Jung\nsuggests in the passage we have cited - because their primary interest lay in\niatrochemia65 and the production of the Universal Medicine. Furthermore,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=11\nPages: 11\nreligious artefact, then he may be understood as only the latest purveyor of a\n'spiritual alchemy' with expressly modern characteristics.\n2. The reception of Jung amongst historians of alchemy\nWhilst the ideas of Principe and Newman have attained a certain popularity\nat this point in time, the reception of Jung and his psychoanalytic approach\namongst historians of alchemy has not always been negative. On the contrary,\nJung's alchemical studies earned the controversial and mystery-mongering\npsychologist his closest encounter with academic respectability. Since his\nextensive work on the subject in the 1930's, 40's and 50's, Jung's belief that\nalchemical symbolism expresses psychological processes of an essentially\nSee, for example, Faivre, Antoine. Access to Western Esotericism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994, passim.\u00b7, The Golden Fleece and Alchemy. Albany: State\nUniversity of New York Press, 1993; \"Mystische Alchemie und Geistige Hermeneutik.\"\nIn Correspondences]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=24\nPages: 24,23\nNewman explain them away simply by stating that the physical appearance\nof chemicals in the vessel is sometimes 'evocative'. 60 Whilst the latest\nneurophysiological research on the nature of religious experience has lent\nunerheblich abweicht. 'Quidam Philosophi nominaverunt aurum Chelidoniam, Karnech,\nGeldum' usw. Geldum erkl\u00e4rt Ruska als Chelidonium maius L.\" Jung, Mysterium\nConiunctionis, p. 252, n. 81. Throughout his works Jung cites Ruska and his translations\nas authoritative.\n58\n59\n60\nRuska, Julius and E. Wiedemann. \"Aichemistische Decknamen,\" Beitr\u00e4ge\nzur\nGeschichte der Naturwissenschaften,\nVol. 67, 1924, pp. 17-36; verdigris is a green or\ngreenish blue poisonous pigment resulting from the action of acetic acid on copper.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 406.\nIbid., p. 407.\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n15\nsome credence to Jung's ideas,61 one need not adhere to the Jungian theory]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=33\nPages: 33,34\nDecember, 1935, in Jung, Carl Gustav. Letters. Adler, Gerhard and Aniela Jaff\u00e9 (eds.).\nVol. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973, p. 206 ff.; and Martin, Luther H. \"A\nHistory of the Psychological Interpretation of Alchemy,\" Ambix, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1975,\npp. 10-20.\n'Secret Threads'\n25\npsychological knowledge at that time was still too primitive and still too much wrapped\nup in personalistic assumptions for the whole problem of alchemy to be understood\npsychologically. 1 0 1\nJung's intellectual hubris notwithstanding, it is clear that the confluence of\nalchemical and psychoanalytic doctrine to be found in the works of Silberer\nand Jung alike marks a qualitatively new phase in the history of alchemical\ninterpretation. However, if Silberer and Jung are to be evaluated from a\nbroader perspective in the history of ideas as the purveyors of a 'spiritual\nalchemy', as Principe and Newman suggest, then we must follow those]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27,28\n1990, pp. 18-20.\n75\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 402;\nNoll, Richard. The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung. New York: Random\nHouse, 1997, pp. 229-230.\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 388.\n76\nThe origins of Jung's alchemy\n19\nto engage in the blithe generalizations criticized in this chapter if they realized their dubious\norigins. 77\nWe shall soon contest the crypto-positivist notion that early modern\nalchemists merely built 'extended religious conceits' on purely 'chemical'\nprocesses, and the assertion of Principe and Newman that the 'yoking' of\nnatural magic and astrology to alchemy was \"consummated only during the\nfinal years of the ancien r\u00e9gime in France.\" 78 For now it will suffice to\nmention that, even if we accept the unsubstantiated theory of Waite's role in\nthe formation of Jung's views, the Englishman did not disregard laboratory]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=21\nPages: 21\ngoal of their Art; according to Jung's theory of projection, the alchemists\nwere by and large unaware of the course of their psychic life during\nlaboratory practice, and were conscious only of the very worldly goal of the\ntransmutation of metals. Thus Jung and his followers do not suggest the\nalchemists were indifferent to the chemical nature of the substances in their\nretort, as Principe and Newman expressly state.50 Rather, Jung argued that the\n'classical' alchemy he referred to was \"a chemical research into which there\nentered an admixture of unconscious psychic material by the way of\nprojection;\" and on this point it is pertinent to note that Principe and Newman\nmisrepresent Jung's declaration that the alchemists dealt \"not only with\nchemical experiments,\" giving instead \"not with chemical experiments as\nsuch,\"51 In Jung's view, only a minority of adepts through the centuries\ndemonstrated a conscious understanding of the 'interior' dimensions of their\nwork:]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/fu683LguFN3YAoxMVtDpWQ/Hereward-Til.pdf?pdfPage=21\nPages: 21,22\ndemonstrated a conscious understanding of the 'interior' dimensions of their\nwork:\nCertainly most of the alchemists handled their nigredo in the retort without knowing what it\nwas they were dealing with. But it is equally certain that adepts like Morienus, Dorn,\nMichael Maier, and others knew in their way what they were doing. It was this knowledge,\n49\n50\n51\nPrincipe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\" p. 402.\nIbid.\nJung, \"Psychologie und Alchemie,\" p. 282: \"Im alchemischen Opus handelt es sich zum\ngr\u00f6\u00dften Teil nicht nur um chemische Experimente allein, sondern auch um etwas wie\npsychische Vorg\u00e4nge, die in pseudochemischer Sprache ausgedr\u00fcckt werden\" (emphasis\nmine); Principe and Newman, \"Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\"\npp. 401-402: \"We are called upon to deal, not with chemical experimentations as such,\nbut with something resembling psychic processes expressed in pseudo-chemical\nlanguage.\"\nThe arguments of Principe and Newman\n13]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=222\nPages: 222\nagainst.\n34. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, 98.\n35. The former understanding is dominant for Principe and Newman, who use the phrase\nas shorthand for \u2018the \u201cspiritual\u201d interpretation of alchemy\u2019; Principe and Newman,\n\u2018Some Problems,\u2019 388. Other scholars instead describe certain contents of historical sources as spiritual alchemy. This distinction is not found in C\u0103lian, \u2018Alkimia\nOperativa and Alkimia Speculativa,\u2019 166, 174.\n36. Schleswig, Landesarchiv Schleswig-\u200bHolstein (LASH): Abt. 7, Nr. 2059:3, f. 2v counting\nfrom the title (no foliation); Robert Fludd, Clavis philosophiae et alchymiae Fluddanae\n(Frankfurt a.M.: Prostat apud Guilhelmum Fitzerum, 1633), 75, 83; Angelus\nSilesius, Cherubinischer Wandersmann: Kritische Ausgabe, ed. Louise Gn\u00e4dinger\n(Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000), bk. 1, no. 102; Bartholomaeus Sclei, Theosophische-\u200b\nSchrifften: Oder Eine Allgemeine und Geheime, jedoch Einf\u00e4ltige und Teutsche\nTHEOLOGIA, ed. [Friedrich Breckling] (Amsterdam: [Christoffel Cunradus\u2019 widow],]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27\neditor of Ambix notes \u2018the existence of a school of mystical alchemists whose\npurpose was self-\u200bregeneration.\u2019 With Boehme as an important early exponent, this \u2018tendency culminated in 1850\u2019 with Atwood\u2019s Suggestive Inquiry\ninto the Hermetic Mystery.59 Taylor\u2019s statement, it turns out, could hardly\nhave been more accurate yet has so far lacked the support of a comprehensive\npresentation. This led Principe and Newman to describe such claims of continuity regarding spiritual alchemy as mere \u2018conjecture\u2019 without \u2018clear historical evidence.\u201960 This book marshals that hitherto elusive evidence, much of it\nfound in obscure manuscript sources, and thus documents the continuity of\nspiritual alchemy that links the early-\u200bmodern to the modern era.\nWith broad brushstrokes, the story begins with an attempt to sketch the\nReformation-\u200bera developments that provided the necessary preconditions\nfor the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to take shape. Going beyond the usual]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=215\nPages: 215\nnot conducive to the careful analysis of sources in their particularity. Indeed,\nmost of what little serious scholarly work has been done on \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019\u2014\u200bas an umbrella term rather than as referring to the precise tradition\ninvestigated here\u2014\u200bhas inevitably tended to lump together, rather than split\napart, any evidence that could be presented to prop up a vague idea of \u2018spiritual alchemy.\u2019 Similarly, although some scholars have followed one leading\nmodern interpreter more closely than another, the same approach seems to\nundergird engagement with those who developed their own spiritual interpretations of alchemy. A similar tendency can be observed even in critics\nof such interpretations. In their seminal article \u2018Some Problems with the\nHistoriography of Alchemy,\u2019 Lawrence M. Principe and William R. Newman\nmake clear that there are important differences between, for instance, the\npsychologising approach of C. G. Jung and the vitalist emphasis of Mircea]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19,20\na key insight that cannot be passed over and that highlights the complexities\nIntroduction\n5\nof the historical record. To name but one famous example, Andreas Libavius\u2019\nvoluminous Alchemia of 1597 \u2018is usually and fairly described as the first\ntextbook of chemistry\u2019 or \u2018a landmark in chemical literature. \u201920 To avoid\nthe problem of a false dichotomy, Newman and Principe recommend that\nscholars use the archaic \u2018chymistry\u2019 as well as other, more specialised terms\nencountered in historical sources.21\nPrincipe and Newman further explore this issue in a crucial study titled\n\u2018Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy.\u2019 This landmark publication criticises \u2018a \u201cspiritual\u201d interpretation of alchemy,\u2019 which views \u2018alchemical adepts as possessors of vast esoteric knowledge and spiritual\nenlightenment.\u2019 Principe and Newman locate the historical origins of this\nview in \u2018nineteenth-\u200bcentury occultism,\u2019 among writers such as Atwood]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=221\nPages: 221\nR. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and\nthe Fate of Helmontian Chymistry\u2019 (review), Annals of Science 62 (2005): 406\u2013\u200b8; Anna\nMarie Roos, \u2018The Experimental Approach towards a Historiography of Alchemy\n(Reviewing L. M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy),\u2019 Studies in History and Philosophy\nof Biological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013): 787\u2013\u200b89. As a representative of the\nold historiography that views alchemy as inalienably occult, Vickers has been refuted\ntwice: William R. Newman, \u2018Brian Vickers on Alchemy and the Occult: A Response,\u2019\nPerspectives on Science 17 (2009): 482\u2013\u200b506; Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy,\n184\u2013\u200b91.\n24. Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy, 196\u2013\u200b97.\n25. For an account tracing the development of our modern notion of religion as a set of\nbeliefs and the ensuing conflict with science, see Peter Harrison, The Territories of\nScience and Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=20\nPages: 20\nview in \u2018nineteenth-\u200bcentury occultism,\u2019 among writers such as Atwood\nand Hitchcock. Projected back onto earlier alchemy, their interpretations\namount to anachronistic misrepresentations: Principe and Newman \u2018find\nno indication that the vast majority of alchemists were working on anything other than material substances toward material goals.\u201922 Instead of\nportraying alchemists as otherworldly initiates, the New Historiography\nthus places them in the company of miners, metallurgists, assayers, distillers,\npharmacists, and even balneologists, all of whom drew on chymical techniques to work with material substances toward many different practical,\nentrepreneurial, and medical ends. Taken together, the importance of these\ntwo essays cannot be overstated, as Principe and Newman made a cogent\ncase for a fresh start that has come to define the field for the past two decades.\nWhereas it seemed clear to earlier generations of researchers that alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=225\nPages: 225,226\namong whom spiritual alchemy thrived, are key: in contrast to Lazzarelli, Boehme\nsucceeded in forming something that might be called a school of early-\u200bmodern\nalchemy.\n56. 1 Corinthians 12:12\u2013\u200b27.\n57. Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England\n(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 2.\n58. Tara Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire\n(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 16. See also Bruce T. Moran, \u2018The\nAlchemist\u2019s Reality,\u2019 Halcyon 9 (1987): 133\u2013\u200b48.\n59. F. Sherwood Taylor, The Alchemists: Founders of Modern Chemistry (New York: Arno\nPress, 1974), 227\u2013\u200b28.\n60. Principe and Newman, \u2018Some Problems,\u2019 400.\nNotes\n211\nChapter 1\n1. Deutsches W\u00f6rterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, http://\u200b\nwoerterbuchnetz.de/\u200bDWB (Trier: Universit\u00e4t Trier, 1998 ff.), s.v. \u2018Wi(e)dergeb\u00e4ren,\u2019\n\u2018Wi(e)dergeb\u00e4rung,\u2019 and esp. \u2018Wi(e)dergeburt.\u2019 The locus classicus is John 3:1\u2013\u200b8.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=216\nPages: 216,215\npsychologising approach of C. G. Jung and the vitalist emphasis of Mircea\nEliade.6 Yet at a deeper level, Principe and Newman, as well as the advocates\nof Jung and Eliade, have considered the general similarity more important\nthan the subtle differences.7 As the academic study of esotericism continues\nto emancipate itself from its religionist heritage that traditionally sought to\nEpilogue\n201\nperceive a singular universal truth through history\u2019s thicket, it is the small\ndifferences that matter and that will help us move beyond the claim that \u2018all\nthe sages agree.\u20198\nThis book has focussed on one particular kind of \u2018spiritual alchemy,\u2019\na Boehmist variety whose potential existence writers and scholars have\nflagged for more than a century.9 For the first time, this book has gathered\nand presented comprehensive evidence for its continuity into the nineteenth]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=284\nPages: 284,286\nlearning; sometimes it appears with qualifiers such as \u2018almost\u2019 (paene) or \u2018nearly\u2019\n(fere).\n6. Principe and Newman, \u2018Some Problems,\u2019 401\u2013\u200b4, 408\u2013\u200b12.\n7. The development outlined here can already be observed to have taken place in the\nwork of Hereward Tilton, who has a background in Jungian psychoanalysis. In 2003\nhe still endorsed a very broad concept of spiritual alchemy with the aim of defending\nJung; by 2012 he drew attention to the existence of several different kinds of\nalchemies that might be subsumed under the umbrella term \u2018 \u201cspiritual\u201d alchemical\ntraditions\u2019: Tilton, The Quest for the Phoenix; Tilton, \u2018Alchymia Archetypica,\u2019 180.\n8. On religionism and the study of esotericism, see Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the\nAcademy, esp. 295\u2013\u200b314.\n9. Waite, Azoth, 60; Taylor, The Alchemists, 227\u2013\u200b28; Principe and Newman, \u2018Some\nProblems,\u2019 399\u2013\u200b400.\n10. Neugebauer, \u2018The Study of Wretched Subjects.\u2019\nWorks Cited\nManuscript and Archival Sources\nAmsterdam]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=292\nPages: 292\nCavallaro, Federico. \u2018The Alchemical Significance of John Dee\u2019s Monas Hieroglyphica.\u2019 In\nJohn Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in English Renaissance Thought. Edited by Stephen\nClucas, 159\u2013\u200b76. Dordrecht: Springer, 2006.\nChang, Kevin. \u2018Georg Ernst Stahl\u2019s Alchemical Publications: Anachronism, Reading\nMarket, and a Scientific Lineage Redefined.\u2019 In Principe, New Narratives, 23\u2013\u200b43.\nChevallier, Marjolaine. Pierre Poiret 1646\u2013\u200b\n1719: du protestantisme \u00e0 la mystique.\nGeneva: Labor et Fides, 1994.\n\u2018[Classified Advertisements].\u2019 Morning Post, no. 24,005 (16 November 1850): 8.\nClericuzio, Antonio. \u2018William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, Alchemy Tried\nin the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry\u2019 (review). Annals of\nScience 62 (2005): 406\u2013\u200b8.\nCochran, John. A Catalogue of Manuscripts, in Different Languages, on Theology; . . . Now\nSelling (for Ready Money) at the Prices Affixed. London, 1829.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=309\nPages: 309\nCentury Chymistry.\u2019 In Principe, New Narratives, 1\u2013\u200b22.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. The Secrets of Alchemy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. \u2018Transmuting Chymistry into Chemistry: Eighteenth-\u200bCentury\nChrysopoeia and Its Repudiation.\u2019 In Neighbours and Territories: The Evolving Identity\nof Chemistry. Edited by Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00f3n Bertomeu-\u200bS\u00e1nchez, Duncan Thorburn Burns, and\nBrigitte van Tiggelen, 21\u2013\u200b34. Leuven: M\u00e9mosciences, 2008.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M., and William R. Newman. \u2018Some Problems with the Historiography\nof Alchemy.\u2019 In Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe.\nEdited by William R. Newman and Anthony Grafton, 385\u2013\u200b431. Cambridge: MIT Press,\n2001.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M., and Andrew Weeks. \u2018Jacob Boehme\u2019s Divine Substance Salitter: Its\nNature, Origin, and Relationship to Seventeenth Century Scientific Theories.\u2019 British\nJournal for the History of Science 22 (1989): 53\u2013\u200b61.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=220\nPages: 220\nLaube, eds., Goldenes Wissen: Die Alchemie\u2014\u200b\nSubstanzen, Synthesen, Symbolik\n(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014), 67\u2013\u200b72, 99\u2013\u200b110, resp. Trepp summarises findings\nfirst presented in her earlier monograph: Anne-\u200bCharlott Trepp, Von der Gl\u00fcckseligkeit\nalles zu wissen: Die Erforschung der Natur als religi\u00f6se Praxis in der Fr\u00fchen Neuzeit\n(Frankfurt a.M.: Campus Verlag, 2009). Schott\u2019s essay reiterates Jungian positions\nwithout due consideration of the New Historiography.\n19. Newman and Principe, \u2018Alchemy vs. Chemistry,\u2019 34\u2013\u200b35. For the place of this essay in\ncurrent historiography, see Marcos Martin\u00f3n-\u200bTorres, \u2018Some Recent Developments in\nthe Historiography of Alchemy,\u2019 Ambix 58 (2011): 215\u2013\u200b37, on 220\u2013\u200b22. For an early\ncritical reaction, see e.g. Ferdinando Abbri, \u2018Alchemy and Chemistry: Chemical\nDiscourses in the Seventeenth Century,\u2019 Early Science and Medicine 5 (2000): 214\u2013\u200b26.\n20. E.g. A. J. Rocke, \u2018Agricola, Paracelsus, and \u201cChymia,\u201d \u2019 Ambix 32 (1985): 38\u2013\u200b45,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=305\nPages: 305,306\nand Carl Jung.\u2019 Revue d\u2019histoire des sciences 49 (1996): 159\u2013\u200b88.\nNewman, William R. Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature\u2019s\n\u2018Secret Fire.\u2019 Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019.\nNewman, William R. Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature.\nChicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.\nNewman, William R. The Summa Perfectionis of Pseudo-\u200bGeber: A Critical Edition,\nTranslation and Study. Leiden: Brill, 1991.\nNewman, William R., and Lawrence M. Principe. Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle,\nand the Fate of Helmontian Chemistry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.\nNewman, William R., and Lawrence M. Principe. \u2018Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The\nEtymological Origins of a Historiographic Mistake.\u2019 Early Science and Medicine 3\n(1998): 32\u2013\u200b65.\nWorks Cited\n291\nNitzschke, Bernd. \u2018Herbert Silberer\u2014\u200b\nLuftschiffer und Halluzinationsforscher\u2014\u200b\nStichworte zu seinem Leben und Werk.\u2019 In Aus dem Kreis um Sigmund Freud: Zu den]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=308\nPages: 308,309\nLibraries, 2017.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. \u2018Alchemy Restored.\u2019 Isis 102 (2011): 305\u2013\u200b12.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest.\nPrinceton: Princeton University Press, 1998.\nPrincipe, Lawrence. \u2018 \u201cChemical Translation\u201d and the Role of Impurities in\nAlchemy: Examples from Basil Valentine\u2019s Triumph-\u200bWagen.\u2019 Ambix 34 (1987): 21\u2013\u200b30.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. \u2018The Development of the Basil Valentine Corpus and\nBiography: Pseudepigraphic Corpora and Paracelsian Ideas.\u2019 Early Science and\nMedicine 24 (2019): 549\u2013\u200b72.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. \u2018The End of Alchemy? The Repudiation and Persistence of\nChrysopoeia at the Acad\u00e9mie Royale des Sciences in the Eighteenth Century.\u2019 In\nChemical Knowledge in the Early Modern World. Edited by Matthew D. Eddy, Seymour\n294\nWorks Cited\nH. Mauskopf, and William R. Newman, 96\u2013\u200b116. Chicago: University of Chicago\nPress, 2014.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M., ed. New Narratives in Eighteenth-\u200bCentury Chemistry: Contri\u00ad]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=22\nPages: 22\nportrayed as the risen Christ.31\nScholars have used a variety of terms, including \u2018spiritual alchemy,\u2019 to\ndraw attention to these conspicuous elements of alchemical literature.\nUnfortunately, the usefulness of these terms is at times exhausted in doing\njust that. The late literary scholar Joachim Telle, during his lifetime the outstanding expert on the manuscript record of German alchemy, frequently\nemployed the deliberately vague term \u2018theoalchemy\u2019 (Theoalchemie) to describe the mingling of alchemy with theology that could take place in any\nnumber of ways.32 Apart from its evocative, signalling power, this coinage is\nof very limited analytical value. More problematic still are terms that suggest\neasy binaries, such as \u2018exoteric alchemy\u2019 and \u2018esoteric alchemy\u2019 or \u2018material alchemy\u2019 and \u2018spiritual alchemy.\u201933 Principe rightly notes that such distinctions\ngo all the way back to the nineteenth century and basically amount to the old\ndichotomy of chemistry and alchemy.34]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=329\nPages: 329\nnew body through spiritual alchemy,\n54\u2013\u200b55, 61, 62\u2013\u200b63, 64, 75, 76\u2013\u200b77,\n79\u2013\u200b82, 137, 173\u2013\u200b74, 193\u2013\u200b94, 198\nNew Historiography of Alchemy, 4\u2013\u200b6,\n201\u2013\u200b2, 204\u2013\u200b5n.16\nNewman, William R.\n\u2018Alchemy vs. Chemistry,\u2019 4\u2013\u200b5\non continuity of spiritual alchemy, 12\nand New Historiography of\nAlchemy, 4\u2013\u200b6\n\u2018Some Problems with the\nHistoriography of Alchemy,\u2019 5, 200\u2013\u200b1\nNew Theosophic Revelations\n(Greaves), 161\u2013\u200b62\nNicodemus, 14\nnigredo (blackness) 81\u2013\u200b82, 104, 105\nassociation with Christ\u2019s temptation and\ndeath, 37, 58\nnumber of the beast (666), 34\u2013\u200b35,\n40\u2013\u200b42\nappearances in Bible, 40\u2013\u200b41\nassociation with Christ, 23\nin Azoth et Ignis, 20, 21\u2013\u200b23\nNummedal, Tara, 12\nObrist, Barbara, 4\noccultism, 5, 180, 189\u2013\u200b91, 192\nOccult Review, 156\nOculus sidereus (Franckenberg), 89\nOld, Walter Gorn, 156\nopus magnum (Great Work), 37,\n154, 160\nOsiander, Andreas, 16\u2013\u200b17, 24\nOverbeek, Johann, 136\u2013\u200b37\nOwen, Robert, 161\u2013\u200b62\npalingenesis, 26\u2013\u200b27, 42\npanacea, 118, 132\u2013\u200b33, 135, 139\nParacelsianism, 9, 14, 118, 133]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=73\nPages: 73,74\nM. Principe reproduced in recent years.61\nCompared to the later events of Christ\u2019s life, however, the appearance\nof angels was but a preparatory phenomenon. Christ\u2019s death on the cross\nheralded the beginning of nigredo, the black stage of the work associated with\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n59\ndecay and putrefaction: \u2018From this comes the great darkness in the philosophical work so that the matter becomes as black as a raven, . . . as can also\nbe seen in Christ, that the sun lost its splendour and a great darkness fell,\nagainst the ordinary course of nature.\u201962 When Christ rose again after forty\nhours, this corresponded to both spiritual and laboratory alchemy as well,\n\u2018as this happens in the philosophical work, in which a new life rises up from\ndeath, just as God in Christ wakes us up within him, if we die to egoity and\nwholly enter into him.\u201963 The philosophers\u2019 stone was formed but the work\nnot yet completed.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=23\nPages: 23\n\u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 as studied in this book has little to do with contemporary\nnotions of spirituality. Boaz Huss notes that spirituality is now frequently\ndefined \u2018in opposition to religion,\u2019 which contrasts with \u2018the early modern\nand modern perceptions of spirituality as a subcategory, or the essence of\nreligion.\u201937\nWhile some of the protagonists we shall encounter indeed viewed spiritual\nalchemy as defining for true Christianity, that is not the main point. Instead,\nthe term \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 highlights early-\u200bmodern understandings of spiritus. This term carried a bewildering array of meanings in vastly different\ncontexts, particularly medicine and theology, but also anthropology, cosmology, and, last but not least, alchemy.38 Intellectual historian D. P. Walker\nhas perceptively noted that, against this background, the word spiritus\ncould give rise to \u2018dangerous contaminations or confusions\u2019 that might \u2018lead]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=24\nPages: 24,25\nHermetic Christianity\u2019 from which all other heresies flowed.49\nBearing in mind the layers of meaning accruing around \u2018spirit\u2019 in the early-\u200b\nmodern world, I define the spiritual alchemy investigated here as the practical\npursuit of inward but real bodily transmutation. This transmutation amounted\nto the reversal of the Fall and its consequences; furthermore, it prepared the\nfaithful for the resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgement. This spiritual\nalchemy is thus closely connected to the idea of spiritual rebirth, which it\nhelped shape and by which it was shaped in turn.50 Apart from the fact that,\n10\nSpiritual Alchemy\nfrom Jacob Boehme onward, all the figures studied here drew on his theosophy, there are three key elements of this alchemy. First, there is a three-\u200bway\nlapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy between the philosophers\u2019 stone, Christ incarnate, and the believer who mystically identifies with Christ. This element]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=25\nPages: 25,26\ndevotional acts or mystical paths. By practising spiritual alchemy, the individual believer actively nourishes the new birth within by means of prayer,\npenitence, ascetic deeds, or other rituals, which may also be purely internal\nor contemplative.53 By pursuing these practices over a prolonged period of\ntime, spiritual alchemists attain higher stages in their quest for ever closer\nunion with the divine. Sometimes the language of mysticism, particularly\nthat of the three stages of purificatio, illuminatio, and unio, appears in these\ncontexts. These devotional acts or mystical paths are explicitly described in\nterms of manual operations, alchemical techniques, or stages of the great\nIntroduction\n11\nwork. In a way, then, spiritual alchemy is a peculiar form of Protestant mysticism. Contrary to a widespread perception, there is nothing that should\ncause us to view this term as self-\u200bcontradictory; in fact, mysticism had a rich]"]}

{"result":["[Pages 18:\nIntroduction\n3\nthroughout their treatises.7 Hitchcock\u2019s work became an important point\nof reference for the Viennese psychoanalyst Herbert Silberer, a longtime\nmember of Sigmund Freud\u2019s circle. He influentially linked alchemy to both\nmysticism and psychology in his 1914 book Probleme der Mystik und ihrer\nSymbolik (Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism).8\nIn the twentieth century, this second understanding shaped scholarship\non alchemy to a significant extent, in part because the first view discouraged\nactive engagement with the mysterious art. Romanian-\u200bborn historian of religion Mircea Eliade viewed alchemy as a \u2018spiritual\u2019 quest \u2018pursuing a goal similar or comparable to that of the major esoteric and \u201cmystical\u201d traditions.\u2019 He\nclearly stated that \u2018alchemists were not interested\u2014\u200bor only subsidiarily\u2014\u200bin\nthe scientific study of nature.\u20199 The Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung is probably\nthe most prominent exponent of a psychological conception of the royal art,\nand his work on alchemy informed scholarship for a considerable part of the\ntwentieth century. In fact, it provided the dominant paradigm for research\non the subject from the 1940s to the 1990s.10 In contrast to Eliade, Jung\nviewed the experimental study of nature as defining: he described an ideal\nor classical alchemy, \u2018in which the spirit of the alchemist really still wrestled\nwith the problems of matter, in which the inquisitive consciousness faced\nthe dark space of the unknown and believed that they recognised shapes and\nlaws therein, though these did not originate in the matter but in the soul.\u2019 In\ncontrast to simplified accounts, Jung clearly held that actual laboratory work\nprovided the basis for this to occur and lamented its neglect in the wake of\nJacob Boehme, who died in 1624.11 It is thus no coincidence that Boehme,\nthe theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz, plays a pivotal role in the story told in these pages.\nEven as he acknowledged the experimental side of alchemy and considered it foundational, Jung\u2014\u200bthe inventor of analytical psychology\u2014\u200bwas\nchiefly interested in alchemical imagery. He interpreted it as the projections\nof the unconscious. His 1946 contribution to Ambix, the leading journal for\nthe history of alchemy and chemistry, described the art of the philosophers\u2019\nstone as \u2018a real museum of projections.\u2019 Jung provocatively claimed that \u2018its\nhistory should never have been treated by chemists, for it offers an ideal\nhunting-\u200bground for the psychologists.\u201912 According to him, the approach\nto alchemy taken by chemists obscured much of its richness, which he as a\npsychologist was better able to appreciate and communicate. Jung\u2019s interpretation of alchemy was an attempt to understand its nigh-\u200bimpenetrable language and fascinating symbolism that was fresh and stimulating at its time. It\nplayed the important role of establishing that alchemy was worthy of serious\n\nPages 19:\n4\nSpiritual Alchemy\ninquiry rather than dismissal. Even pioneering historians such as Betty Jo\nTeeter Dobbs, who worked extensively on Isaac Newton\u2019s alchemy, initially\napproached the art through Jungian lenses.13 To this day, Jung\u2019s views inform\npopular portrayals and perceptions of alchemy and still continue to stimulate\ninterest in the subject.\nWhile mild criticism of Jung\u2019s ahistorical approach accompanied his\nreception in the historiography of alchemy from the start, only in 1982\ndid Swiss art historian Barbara Obrist call for its abolition and present a\nconvincing critique.14 According to her trenchant analysis, the very popularity of Jung\u2019s work had led to \u2018general confusion\u2019 due to an inflationary\nuse of the term \u2018alchemy\u2019 that saw it applied to all sorts of evocative art, including mythological depictions and the work of the famous Dutch artist\nHieronymus Bosch.15 If all intriguing imagery could be studied as alchemy,\nthe term risked losing any analytical value it possessed. Two historians\nof science, William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, have since\nexpanded on Obrist\u2019s criticism of Jung. Through a series of studies, they\nsuccessfully replaced Jung\u2019s approach with a new paradigm, known as the\nNew Historiography of Alchemy, and firmly integrated alchemy into the\nhistory of science.16 In particular, Newman and Principe reproduce alchemical processes experimentally by decoding arcane language and imagery, thus demonstrating an alternative, historical interpretation for what\nJung viewed as timeless \u2018psychic processes expressed in pseudochemical\nlanguage.\u201917 Among specialists working in an Anglophone context, the \u2018old\nhistoriography\u2019 is now definitely a thing of the past. Scholarly debates in\nother linguistic contexts have been struggling to keep up with the rapid\ndevelopments brought about through the New Historiography.18\nIn a classic article, \u2018Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of\na Historiographic Mistake,\u2019 published in 1998, Newman and Principe challenge a widespread dichotomy as based on faulty etymology. Chemistry traditionally represents \u2018the modern, scientific, and rational,\u2019 while alchemy is\nalternately viewed negatively as \u2018the archaic, irrational, and even consciously\nfraudulent\u2019 or idealised and romanticised as having a defining \u2018spiritual or\npsychic dimension. \u201919 Newman and Principe argue that both terms were employed synonymously prior to the late seventeenth century. Early-\u200bmodern\nauthors routinely used the term \u2018alchemy\u2019 to refer to what we would recognise as chemistry and \u2018chemistry\u2019 for what we deem quintessentially alchemical, for example the transmutation of metals. Establishing this discrepancy is\na key insight that cannot be passed over and that highlights the complexities\n\nPages 20:\nIntroduction\n5\nof the historical record. To name but one famous example, Andreas Libavius\u2019\nvoluminous Alchemia of 1597 \u2018is usually and fairly described as the first\ntextbook of chemistry\u2019 or \u2018a landmark in chemical literature. \u201920 To avoid\nthe problem of a false dichotomy, Newman and Principe recommend that\nscholars use the archaic \u2018chymistry\u2019 as well as other, more specialised terms\nencountered in historical sources.21\nPrincipe and Newman further explore this issue in a crucial study titled\n\u2018Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy.\u2019 This landmark publication criticises \u2018a \u201cspiritual\u201d interpretation of alchemy,\u2019 which views \u2018alchemical adepts as possessors of vast esoteric knowledge and spiritual\nenlightenment.\u2019 Principe and Newman locate the historical origins of this\nview in \u2018nineteenth-\u200bcentury occultism,\u2019 among writers such as Atwood\nand Hitchcock. Projected back onto earlier alchemy, their interpretations\namount to anachronistic misrepresentations: Principe and Newman \u2018find\nno indication that the vast majority of alchemists were working on anything other than material substances toward material goals.\u201922 Instead of\nportraying alchemists as otherworldly initiates, the New Historiography\nthus places them in the company of miners, metallurgists, assayers, distillers,\npharmacists, and even balneologists, all of whom drew on chymical techniques to work with material substances toward many different practical,\nentrepreneurial, and medical ends. Taken together, the importance of these\ntwo essays cannot be overstated, as Principe and Newman made a cogent\ncase for a fresh start that has come to define the field for the past two decades.\nWhereas it seemed clear to earlier generations of researchers that alchemy\nwas either an outright pseudoscience or primarily spiritual, religious, moral,\nor psychological, the New Historiography has led historians to see alchemy\nas predominantly scientific and experimental or, to use a more historic term,\nrelated to natural philosophy.\nNevertheless, there are also scholars who criticise the New Historiography\nfrom various perspectives.23 Though they all have different aims and angles,\nall of these critics agree that the New Historiography implies an overly restrictive view of its subject and downplays important aspects in favour of chemical\ncontent and experimental technique. This tendency can lead to an implicit\nportrayal of alchemy as a kind of proto-\u200bchemistry obscured by strange imagery and secrecy. Due to the very success of the New Historiography and its\napproach, there is the danger of a latent essentialism that could lead, and in\nsome cases alre ady has led, to an implicit view of alchemy as \u2018 \u201creally\u201d science\n(and not religion).\u2019 This is simply the antithesis of earlier views holding that\n\nPages 21:\n6\nSpiritual Alchemy\n\u2018alchemy may sometimes look like science, but it is really psychology or religion,\u2019 as Wouter J. Hanegraaff summarises them.24\nMy aim in this book is not to continue a long-\u200bstanding tug of war regarding\nthe essence of alchemy, which in effect, as Hanegraaff points out, goes back\nto the \u2018conflict thesis\u2019 of science and religion, formulated in the nineteenth\ncentury.25 In view of the changing faces of the philosophical art through history, it seems unlikely that either the \u2018alchemy is scientific\u2019 or the \u2018alchemy is\nreligious\u2019 team will ever succeed in pulling its opponents across the line. To\ntranscend this futile contest, we need to adopt the perspective of an impartial\nobserver and identify alchemy itself as part of the game: it is the rope. Even\nas the teams pull it toward the \u2018science\u2019 or \u2018religion\u2019 side, they both hold on to\nintegral, if different, parts of the same rope, which reaches across the entire\nplaying field. By its refusal to neatly fit either label, alchemy can actually call\ninto question science and religion as categories of analysis too often taken for\ngranted. This tendency is heightened further by narrowing down the subject\nto \u2018spiritual alchemy,\u2019 a contested term sometimes used to highlight the religious elements encountered within alchemical literature.\nSpiritual Alchemy\nBased on the advances of the New Historiography, the aim of this book is\nto study the religious aspects of alchemy seriously and rigorously.26 This\nentails a different approach than viewing alchemy as primarily religious,\nspiritual, moral, or psychological: one would simply take religious elements for granted. Yet it is a rather curious fact that, from the very oldest\nsurviving sources, we do encounter religious dimensions in alchemical\nsources. The alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis in Hellenised Egypt, for instance, was familiar with gnostic teachings that emphasised humans\u2019 need\nfor salvific knowledge to escape the prison of the mortal body and return\nto the divine. He interspersed his alchemical treatises with various dreams\nor visions. Based on the apocryphal Book of Enoch, Zosimos even held\nthat fallen angels had taught humankind the art of alchemy.27 From the\nbeginning, according to Pamela H. Smith, the literature of alchemy \u2018included a remarkable accretion of religious and gnostic concerns with the\nrelationship of matter and spirit.\u201928 Even in much later sources, this situation persists. In the fourteenth century, the Italian author Petrus Bonus\nwrote a treatise on alchemy titled Pretiosa margarita novella (Precious New\n\nPages 22:\nIntroduction\n7\nPearl), which contains a chapter arguing \u2018that this art is both natural and\ndivine.\u201929 The earliest known German work of alchemy, the Liber Trinitatis\n(The Book of the Trinity), composed in the 1410s, details extended analogies between Jesus Christ and the philosophers\u2019 stone.30 Though the text of\nthe work remains largely inaccessible, its cycle of images became part and\nparcel of later alchemical literature. The Rosarium philosophorum (Rosary\nof the Philosophers), first published in 1550, was an early and widely disseminated example of this reception. The alchemical process described\nin the Rosarium culminates with the philosophers\u2019 stone that is visually\nportrayed as the risen Christ.31\nScholars have used a variety of terms, including \u2018spiritual alchemy,\u2019 to\ndraw attention to these conspicuous elements of alchemical literature.\nUnfortunately, the usefulness of these terms is at times exhausted in doing\njust that. The late literary scholar Joachim Telle, during his lifetime the outstanding expert on the manuscript record of German alchemy, frequently\nemployed the deliberately vague term \u2018theoalchemy\u2019 (Theoalchemie) to describe the mingling of alchemy with theology that could take place in any\nnumber of ways.32 Apart from its evocative, signalling power, this coinage is\nof very limited analytical value. More problematic still are terms that suggest\neasy binaries, such as \u2018exoteric alchemy\u2019 and \u2018esoteric alchemy\u2019 or \u2018material alchemy\u2019 and \u2018spiritual alchemy.\u201933 Principe rightly notes that such distinctions\ngo all the way back to the nineteenth century and basically amount to the old\ndichotomy of chemistry and alchemy.34\nThe term I have chosen for the phenomenon scrutinised throughout this\nbook is not unproblematic. It has frequently been used to advance claims\nregarding the allegedly religious essence of alchemy. Moreover, a certain confusion surrounds \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019: it is used to refer both to scholarly (and\nnot-\u200bso-\u200bscholarly) approaches to alchemy and to actual content in historical\nsources.35 The problem here is not that either of these meanings\u2014\u200binterpretive\napproach versus historic ideas or practices\u2014\u200battached to the term \u2018spiritual\nalchemy\u2019 are wrong: actually, the interpretive approach to alchemy as something religious or spiritual has a very rich history of its own. It is, however,\nimperative to keep these two significations of spiritual alchemy apart. Only if\nwe reserve the term \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 for precisely circumscribed historical\nand textual phenomena can it serve as a useful category of analysis. Despite\nthe problems of \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 and the various alternatives scholars have\nproposed, I argue that there is no term better suited to the phenomenon\ninvestigated in this book.\n\nPages 23:\n8\nSpiritual Alchemy\nUnlike some of its alternatives, spiritual alchemy has a number of historic approximations. Here are examples that appear in sources dating from\naround 1600 to the mid-\u200beighteenth century: \u2018divine alchemy\u2019 (gottliche\nAlchimiam), \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 (alchymia spiritualis), \u2018spiritual chrysopoeia\u2019\n(geistliche Goldmachung), and \u2018mystical alchemy\u2019 (Alchymia Mystica); even\nEnglish \u2018Spiritual Chymistry\u2019 and German \u2018spiritual chymia\u2019 (geistliche\nChymie) or \u2018true spiritual chymia\u2019 appear.36 While the occurrence of \u2018mystical\u2019 and \u2018divine\u2019 signals an intriguing overlap with the religious domain,\n\u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 as studied in this book has little to do with contemporary\nnotions of spirituality. Boaz Huss notes that spirituality is now frequently\ndefined \u2018in opposition to religion,\u2019 which contrasts with \u2018the early modern\nand modern perceptions of spirituality as a subcategory, or the essence of\nreligion.\u201937\nWhile some of the protagonists we shall encounter indeed viewed spiritual\nalchemy as defining for true Christianity, that is not the main point. Instead,\nthe term \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 highlights early-\u200bmodern understandings of spiritus. This term carried a bewildering array of meanings in vastly different\ncontexts, particularly medicine and theology, but also anthropology, cosmology, and, last but not least, alchemy.38 Intellectual historian D. P. Walker\nhas perceptively noted that, against this background, the word spiritus\ncould give rise to \u2018dangerous contaminations or confusions\u2019 that might \u2018lead\ntowards religious unorthodoxies.\u201939 Spiritus vacillated between the divine\nand the physical, between medical and theological anthropology, between\nthe matter of heaven and the products of the alchemist\u2019s distillery. The interplay, interference, or even conflation of these various notions of spirit is\ncrucial but often remains implicit.\nTo gain an understanding of what this looked like in practice, we might\nbegin with the general medical understanding of spiritus. It was, writes\nKatharine Park, \u2018a subtle vapour or exhalation produced from blood and disseminated throughout the body,\u2019 serving as the soul\u2019s instrument to control\n\u2018all activity in the living body.\u201940 In a clear hierarchy, spirit thus mediated between the more noble soul and the inferior body. Credited with the recovery\nof Platonic philosophy for the early-\u200bmodern world, the Florentine physician, philosopher, and translator Marsilio Ficino extended this scheme to the\nmacrocosm and posited the spirit of the world (spiritus mundi) as a subtle\nmatter that mediated between the soul of the world (anima mundi) and its\nbody, the material world.41 Moreover, he identified the spiritus mundi as the\nquintessence and transmuting agent of alchemy. In so doing, Ficino inspired\n\nPages 24:\nIntroduction\n9\nmany alchemists to pursue the spiritus mundi for centuries to come.42 Partly\ndue to the Florentine philosopher, partly independently of him, the situation\ngets exceptionally tangled in alchemy. In a widely used collection of alchemical texts, for instance, the roles of spirit and soul are swapped, and we read\nthat \u2018spirit and body are one, through mediation of the soul.\u201943 Medical historian Marielene Putscher notes that this is not an isolated occurrence and that\nit is frequently difficult to assess \u2018whether soul or spirit is the medium that\nestablishes the connection to the body.\u201944\nFurthermore, in a theory popularised by medical iconoclast Theophrastus\nParacelsus Bombastus von Hohenheim and his followers, the three principles mercury, sulphur, and salt corresponded to spirit, soul, and body.45 In\nthis manner, alchemical Paracelsianism contributed to the spread of a trichotomous anthropology among religious dissenters in the late sixteenth\nand throughout the seventeenth century, particularly in German-\u200bspeaking\nLutheran contexts: it was in this intellectual, religious, and cultural environment that spiritual alchemy developed. On the trichotomous view, spirit\ncould refer to the divine spark, either preexistent within a human being and\nawaiting activation or implanted through rebirth.46 Rather than mediating\nbetween soul and body, the spirit could thus become the noblest component\nof the human being. This represented a notable departure from the dichotomous anthropology espoused by Aristotelian philosophy and orthodox\nLutheran theology. From the perspective of the latter, the crux was that this\nthird part of humans was not only immortal but divine: it was, quite literally, a part of God and would return to God after death.47 This view had\nfar-\u200breaching heterodox implications: sometimes the third component was\neffectively tied to an internalised Christus in nobis or participation in Christ\u2019s\nheavenly, ubiquitous body, doing away with the need for the outward rituals of baptism and the Eucharist.48 Indeed, in the late seventeenth century,\nLutheran heresy hunter Ehregott Daniel Colberg described \u2018the delusion\nof the three substantial parts of man\u2019 as the foundational error of \u2018Platonic-\u200b\nHermetic Christianity\u2019 from which all other heresies flowed.49\nBearing in mind the layers of meaning accruing around \u2018spirit\u2019 in the early-\u200b\nmodern world, I define the spiritual alchemy investigated here as the practical\npursuit of inward but real bodily transmutation. This transmutation amounted\nto the reversal of the Fall and its consequences; furthermore, it prepared the\nfaithful for the resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgement. This spiritual\nalchemy is thus closely connected to the idea of spiritual rebirth, which it\nhelped shape and by which it was shaped in turn.50 Apart from the fact that,\n\nPages 25:\n10\nSpiritual Alchemy\nfrom Jacob Boehme onward, all the figures studied here drew on his theosophy, there are three key elements of this alchemy. First, there is a three-\u200bway\nlapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy between the philosophers\u2019 stone, Christ incarnate, and the believer who mystically identifies with Christ. This element\nharks back to the more traditional lapis-\u200bChristus analogy but significantly\nexpands it by including the individual disciple. The mystical identification of\nChrist and the believer could be summed up in a single phrase: Christus in\nnobis, the notion that Christ dwells within his faithful who mystically relive\nhis life on a daily basis. In the seventeenth century, this phrase became popular in heterodox circles on the fringes of Lutheranism. Through the immediate access to the divine guaranteed by the divine logos within the individual\nbeliever, the implications of Christus in nobis effectively made the clergy, the\nchurch, and at times even the Bible unnecessary.51\nSecond, there is a physical process toward restoring the prelapsarian\nbody, characterised as subtle or spiritual, in preparation for life in Heaven.\nWith regard to the resurrection of the dead, the second element is fairly\namenable to Lutheran orthodoxy. The reformer Martin Luther himself\nhad praised alchemy as a visible demonstration of this article of faith, and\na court alchemist\u2019s obituary explicitly called it \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 (geistliche\nAlchymia) around 1660.52 Yet there are two important differences that concern timing and agency. In contrast to the delayed bodily transmutation at\nthe end of time, Boehme and his followers held that it began in the here and\nnow, albeit imperceptibly and in ways that cannot be measured with the tools\nof science. Furthermore, the orthodox understanding reserves agency solely\nfor God, in keeping with Luther\u2019s principle of sola gratia (by grace alone): on\nthis view, believers are passive matter in God\u2019s hands rather than spiritual\nadepts who participate actively in the cultivation of their resurrection bodies.\nThe issue of agency leads on directly to the third aspect, which is the practical pursuit of that process of spiritual rebirth and its bodiliness through\ndevotional acts or mystical paths. By practising spiritual alchemy, the individual believer actively nourishes the new birth within by means of prayer,\npenitence, ascetic deeds, or other rituals, which may also be purely internal\nor contemplative.53 By pursuing these practices over a prolonged period of\ntime, spiritual alchemists attain higher stages in their quest for ever closer\nunion with the divine. Sometimes the language of mysticism, particularly\nthat of the three stages of purificatio, illuminatio, and unio, appears in these\ncontexts. These devotional acts or mystical paths are explicitly described in\nterms of manual operations, alchemical techniques, or stages of the great\n\nPages 26:\nIntroduction\n11\nwork. In a way, then, spiritual alchemy is a peculiar form of Protestant mysticism. Contrary to a widespread perception, there is nothing that should\ncause us to view this term as self-\u200bcontradictory; in fact, mysticism had a rich\nand largely positive reception within early Protestantism.54 Yet the core three\nelements of spiritual alchemy do subtly depart from Lutheran orthodoxy by\ninternalising Christ, emphasising rebirth, and requiring individual agency,\nrespectively.\nI cannot possibly stress enough that, in the interaction of these aspects,\nspiritual alchemy ceases to be merely metaphorical. If I had to reduce this\nentire book to a single point it would be this: Boehme and his later disciples\nbelieved that actual bodily changes\u2014\u200balbeit not subject to the ordinary laws\nof physics or conventionally measurable\u2014\u200bwere taking place within them\nas they pursued the spiritual alchemy of rebirth and its processes.55 This is\nthe defining feature of spiritual alchemy proper, as opposed to any number\nof religious tropes, conceits, or metaphors one might uncover in alchemical literature. It is the reason that this book focuses on Boehme and ends\nwith Atwood rather than Hitchcock, whose moral interpretation of alchemy\nremained entirely allegorical. While we would tend to understand rebirth,\ndeification, or mystical union as non-\u200bphysical processes of religious transformation, that is not how Boehme and his followers viewed them. In other\nwords, even though spiritual alchemy did originate as a metaphor or conceit,\nit did not remain so. Instead, spiritual alchemy came to be viewed as literally\ndescribing the physical transfiguration of the human body through rebirth in\nthis life, culminating in resurrection at the Last Judgement.\nEven as it is challenging to transcend the hard-\u200band-\u200bfast distinctions between mind and matter, soul and body, that is precisely what we need to wrap\nour minds around. Otherwise, it remains impossible to understand spiritual\nalchemy, predicated on the early-\u200bmodern notion of spiritus. In important\nways, therefore, the spiritual alchemy of rebirth is the alchemy of spiritus\nas the subtle matter of the new birth, the kingdom of heaven, and Christ\u2019s\nhuman body turned heavenly. Through the spiritual alchemy of rebirth,\nbelievers could literally become members of Christ\u2019s body, as the Pauline\nmetaphor put it.56 Irrespective of what we might think of this nowadays,\nthe most methodologically sound way of approaching spiritual alchemy is\nthe suspension of disbelief. For the historical actors studied in this book, it\nwas real. Consequently, we have to also view it as real in precisely the same\nsense as the sun used to revolve around the earth, astrological influence determined the fate of people and nations, and (perhaps most appropriately)\n\nPages 27:\n12\nSpiritual Alchemy\nmany alchemists successfully transmuted lesser metals into gold and had\nwitnesses to tell the tale.\nFrom a historical perspective, it is a moot point to note that these views no\nlonger have a place in our current understanding of the world: borrowing a\nphrase coined by E. P. Thompson, historian of astrology Patrick Curry has\ndescribed this as \u2018the enormous condescension of posterity\u2019 that privileges\nwinners over losers among both historical actors and ideas.57 In her study\nAlchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire, Tara Nummedal makes\nthis point with particular clarity: \u2018whatever we think of alchemy today, it is\nessential to remember that many people accepted the basic principles of alchemy in early modern Europe, even the transmutation of metals, and could\npoint to religious and natural philosophical justification for their belief.\u2019 For\nall intents and purposes of historical inquiry, \u2018we must accept that, in the\neyes of early modern Europeans,\u2019 alchemists \u2018did indeed transmute metals.\u201958\nWhile there may have been comparatively few who gave credence to the\nbodily reality of spiritual alchemy, this circumstance does not diminish the\nargument.\nBased on the features just described, I establish that spiritual alchemy was\nshared, transmitted, or semi-\u200bindependently rediscovered from Boehme to\nAtwood. This book traces the continued existence of the spiritual alchemy\nof rebirth in heterodox and specifically Boehmist circles from around 1600\nto the early twentieth century. The basic claim of continuity from Boehme to\nAtwood argued here is not new. A particularly apt expression may be found\nin F. Sherwood Taylor\u2019s 1949 book The Alchemists, in which the founding\neditor of Ambix notes \u2018the existence of a school of mystical alchemists whose\npurpose was self-\u200bregeneration.\u2019 With Boehme as an important early exponent, this \u2018tendency culminated in 1850\u2019 with Atwood\u2019s Suggestive Inquiry\ninto the Hermetic Mystery.59 Taylor\u2019s statement, it turns out, could hardly\nhave been more accurate yet has so far lacked the support of a comprehensive\npresentation. This led Principe and Newman to describe such claims of continuity regarding spiritual alchemy as mere \u2018conjecture\u2019 without \u2018clear historical evidence.\u201960 This book marshals that hitherto elusive evidence, much of it\nfound in obscure manuscript sources, and thus documents the continuity of\nspiritual alchemy that links the early-\u200bmodern to the modern era.\nWith broad brushstrokes, the story begins with an attempt to sketch the\nReformation-\u200bera developments that provided the necessary preconditions\nfor the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to take shape. Going beyond the usual\nsuspects such as Paracelsus, I argue that pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian texts that\n\nPages 28:\nIntroduction\n13\nhave previously gone largely unnoticed played an important role in this\n(\u00adchapter 1). Early readers of these cryptic works included the chymist\nJohann Siebmacher and the astrologer Paul Nagel. It remains difficult to assess whether Boehme also encountered them directly, yet thanks to Nagel\nwe can be sure that pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy circulated in the theosopher\u2019s\nnetwork (\u00adchapter 2). In Boehme\u2019s mature writings, the spiritual alchemy of\nrebirth comes into its own (\u00adchapter 3). Among his first generation of disciples, it was particularly the Silesian mystic Abraham von Franckenberg who\nabsorbed and articulated the lessons of spiritual alchemy, presenting them\nas part and parcel of ancient wisdom shared by pious pagans, gnostics, and\nearly Christians (\u00adchapter 4). He then actively communicated these insights to\nhis spiritual and philosophical son, Georg Lorenz Seidenbecher (\u00adchapter 5).\nLater to become notorious as a millenarian, Seidenbecher befriended\nFriedrich Breckling, who eventually rediscovered Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy and added his own accents in the 1680s (\u00adchapter 6). He did so partly\nin unmarked additions to the writings of an obscure sixteenth-\u200bcentury author, Bartholomaeus Sclei (\u00adchapter 7). Subsequently, Dionysius Andreas\nFreher took the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to England after spending a formative decade in Holland. In London, he introduced it to an English audience through his manuscript works (\u00adchapter 8). Freher received a delayed\nreception in the nineteenth century. Christopher Walton, a collector of\nFreher manuscripts, and Thomas South, the father of Mary Anne Atwood,\ndiscussed their shared enthusiasm for Boehme\u2019s expatriate expositor in letters written around the same time South\u2019s daughter composed her Suggestive\nInquiry (\u00adchapter 9). Early readers correctly perceived the mystical thrust of\nthis sprawling treatise, and Atwood herself expressed her understanding of\nalchemy more succinctly in later years (\u00adchapter 10).\n\nPages 29:\n1\nThe Radical Reformation, Paracelsian\nNetworks, and Pseudo-\u200bWeigelian Alchemy\nWhereas most proponents of spiritual alchemy have tended towards viewing\nit as timeless, it actually originated in a very specific historical context. In an\nimportant sense, the alchemy of spiritual rebirth at the origins of born-\u200bagain\nChristianity was a quintessentially German affair. When talking about rebirth, most other European languages use the technical Latin term regeneratio\nor its vernacular derivates such as the French r\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9ration. In stark contrast,\nGerman features the graphic Wiedergeburt, which Christ discussed in the\nGospel of John.1 References to rebirth occur in the writings of late medieval\nGerman mystics, yet they only play a marginal role.2 Only during the late\nsixteenth century did Wiedergeburt really come into its own and emerge as\nsomething distinct from baptism. Around that time, the German-\u200bspeaking\nworld witnessed the confluence of two important currents, the older one of\nGerman mysticism from Meister Eckhart onwards and the more recent development of alchemical Paracelsianism.3 These currents found their melting\npot in underground networks, in which Paracelsian and potentially heterodox works circulated. The activities of such networks intensified towards\n1600. It was in this context that the abstract language of rebirth that had\nalready baffled the Pharisee Nicodemus became more tangible through recourse to the concrete phenomena of alchemy. Previously neglected pseudepigrapha attributed to the unconventional Lutheran theologian Valentin\nWeigel appear to be among the oldest sources in which this took place.\nReformation-\u200bEra Developments\nThe preconditions for spiritual rebirth emancipating itself from baptism arose\nduring the age of the Reformation, due to Paracelsus, Caspar Schwenckfeld\nvon Ossig, and Valentin Weigel, among others. Charles Webster has placed\nParacelsus, chiefly famous for his medical innovations, in the context of the\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0002\n\nPages 30:\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n15\nradical Reformation despite the fact that he remained nominally Catholic.4\nAccording to Paracelsus\u2019 baptismal theology, a simple ritual involving water\nand accompanied by prayer imparted to those baptised a new, immortal\nbody. This spiritual body of rebirth then had to be nourished through Christ\u2019s\nbody and blood in the Eucharist.5 Boehme was to take up these core ideas,\nyet several important differences separated him from Paracelsus. Generally,\nthere was a change in the state of alchemical theorising about the mineral\nworld. In the early sixteenth century, Paracelsus stood at the very beginning\nof a time during which there was a \u2018porous boundary between alchemy and\nthe world of mining,\u2019 exemplified by Petrus Kerzenmacher\u2019s Alchimi und\nBergwerck (Alchemy and Mining) of 1534. It is in this context of alchemists\u2019\nengagement with vernacular mining lore that a new understanding of the\nunderground mineral realm began to take shape, one that was marked by\n\u2018death, decay, and rebirth just like the earthly surface.\u20196 Such an animate conception of the mineral world led alchemists and others who engaged with\nminers to increasingly speak of the birth, death, and, occasionally, rebirth of\nmetals towards the late sixteenth century. In view of this trend, it becomes\nless of a coincidence that the spiritual alchemy of rebirth began to take shape\nin the 1590s.\nFor that to happen, two further important shifts had to occur, and these\nalso separate Paracelsus from later developments and Boehme in particular.\nFirst and foremost, Paracelsus himself hardly ever used the vocabulary of\nalchemy to describe his theology of the immortal body that was acquired\nthrough baptism. In fact, Urs Leo Gantenbein notes that \u2018the consistent use\nof alchemical terminology\u2019 is \u2018untypical for authentic Paracelsian theology,\u2019\nalthough on rare occasions Paracelsus did establish parallels between theology and transmutational alchemy.7 To put it another way, while many\ncomponents of the spiritual alchemy of rebirth were already in place in the\nwritings of Paracelsus, he did for the most part not yet construe them as\nalchemy. This is the reason why my account does not begin with the Swiss\nmedical reformer. The second major discrepancy between Paracelsus and\nBoehme is theological and concerns the changing relationship between baptism and rebirth. Originally and even in later orthodox Lutheran practice,\nthe terms were largely synonymous: sermons and obituaries habitually spoke\nof \u2018holy baptism and the bath of rebirth\u2019 (Widergeburt), effectively conflating\nthe two.8 By 1600, however, Anabaptism and spiritualism had brought about\n\u2018a dissociation of baptism and rebirth,\u2019 something I have described in more\ndetail elsewhere. Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and \u2018highlighted an\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=66\nPages: 66\nwritings very differently from his early ones: whereas to this day his fame\nchiefly rests upon Aurora, Boehme himself held a distinctly higher opinion\nof his mature works, \u2018which are much brighter, clearer, and more deeply\ngrounded.\u201918 These featured many learned terms he had picked up in the\ncourse of his reading, correspondence, and conversation, and those words\ntook on new and at times surprising meanings as he integrated them into\nhis works.\nThe Fall, Rebirth, and the Philosophers\u2019 Stone\nas the Holy Element and Christ\u2019s Body\nThroughout the theosopher\u2019s mature works that reflect increased exposure\nto heterodox and alchemical literature, he engaged more deeply with both\nalchemy and rebirth. In the process, spiritual alchemy ceased to be merely a\nplayful allegory and took on an independent reality within his theosophical\nunderstanding of the world. In so many words, Boehme even told his reader]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=26\nPages: 26\nthe defining feature of spiritual alchemy proper, as opposed to any number\nof religious tropes, conceits, or metaphors one might uncover in alchemical literature. It is the reason that this book focuses on Boehme and ends\nwith Atwood rather than Hitchcock, whose moral interpretation of alchemy\nremained entirely allegorical. While we would tend to understand rebirth,\ndeification, or mystical union as non-\u200bphysical processes of religious transformation, that is not how Boehme and his followers viewed them. In other\nwords, even though spiritual alchemy did originate as a metaphor or conceit,\nit did not remain so. Instead, spiritual alchemy came to be viewed as literally\ndescribing the physical transfiguration of the human body through rebirth in\nthis life, culminating in resurrection at the Last Judgement.\nEven as it is challenging to transcend the hard-\u200band-\u200bfast distinctions between mind and matter, soul and body, that is precisely what we need to wrap]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=212\nPages: 212,213\nor purely religious metaphor. Although spiritual alchemy undeniably originated in such rhetorical devices, it did not remain so but instead took on\nindependent reality. This was possible because it was grounded in Scripture\nand firmly embedded in an early-\u200bmodern cosmology infused by Lutheran\ntheology, specifically the doctrine of Christ\u2019s ubiquity. To a significant extent, this transition can be attributed to the notion of spiritus, a subtle matter\npervading the universe. Variously called the holy element, quintessence,\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0012\n198\nSpiritual Alchemy\nor ether, it defies the hard and fast modern distinction between spirit and\nmatter, whether we encounter it in the writings of Boehme or in the context\nof the Victorian vogue for Mesmerism.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=214\nPages: 214\nnearly total eclipse of chrysopoeia in the age of Enlightenment brought about\nchanged circumstances in which spiritual alchemy ceased to be an identifiable, cosmologically embedded article of faith with bodily consequences and\npractical repercussions, documented in certain historical sources. Instead,\nit could now potentially take on much greater significance and provide a general framework for the interpretation of alchemical literature altogether.\nYet spiritual alchemy, unmoored from its grounding in laboratory alchemy,\nquickly lost its internal cohesion and gave way to a proliferation of \u2018spiritual\nalchemies,\u2019 or rather, as A. E. Waite put it, numerous \u2018 \u201cspiritual hermeneutics\u201d of transmutation literature,\u2019 interpretive lenses applied to older works\non alchemy.4 That is not to say that, prior to the late nineteenth century, there\nwere no alternative conceptions or traditions competing with, or developing\nin parallel to, the Boehmist spiritual alchemy explored throughout this book.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=163\nPages: 163,164\nall the requisites are truely in the Artist found) is the very same, with the\nProcess of the Holy Spiritual Tincture, for the Soul of Man; attainable in the\nRegeneration.\u2019 Freher held that spiritual and laboratory alchemy were not\nonly analogical but in fact identical. Through this conflation he paved the\nway for Mary Anne South\u2019s approach to alchemical literature.\nPut simply, the transmutations of metals and of human souls share a\nsingle process, which \u2018in itself is very short.\u2019 This can be accounted for by\nthe fact that \u2018the Life of Man, and so of Mettals, as also of the whole Nature,\u2019\nis based on the \u20187. Properties.\u2019 When referring to these properties, Freher\nmeant Boehme\u2019s seven source spirits. These in turn derive from the seven\nplanets or metals, and Freher\u2019s use of the traditional symbols in his imagery\nDionysius Andreas Freher\n149\nemphasised this heritage. However, \u2018these 7. Properties are now under the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=216\nPages: 216\nbe debunked by the New Historiography of Alchemy. Instead, they become\nlegitimate topics for research not only for scholars working on esotericism\nbut also for historians engaging with alchemy from a variety of disciplinary\nangles.\nPut another way, if laboratory alchemy has now ceased to be a \u2018wretched\nsubject\u2019 and experienced a comprehensive rehabilitation among historians,\nthe time has come to extend the same rehabilitation to a host of divergent\nmodern conceptions of alchemy.10 These came to be detached from the\nlaboratory not least due to the successful afterlife of Boehmist spiritual alchemy inaugurated during the late nineteenth century. That is not to say,\nhowever, that these \u2018spiritual\u2019 or non-\u200blaboratory interpretations are potential\nalternatives to the New Historiography of Alchemy when it comes to historical\nresearch on the subject. By virtue of its very success, the New Historiography\nneed no longer be defensive regarding \u2018spiritual\u2019 interpretations of alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=53\nPages: 53\nwhich humanity laboured; only \u2018through a new [birth] and rebirth of the\nHoly Spirit\u2019 would believers be \u2018redeemed.\u2019 Literally rather than figuratively,\nChrist becomes one with born-\u200bagain believers, \u2018just as the philosophical\nstone unites itself with the imperfect metals through its tincture and is made\na perfect and indissoluble body with them.\u201936 In this manner, Siebmacher\ntransitioned from mystical identification with Christ to physical participation in his transmuted, spiritualised body.\nCompared to pseudo-\u200bWeigel, Siebmacher adopted a less aggressive stance\ntowards the doctrine of forensic justification: Christ\u2019s redemptive work\nis complete and believers \u2018are completely saved from all impurity,\u2019 yet they\ncannot enjoy the full benefits of \u2018his redeeming and wholly divine tincture\u2019\nwithout also embracing God\u2019s \u2018holy word, which is pure and purified, like\ngold and silver tried seven times in the earthen crucible,\u2019 one\u2019s saving faith]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=71\nPages: 71\nchurch for teaching a merely historical, literal faith, he took for granted the\nIncarnation of Christ as a historical event that made all the difference: only\nafter God had truly become human could humans truly become god. To\nBoehme, the Incarnation was of profound mystical significance precisely because it had taken place in history, thus providing the precondition for the\nrestoration of all that had been lost in the Fall. In Von der Menschwerdung\nJesu Christi (On the Incarnation of Jesus Christ), composed in 1620, Boehme\nintroduced the Incarnation as defying reason; it could only be grasped based\non divine revelation. At the same time, it had a very clear purpose: \u2018It was\nall about the salvation of fallen man, that He [God] would bring him back\ninto Paradise.\u201945 As the second Adam, Christ had to undo the Fall caused by\nthe first. Christ was only able to do so by fully becoming human, that is, by\nacquiring not only a human body but also a human soul from his mother,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=200\nPages: 200\nMary Anne Atwood\n185\nBoehme and his early-\u200bmodern followers, this was not the case for De Steiger\nand Atwood. Yet that is not to say that they thought little of the biblical accounts of Christ\u2019s life. In a turn not entirely alien to the theological tradition of spiritualism, they viewed the Gospels as true on a much deeper level\nthan mere history and hence described them as \u2018arch-\u200bhistory.\u201956 On this understanding, \u2018it is indeed folly to dispute concerning\u2019 the New Testament\u2019s\n\u2018letter, its historical or any other accuracy.\u201957 Consequently, Christ was the\n\u2018Archetypal Son,\u2019 \u2018the Lord and Archetype of all life and perfection\u2019 who\nhad to be emulated, as Atwood\u2019s own usage confirms.58 By following in the\nfootsteps of Jesus Christ, born-\u200bagain believers prepared their hearts to become the habitation of the indwelling divinity\u2014\u200bthe mystical incarnation of\nChrist within the believer. De Steiger put it in these terms: \u2018the son of man\u2019 (a]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=79\nPages: 79\nhim on the Last Day.\u201984 Boehme playfully described Mother Earth\u2019s releasing\nof the risen dead as another new birth. For him, being spiritually born again\nwas not a merely spiritual process: the reborn soul was tied to a new body\nthat provided the basis for physical resurrection. Consequently, the tincture had different effects on the new birth and on the old body: \u2018My own essence of the inner man is tinged and transmuted in this temporality, and my\noutward, mortal man is tinged with Christ\u2019s death to die.\u2019 In contrast to this\nspiritual body, \u2018the outward man\u2019s mystery, that is, the quintessence (f\u00fcnffte\nessentz) . . . will be tinged at the final deliverance and resurrection of the\ndead, which transmutation will take place on the Last Day.\u201985 Whereas many\nalchemists prided themselves on the instant results their tinctures could furnish, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy assumed a maximally delayed transmutation: it would only take place at the very end of time.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=166\nPages: 166\nSoul.\u201957 Consequently, Freher\u2019s chief concern was the transmutation taking\nplace within Eternal Nature, always with a view to spiritual rebirth but hardly\never to alchemical chrysopoeia. This had fundamental implications for\nFreher\u2019s understanding of alchemy: in the layered cosmology he espoused,\nthe material plane was a mere outgrowth of the spiritual plane. Just as it had\nbeen for Boehme, the visible world and its laboratory alchemy were but lesser\nreflections of the divine realm and spiritual alchemy. Due to Freher\u2019s almost\ncomplete lack of familiarity with alchemical literature and laboratory practice, this tendency was heightened further.\nWhen Adam fell into transgression, he also fell \u2018under the Dominion of\nthe 3. first Forms of Eternal Nature, divorced from their Eternal Light and\nLove.\u2019 Consequently, to restore Adam\u2019s prelapsarian state, God\u2014\u200bas a mastermind alchemist\u2014\u200b\u2018must then . . . bring forth such a Renovation and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=216\nPages: 216,217\nneed no longer be defensive regarding \u2018spiritual\u2019 interpretations of alchemy\nand can instead historicise them just as it previously historicised laboratory\nalchemy. If there was once a need to establish that these interpretations fell\nshort as attempts at historiography, it is simply no longer necessary to view\nthem as ill-\u200bfounded or perniciously misleading misunderstandings. In other\nwords, these different modern interpretations of alchemy can now be investigated as complex historical phenomena in their own right, whose specific\n202\nSpiritual Alchemy\ncontours are currently hardly discernible, due to a lack of rigorous studies.\nThis anticipated shift could be viewed as reflecting a much larger trend in the\nhistory of science that has recently seen it expand its scope to encompass the\nhumanities and even non-\u200bacademic knowledge. It is now possible to envision future studies fruitfully approaching other modern proponents of non-\u200b]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=169\nPages: 169,170\nor the individual process of rebirth. Elsewhere, he had been very explicit in\nthis regard: \u2018In all the Description of the Philosophical Work\u2019 contained in\nBoehme\u2019s Signatura rerum, \u2018both the Process of Christ through this World,\nDeath and Hell, and the Process of Man\u2019s Regeneration also is declared.\u201978\nIn fact, Freher even used the technical phrase \u2018the Incarnation of Christ\u2019 in\nthis latter sense, explaining on one occasion that it was \u2018not Consider\u2019d as\nthat particular History, happened so many Ages ago, which is not hereby\nUndervalued; but Consider\u2019d as that great perpetual Business, where every\nChristian Soul ought actually to be engaged in.\u2019 This was entirely in keeping\nwith the spiritualist heritage that chastised the orthodox clergy for teaching\na merely historical faith centred on past events. The incarnation of Christ\nDionysius Andreas Freher\n155\nin the believer dovetailed with Christus in nobis: \u2018he that hath Christ in him]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=66\nPages: 66,67\nunderstanding of the world. In so many words, Boehme even told his reader\nto take him literally when he spoke of the \u2018Process of Christ\u2019 and transmutation: \u2018we do not want to write anything parabolically but clear as day.\u201919 In\nfact, spiritual alchemy even became dominant, more real than laboratory alchemy, which was but a physical shadow of the divine alchemy of becoming\nand the spiritual alchemy of rebirth:\nAs the eternal birth [of the deity] is within itself, thus also is the process in\nthe restoration after the Fall and thus also is the process of the wise with\ntheir philosophers\u2019 stone: there is not a dot of difference between them, for\n52\nSpiritual Alchemy\neverything originated in the eternal birth, and everything must have its restoration in the same manner.20\nThe model of divine becoming also explains why Boehme held that\nalchemists hoping for success in the laboratory needed to be reborn: they\nneeded to live through the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to become proficient]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=210\nPages: 210,211\nand expressing my thoughts imperfectly.\u2019121 That may be true, yet it is sufficiently clear that the underlying notion was that of Christ\u2019s mystical incarnation within the believer.\nThe vital spirit tied the soul to the body, yet the problem was, in the words\nof the Apostle Paul as quoted in the Suggestive Inquiry: \u2018flesh and blood\ncannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.\u2019122 Therefore, this bond needed to\nbe severed, so that a reborn spirit and spiritual body fit for heaven could arise.\nA further definition spells out the consequence for the former body: \u2018we\nmust remember that Alchemy is Divine Chemistry, and the transmutation\n196\nSpiritual Alchemy\nof Life; and therefore that which is the medium between soul and body is\nchanged, and the soul freed from the chains of corporeity, and the body is left\nas a mere husk. These people put on their bodies as mere coats.\u2019123 The soul\nlinked spirit\u2014\u200bthe divine spark\u2014\u200band body, and it had to be released from its]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=72\nPages: 72\nbecame the true philosophers\u2019 stone, able to transmute human beings.\nCrucially, this understanding implied that Christ could not truly cause spiritual rebirth until he had wholly completed his life on earth. The Incarnation\nhad to happen within the temporal, terrestrial world: \u2018Now in this lies the\nphilosophers\u2019 stone, how the woman\u2019s seed tramples the head of the serpent;\nthis happens in spirit and in being, temporally and eternally.\u201951 Through\nChrist\u2019s victory over sin and death, he became the philosophers\u2019 stone; once\nit had been fixed within time during the Incarnation, it became available for\neternity in the second principle of light as the ubiquitous body and blood\nof Christ. This was what made rebirth possible as the mystical incarnation\nof Christ within the believer, which entailed physical participation in the\nsaviour\u2019s bodiliness.\nEven as Boehme took the historical Incarnation for granted, this other\nkind of incarnation was of much greater concern to him.52 The believer had]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=165\nPages: 165,166\nsubservient to this more sublime ambition.\nBoth Boehme and Freher viewed the physical world as a lesser reflection\nof the two invisible worlds of fire and light. On this understanding, alchemical transmutation reflected processes within what Boehme called \u2018Eternal\nNature,\u2019 a distinct plane also described as God\u2019s body, situated between the\ndeity and the material world and mediating between them through the seven\nforms or properties.53 On this plane, the \u20183. first Forms of Eternal Nature\u2019\n(Saturn, Mercury, and Mars) were associated with the principle of fire; these\nDionysius Andreas Freher\n151\nneeded to be transmuted into the forms linked to light (Luna, Jupiter, and\nVenus).54 In Freher\u2019s understanding, the change of the first, fiery principle\u2019s\nproperties into those tied to the second principle of light was the prototypical instance of transmutation. Even in the physical world, this did not entail that the fiery or dark properties ceased to exist, a notion that would not]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82,83\nto Boehme, spiritual rebirth reversed the effects of the Fall: it reversed the\nreverse transmutation, as it were. Although this process would only be completed on the Last Day, it was held to begin here and now, during the believer\u2019s\nlife on earth.\nWhile it is a challenge to grasp Boehme\u2019s shifting theosophy, he did tend\ntowards identifying the body of Christ with the holy element of Paradise\nand the second principle of love and light, as well as with the quintessence.\nAll of these\u2014\u200bChrist\u2019s body, holy element, and quintessence\u2014\u200bBoehme designated lapis philosophorum. For the theosopher, the spiritual body of the\nnew birth was Christ and the philosophers\u2019 stone at once\u2014\u200bnot figuratively\nand by way of analogy but literally and in reality. Going far beyond pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian alchemy in its ambitious scope, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy was\n68\nSpiritual Alchemy\nintricately connected not only to the daily experience of the believer, but]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=208\nPages: 208\nperish as branches separated from the parent stem.\u2019111 All of these profound\nseekers agreed on the crucial importance of literally and physically becoming\nmembers of Christ\u2019s body through rebirth. Indeed, \u2018St Pauls doctrine and\nthat of all the apostles\u2019 concerned not \u2018reincarnation\u2019 but \u2018resurrection by a\nnew body coordinated to the Divine Basis and archetype of all Truth,\u2019 Jesus\nChrist.112\nAccording to her, the Christian faith properly understood entailed not\nmerely moral but bodily transmutation. For Atwood this was not an evolution towards greater physical beauty, as Arthur Edward Waite had it, but a\nprocess of purifying and spiritualising the soul. In keeping with Boehme\u2019s\nviews on the close connection between rebirth and resurrection, \u2018the\nHermetic Art\u2019 established \u2018a nexus\u2019 on which God would ultimately act to effect such a transformation: \u2018divine wisdom knows how by crucifixion or differentiation of our Karma to prepare the way of redemption so that the \u201cbody]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=59\nPages: 59\nsinfulness altogether.65 Beyond enjoying perfect health in a mortal body,\nthe physically transfigured and reborn believer could already participate in\neternal life.\nIn a central passage redolent of pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian alchemy, Nagel\ndescribed the supernatural azoth not as a transmuting agent but as an instructive example. In effect, he recapitulated pseudo-\u200bWeigel\u2019s alchemical\nimitatio Christi:\nOur azoth teaches us . . . how one can attain this heavenly, surpassing, inexpressible treasure and how the new birth can be obtained; it must die\nand pass into incineration, if something new is to grow out of it: the grain,\nthe seed must be thrown into the earth, putrefy, and decay, if it is to grow\nforth beautifully and gloriously. In sum, it has to become an azoth, that is,\nthat God the Lord through Christ\u2014\u200bthe living word\u2014\u200bin his Holy Ghost\nbecomes all in all within us. Prime and ultimate matter have to come together and become one. The Lord must be azoth, that is, alpha and omega,]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 1 to page 33 out of a total of 337:\nPages 1:\n\nPages 2:\nSpiritual Alchemy\n\nPages 3:\nOX F O R D S T U D I E S I N W E S T E R N E S O T E R IC I SM\nSeries Editor\nHenrik Bogdan, University of Gothenburg\nEditorial Board\nJean-\u200bPierre Brach, \u00c9cole Pratique des Hautes \u00c9tudes\nCarole Cusack, University of Sydney\nChristine Ferguson, University of Stirling\nOlav Hammer, University of Southern Denmark\nWouter Hanegraaff, University of Amsterdam\nRonald Hutton, University of Bristol\nJeffrey Kripal, Rice University\nJames R. Lewis, University of Troms\u00f8\nMichael Stausberg, University of Bergen\nEgil Asprem, University of Stockholm\nDylan Burns, Freie Universit\u00e4t Berlin\nGordan Djurdjevic, Simon Fraser University\nPeter Forshaw, University of Amsterdam\nJesper Aa. Petersen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology\nRECYCLED LIVES\nA History of Reincarnation in Blavatsky\u2019s Theosophy\nJulie Chajes\nTHE ELOQUENT BLOOD\nThe Goddess Babalon and the Construction of\nFemininities in Western Esotericism\nManon Hedenborg White\nIMAGINING THE EAST\nThe Early Philosophical Society\nTim Rudb\u00f8g and Erik Sand\nINITIATING THE MILLENNIUM\nThe Avignon Society and Illuminism in Europe\nRobert Collis and Natalie Bayer\nGURDJIEFF\nMysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises\nJoseph Azize\nSPIRITUAL ALCHEMY\nFrom Jacob Boehme to Mary Anne Atwood\nMike A. Zuber\n\nPages 4:\nSpiritual Alchemy\nFrom Jacob Boehme to Mary Anne Atwood\nMIKE A. ZUBER\n1\n\nPages 5:\n3\nOxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers\nthe University\u2019s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education\nby publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University\nPress in the UK and certain other countries.\nPublished in the United States of America by Oxford University Press\n198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.\n\u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021\nAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in\na retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the\nprior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted\nby law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction\nrights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the\nabove should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the\naddress above.\nYou must not circulate this work in any other form\nand you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.\nCIP data is on file at the Library of Congress\nISBN 978\u2013\u200b0\u2013\u200b19\u2013\u200b007304\u2013\u200b6\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.001.0001\n1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2\nPrinted by Integrated Books International, United States of America\n\nPages 6:\nFor Lana\n\nPages 7:\n\nPages 8:\nContents\nList of Illustrations \b\nAcknowledgements \b\nConventions \b\nIntroduction \b\nix\nxi\nxiii\n1\n1.\t\u0007The Radical Reformation, Paracelsian Networks, and\nPseudo-\u200bWeigelian Alchemy \b\n14\n2.\t\u0007A Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer Read\nPseudo-\u200bWeigel \b\n30\n3.\t\u0007Jacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy of Rebirth \b\n48\n4.\t\u0007Abraham von Franckenberg and the Ancient Wisdom\nof Rebirth \b\n69\n5.\t\u0007Georg Lorenz Seidenbecher, Franckenberg\u2019s Spiritual and\nPhilosophical Son \b\n87\n6.\t\u0007Friedrich Breckling, the 1682 Boehme Edition, and Spiritual\nAlchemy \b\n106\n7.\t\u0007Collaboration, Counterfeit, and Calumny in Amsterdam \b\n125\n8.\t\u0007Dionysius Andreas Freher, Boehme\u2019s Apostle to the English \b\n142\n9.\t\u0007Mesmerists and Alchemists in Victorian London \b\n160\n10.\t\u0007Mary Anne Atwood and Her First Readers \b\n175\n197\nEpilogue \b\nNotes \b\nWorks Cited \b\nIndex \b\n203\n271\n305\n\nPages 9:\n\nPages 10:\nIllustrations\n1.1. Pseudo-\u200bWeigel, Azoth et Ignis, as copied by Paul Nagel. Karlsruhe, Badische\nLandesbibliothek: Ms. Allerheiligen 3, p. 397. \u00a9 BLB Karlsruhe, Digitale\nSammlungen.\n22\n2.1. Johann Siebmacher, Introduction hominis. The Hague, Koninklijke\nBibliotheek\u2014\u200bNational Library of the Netherlands: PH404 M315 (Ritman\nKerncollectie), title page. \u00a9 KB Beeldstudio.\n33\n5.1. Abraham von Franckenberg, S\u00e6phiriel. Zurich, Zentralbibliothek: Bibliothek\nOskar R. Schlag, SCH R 809, f. 12r. \u00a9 ZB Zurich, Digitalisierungszentrum.\n102\n6.1. Friedrich Breckling, undated autograph letter. The Hague, Koninklijke\nBibliotheek\u2014\u200bNational Library of the Netherlands: 72 E 14, unpaginated.\n\u00a9 KB Beeldstudio.\n117\n7.1. Bartholomaeus Sclei, Theosophische-\u200bSchrifften, frontispiece designed by\nMichael Andreae. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek\u2014\u200bNational Library of\nthe Netherlands: PH2762 (Ritman Kerncollectie). \u00a9 KB Beeldstudio.\n129\n10.1. Mary Anne South, autograph letter pasted into A Suggestive Inquiry into the\nHermetic Mystery. London, Wellcome Collection Library: EPB/\u200bB/\u200b49072,\nback flyleaf. \u00a9 Author.\n176\n10.2. Dionysius Andreas Freher, Jesus Immanuel [Fundamenta Mystica, vol. A],\nformerly owned by Alban Thomas and Mary Anne Atwood, vol. 2, title page.\nPrivate collection of S. Brown. \u00a9 Owner.\n190\n\nPages 11:\n\nPages 12:\nAcknowledgements\nA scholar inevitably incurs many debts while writing a book. I am very\ngrateful to the assistance of all those mentioned here and also to those I may\nhave inadvertently neglected to include. Special thanks to my supervisors\nand colleagues at the University of Amsterdam, the University of Oxford,\nand the University of Queensland, particularly Peter J. Forshaw, Wouter\nJ. Hanegraaff, Howard Hotson, Rob Iliffe, Peter Harrison, and\u2014\u200blast but by\nno means least\u2014\u200bLeigh Penman. My revisions greatly benefitted from the\nrigorous and collegial feedback practices at the University of Queensland\u2019s\nInstitute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Many read the book or\nparts of it at various stages of completion, including Jacqueline Borsje,\nChristine Ferguson, Olav Hammer, Ian Hesketh, Eric Jorink, Lucinda\nMartin, Cecilia Muratori, Guido Naschert, Lawrence Principe, Aren\nRoukema, and Vincent Roy-\u200bDi Piazza. I received important, indeed crucial,\npointers from Scott Brown, Carlos Gilly, and Frank van Lamoen. Others engaged with my ideas, responded to queries, supported my research, or taught\nme much: Bo Andersson, Rosalie Basten, G\u00fcnther Bonheim, Jos\u00e9 Bouman,\nHartmut Broszinski, Paul Dijstelberge, Marcel Elias, J. Christian Greer,\nYaniv Hagbi, Cis van Heertum, Ariel Hessayon, T\u00fcnde Beatrix Karnitscher,\nAndreas B. Kilcher, Martin Mulsow, Sonja Noll, Tara Nummedal, Julian\nPaulus, Horst Pfefferl, Rafa\u0142 Prinke, Joost R. Ritman, Esther Ritman, J. J\u00fcrgen\nSeidel, the late Joachim Telle, Andrew Weeks, and Matthias Wenzel. Among\nmy former students, I would like to thank Samuel Dooley, Jos\u00e9 Vieira Leit\u00e3o,\nDavid Sterkenburg, and Kateryna Zorya. Thanks also to many librarians\nand archivists across the world who competently and patiently facilitated\nmy quest for primary and secondary sources, foremost among them the late\nMonique Fasel of the University of Amsterdam\u2019s Special Collections. I gratefully acknowledge the funding I received from the Society for the History of\nAlchemy and Chemistry (New Scholars Award 2015) and the Fritz Thyssen\nFoundation, in collaboration with the Research Centre Gotha (Herzog Ernst\nScholarship 2015 and 2019). Despite all the help and feedback I received,\nI take sole blame for any remaining imperfections.\n\nPages 13:\n\nPages 14:\nConventions\nMost quotes are translated from the German. Only key expressions appear in\nthe original language, italicised and within parentheses, as opposed to other\ninterpolations placed within square brackets. Since unconventional spellings\nare to be expected, I have kept the use of [sic] to the absolute minimum. Most\nquotations from the Bible are mediated by historical sources, which I have\ntranslated accordingly with reference to various English translations. When\nquoting the Bible directly, I use the English Standard Version unless otherwise indicated. Libraries and archives holding manuscript sources or specific\nexemplars of printed books are given in full only upon first citation; afterwards they appear in abbreviated form.\nA special note concerns Jacob Boehme and his writings. Rather than\nquoting from the (reprinted) 1730 edition of Boehme\u2019s works, which has\nbeen uncritically accepted for too long, I quote the best text available. In\npractice, for texts preserved in autographs, I rely on Werner Buddecke\u2019s\nJacob B\u00f6hme: Die Urschriften (2 vols., 1963\u2013\u200b66), whose Aurora was recently reprinted alongside Andrew Weeks\u2019s 2013 translation. Otherwise,\nI use the earliest manuscript version or print edition to which I have had\naccess. When there is reason to believe that historical actors themselves\nused a specific edition, I follow their lead. As a concession to the status\nof the 1730 edition as textus receptus, I include the coordinates for the\ncorresponding passage according to it, giving an abbreviation for the\nwork, followed by chapter and paragraph or alternative indicators as\nappropriate. The following abbreviations are used to refer to Boehme\u2019s\nwritings:\nA\nAurora\nAS1\u2013\u200b2 Anti-\u200bStiefelius I\u2013\u200bII\nAT1\nApologia I. contra Balth.\nTilken\nC\nClavis\nCS\nChristosophia\nET\nEpistolae theosophicae\nIV\nMM\nPV\nSR\nTaP\nTP\nTV\nDe incarnatione verbi\nMysterium magnum\nPsychologia vera\nSignatura rerum\nTabula principiorum\nDe tribus principiis\nDe triplici vita\n\nPages 15:\n\nPages 16:\nIntroduction\nWhat was alchemy? Or what is alchemy? Whatever it might be, it is clearly\nnot a thing of the past alone or the exclusive preserve of historians. Instead,\nalchemy is something that continues to fascinate not only self-\u200bprofessed\ncontemporary alchemists but also scientists, artists, psychologists, and a variety of spiritual seekers. It also appeals to readers of popular fiction such\nas Paulo Coelho\u2019s 1988 novel The Alchemist or J. K. Rowling\u2019s series that\nbegan with Harry Potter and the Philosopher\u2019s Stone in 1997.1 Some might\nsay, and with good reason, that these are questions that cannot be answered,\npresuming as they do that it would be possible to provide a single definition that captures the meaning of \u2018alchemy\u2019 over the course of almost two\nmillennia. Yet throughout the past three centuries there have been three\ndominant attempts at answering these questions. In a nutshell, alchemy has\nbeen viewed as superstition and fraud, as religion and psychology, as science\nand natural philosophy. These answers closely reflect an underlying triad of\nhighly problematic reifications that have underpinned grand narratives of\nhumanity\u2019s history since the nineteenth century: magic, religion, and science.2 Despite the many problems of these categories to which scholars have\nbeen drawing attention for years, they continue to powerfully inform the way\nwe think about history, its long-\u200bterm trajectories, and our place within them\nas modern, rational, and secular individuals in an age dominated by science.\nThe very fact that such divergent answers to what alchemy was and is could\nbe taken to suggest that its complex history and that history\u2019s reception defy\nthese fundamental categories. By resisting a straightforward definition, alchemy unsettles the all-\u200btoo-\u200bneat triad of science, religion, and magic. Indeed,\nthe very term that appears in the title of this book, \u2018spiritual alchemy,\u2019 seems\nto undermine any attempt at classification: it hints at something that is neither fish nor fowl, neither science nor religion as they are commonly understood. In this introduction, I first explore three widespread views of alchemy\nand outline a new stance regarding the two more important ones, a strictly\nhistoricist perspective that affords us the privilege of not having to commit\nto either. Second, I define the subject of this book and clarify why \u2018spiritual\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0001\n\nPages 17:\n2\nSpiritual Alchemy\nalchemy\u2019 is the most appropriate term for it. The introduction concludes with\na brief outline of the book\u2019s chapters.\nCompeting Views of Alchemy\nThe three main views of alchemy just described continue to be defining for\nboth public perceptions of and scholarly debates on the art of the adepts.\nStarting in the 1720s, Enlightenment polemicists such as Bernard le Bovier\nde Fontenelle, spokesman of the Parisian Acad\u00e9mie des sciences, denounced\nthe art of the philosophers\u2019 stone\u2014\u200bthe fabled transmuting agent that would\nturn base metals into gold. He painted alchemy as utterly misguided and\nfraudulent, associated it with superstition and dishonesty, and contrasted it\nwith chemistry.3 Later proponents of this view classed alchemy as a \u2018pseudo-\u200b\nscience,\u2019 and until 2002 that was the category where the annual bibliography\nof Isis, the leading journal for the history of science, placed research on the\nsubject.4 This view would lead us to neglect alchemy as the worthless intellectual \u2018rubbish\u2019 produced by a superstitious past.5 In fact, engaging with it\nmight even harm our sanity: in an oft-\u200bquoted statement, Cambridge historian Herbert Butterfield famously pronounced that historians of alchemy\nseem to incur \u2018the wrath of God\u2019 and \u2018to become tinctured with the kind of lunacy they set out to describe.\u20196 While this attitude still occasionally surfaces,\nhistorians no longer take it seriously.\nFrom the middle of the nineteenth century, a considerably more flattering\nunderstanding of alchemy developed, one that viewed adepts as engaging not\nprimarily with material substances. Instead, the alchemists of old were allegedly concerned with the transmutation of their inner selves, a process that\nmight be construed in a religious, spiritual, psychological, or moral manner.\nIn 1850 Mary Anne South, who became better known as Mrs Atwood, anonymously published a sprawling work titled A Suggestive Inquiry into the\nHermetic Mystery. Engaging with the unconventional interests of her father,\nThomas South, she presented alchemy as similar but superior to Mesmerism\nas a means for attaining the ancient aims of mysticism. Independently and\nalmost simultaneously, the American major general Ethan Allen Hitchcock\npresented a moral interpretation. As he explained in 1855 and 1857, the\nphilosophers\u2019 stone stood for \u2018truth, goodness, moral perfection, the Di\u00ad\u00ad\nvine blessing\u2019: these were the goals that medieval alchemists, who were\nreally \u2018Reformers\u2019 and \u2018Protestants\u2019 avant la lettre, pursued and discussed\n\nPages 18:\nIntroduction\n3\nthroughout their treatises.7 Hitchcock\u2019s work became an important point\nof reference for the Viennese psychoanalyst Herbert Silberer, a longtime\nmember of Sigmund Freud\u2019s circle. He influentially linked alchemy to both\nmysticism and psychology in his 1914 book Probleme der Mystik und ihrer\nSymbolik (Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism).8\nIn the twentieth century, this second understanding shaped scholarship\non alchemy to a significant extent, in part because the first view discouraged\nactive engagement with the mysterious art. Romanian-\u200bborn historian of religion Mircea Eliade viewed alchemy as a \u2018spiritual\u2019 quest \u2018pursuing a goal similar or comparable to that of the major esoteric and \u201cmystical\u201d traditions.\u2019 He\nclearly stated that \u2018alchemists were not interested\u2014\u200bor only subsidiarily\u2014\u200bin\nthe scientific study of nature.\u20199 The Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung is probably\nthe most prominent exponent of a psychological conception of the royal art,\nand his work on alchemy informed scholarship for a considerable part of the\ntwentieth century. In fact, it provided the dominant paradigm for research\non the subject from the 1940s to the 1990s.10 In contrast to Eliade, Jung\nviewed the experimental study of nature as defining: he described an ideal\nor classical alchemy, \u2018in which the spirit of the alchemist really still wrestled\nwith the problems of matter, in which the inquisitive consciousness faced\nthe dark space of the unknown and believed that they recognised shapes and\nlaws therein, though these did not originate in the matter but in the soul.\u2019 In\ncontrast to simplified accounts, Jung clearly held that actual laboratory work\nprovided the basis for this to occur and lamented its neglect in the wake of\nJacob Boehme, who died in 1624.11 It is thus no coincidence that Boehme,\nthe theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz, plays a pivotal role in the story told in these pages.\nEven as he acknowledged the experimental side of alchemy and considered it foundational, Jung\u2014\u200bthe inventor of analytical psychology\u2014\u200bwas\nchiefly interested in alchemical imagery. He interpreted it as the projections\nof the unconscious. His 1946 contribution to Ambix, the leading journal for\nthe history of alchemy and chemistry, described the art of the philosophers\u2019\nstone as \u2018a real museum of projections.\u2019 Jung provocatively claimed that \u2018its\nhistory should never have been treated by chemists, for it offers an ideal\nhunting-\u200bground for the psychologists.\u201912 According to him, the approach\nto alchemy taken by chemists obscured much of its richness, which he as a\npsychologist was better able to appreciate and communicate. Jung\u2019s interpretation of alchemy was an attempt to understand its nigh-\u200bimpenetrable language and fascinating symbolism that was fresh and stimulating at its time. It\nplayed the important role of establishing that alchemy was worthy of serious\n\nPages 19:\n4\nSpiritual Alchemy\ninquiry rather than dismissal. Even pioneering historians such as Betty Jo\nTeeter Dobbs, who worked extensively on Isaac Newton\u2019s alchemy, initially\napproached the art through Jungian lenses.13 To this day, Jung\u2019s views inform\npopular portrayals and perceptions of alchemy and still continue to stimulate\ninterest in the subject.\nWhile mild criticism of Jung\u2019s ahistorical approach accompanied his\nreception in the historiography of alchemy from the start, only in 1982\ndid Swiss art historian Barbara Obrist call for its abolition and present a\nconvincing critique.14 According to her trenchant analysis, the very popularity of Jung\u2019s work had led to \u2018general confusion\u2019 due to an inflationary\nuse of the term \u2018alchemy\u2019 that saw it applied to all sorts of evocative art, including mythological depictions and the work of the famous Dutch artist\nHieronymus Bosch.15 If all intriguing imagery could be studied as alchemy,\nthe term risked losing any analytical value it possessed. Two historians\nof science, William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, have since\nexpanded on Obrist\u2019s criticism of Jung. Through a series of studies, they\nsuccessfully replaced Jung\u2019s approach with a new paradigm, known as the\nNew Historiography of Alchemy, and firmly integrated alchemy into the\nhistory of science.16 In particular, Newman and Principe reproduce alchemical processes experimentally by decoding arcane language and imagery, thus demonstrating an alternative, historical interpretation for what\nJung viewed as timeless \u2018psychic processes expressed in pseudochemical\nlanguage.\u201917 Among specialists working in an Anglophone context, the \u2018old\nhistoriography\u2019 is now definitely a thing of the past. Scholarly debates in\nother linguistic contexts have been struggling to keep up with the rapid\ndevelopments brought about through the New Historiography.18\nIn a classic article, \u2018Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of\na Historiographic Mistake,\u2019 published in 1998, Newman and Principe challenge a widespread dichotomy as based on faulty etymology. Chemistry traditionally represents \u2018the modern, scientific, and rational,\u2019 while alchemy is\nalternately viewed negatively as \u2018the archaic, irrational, and even consciously\nfraudulent\u2019 or idealised and romanticised as having a defining \u2018spiritual or\npsychic dimension. \u201919 Newman and Principe argue that both terms were employed synonymously prior to the late seventeenth century. Early-\u200bmodern\nauthors routinely used the term \u2018alchemy\u2019 to refer to what we would recognise as chemistry and \u2018chemistry\u2019 for what we deem quintessentially alchemical, for example the transmutation of metals. Establishing this discrepancy is\na key insight that cannot be passed over and that highlights the complexities\n\nPages 20:\nIntroduction\n5\nof the historical record. To name but one famous example, Andreas Libavius\u2019\nvoluminous Alchemia of 1597 \u2018is usually and fairly described as the first\ntextbook of chemistry\u2019 or \u2018a landmark in chemical literature. \u201920 To avoid\nthe problem of a false dichotomy, Newman and Principe recommend that\nscholars use the archaic \u2018chymistry\u2019 as well as other, more specialised terms\nencountered in historical sources.21\nPrincipe and Newman further explore this issue in a crucial study titled\n\u2018Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy.\u2019 This landmark publication criticises \u2018a \u201cspiritual\u201d interpretation of alchemy,\u2019 which views \u2018alchemical adepts as possessors of vast esoteric knowledge and spiritual\nenlightenment.\u2019 Principe and Newman locate the historical origins of this\nview in \u2018nineteenth-\u200bcentury occultism,\u2019 among writers such as Atwood\nand Hitchcock. Projected back onto earlier alchemy, their interpretations\namount to anachronistic misrepresentations: Principe and Newman \u2018find\nno indication that the vast majority of alchemists were working on anything other than material substances toward material goals.\u201922 Instead of\nportraying alchemists as otherworldly initiates, the New Historiography\nthus places them in the company of miners, metallurgists, assayers, distillers,\npharmacists, and even balneologists, all of whom drew on chymical techniques to work with material substances toward many different practical,\nentrepreneurial, and medical ends. Taken together, the importance of these\ntwo essays cannot be overstated, as Principe and Newman made a cogent\ncase for a fresh start that has come to define the field for the past two decades.\nWhereas it seemed clear to earlier generations of researchers that alchemy\nwas either an outright pseudoscience or primarily spiritual, religious, moral,\nor psychological, the New Historiography has led historians to see alchemy\nas predominantly scientific and experimental or, to use a more historic term,\nrelated to natural philosophy.\nNevertheless, there are also scholars who criticise the New Historiography\nfrom various perspectives.23 Though they all have different aims and angles,\nall of these critics agree that the New Historiography implies an overly restrictive view of its subject and downplays important aspects in favour of chemical\ncontent and experimental technique. This tendency can lead to an implicit\nportrayal of alchemy as a kind of proto-\u200bchemistry obscured by strange imagery and secrecy. Due to the very success of the New Historiography and its\napproach, there is the danger of a latent essentialism that could lead, and in\nsome cases alre ady has led, to an implicit view of alchemy as \u2018 \u201creally\u201d science\n(and not religion).\u2019 This is simply the antithesis of earlier views holding that\n\nPages 21:\n6\nSpiritual Alchemy\n\u2018alchemy may sometimes look like science, but it is really psychology or religion,\u2019 as Wouter J. Hanegraaff summarises them.24\nMy aim in this book is not to continue a long-\u200bstanding tug of war regarding\nthe essence of alchemy, which in effect, as Hanegraaff points out, goes back\nto the \u2018conflict thesis\u2019 of science and religion, formulated in the nineteenth\ncentury.25 In view of the changing faces of the philosophical art through history, it seems unlikely that either the \u2018alchemy is scientific\u2019 or the \u2018alchemy is\nreligious\u2019 team will ever succeed in pulling its opponents across the line. To\ntranscend this futile contest, we need to adopt the perspective of an impartial\nobserver and identify alchemy itself as part of the game: it is the rope. Even\nas the teams pull it toward the \u2018science\u2019 or \u2018religion\u2019 side, they both hold on to\nintegral, if different, parts of the same rope, which reaches across the entire\nplaying field. By its refusal to neatly fit either label, alchemy can actually call\ninto question science and religion as categories of analysis too often taken for\ngranted. This tendency is heightened further by narrowing down the subject\nto \u2018spiritual alchemy,\u2019 a contested term sometimes used to highlight the religious elements encountered within alchemical literature.\nSpiritual Alchemy\nBased on the advances of the New Historiography, the aim of this book is\nto study the religious aspects of alchemy seriously and rigorously.26 This\nentails a different approach than viewing alchemy as primarily religious,\nspiritual, moral, or psychological: one would simply take religious elements for granted. Yet it is a rather curious fact that, from the very oldest\nsurviving sources, we do encounter religious dimensions in alchemical\nsources. The alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis in Hellenised Egypt, for instance, was familiar with gnostic teachings that emphasised humans\u2019 need\nfor salvific knowledge to escape the prison of the mortal body and return\nto the divine. He interspersed his alchemical treatises with various dreams\nor visions. Based on the apocryphal Book of Enoch, Zosimos even held\nthat fallen angels had taught humankind the art of alchemy.27 From the\nbeginning, according to Pamela H. Smith, the literature of alchemy \u2018included a remarkable accretion of religious and gnostic concerns with the\nrelationship of matter and spirit.\u201928 Even in much later sources, this situation persists. In the fourteenth century, the Italian author Petrus Bonus\nwrote a treatise on alchemy titled Pretiosa margarita novella (Precious New\n\nPages 22:\nIntroduction\n7\nPearl), which contains a chapter arguing \u2018that this art is both natural and\ndivine.\u201929 The earliest known German work of alchemy, the Liber Trinitatis\n(The Book of the Trinity), composed in the 1410s, details extended analogies between Jesus Christ and the philosophers\u2019 stone.30 Though the text of\nthe work remains largely inaccessible, its cycle of images became part and\nparcel of later alchemical literature. The Rosarium philosophorum (Rosary\nof the Philosophers), first published in 1550, was an early and widely disseminated example of this reception. The alchemical process described\nin the Rosarium culminates with the philosophers\u2019 stone that is visually\nportrayed as the risen Christ.31\nScholars have used a variety of terms, including \u2018spiritual alchemy,\u2019 to\ndraw attention to these conspicuous elements of alchemical literature.\nUnfortunately, the usefulness of these terms is at times exhausted in doing\njust that. The late literary scholar Joachim Telle, during his lifetime the outstanding expert on the manuscript record of German alchemy, frequently\nemployed the deliberately vague term \u2018theoalchemy\u2019 (Theoalchemie) to describe the mingling of alchemy with theology that could take place in any\nnumber of ways.32 Apart from its evocative, signalling power, this coinage is\nof very limited analytical value. More problematic still are terms that suggest\neasy binaries, such as \u2018exoteric alchemy\u2019 and \u2018esoteric alchemy\u2019 or \u2018material alchemy\u2019 and \u2018spiritual alchemy.\u201933 Principe rightly notes that such distinctions\ngo all the way back to the nineteenth century and basically amount to the old\ndichotomy of chemistry and alchemy.34\nThe term I have chosen for the phenomenon scrutinised throughout this\nbook is not unproblematic. It has frequently been used to advance claims\nregarding the allegedly religious essence of alchemy. Moreover, a certain confusion surrounds \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019: it is used to refer both to scholarly (and\nnot-\u200bso-\u200bscholarly) approaches to alchemy and to actual content in historical\nsources.35 The problem here is not that either of these meanings\u2014\u200binterpretive\napproach versus historic ideas or practices\u2014\u200battached to the term \u2018spiritual\nalchemy\u2019 are wrong: actually, the interpretive approach to alchemy as something religious or spiritual has a very rich history of its own. It is, however,\nimperative to keep these two significations of spiritual alchemy apart. Only if\nwe reserve the term \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 for precisely circumscribed historical\nand textual phenomena can it serve as a useful category of analysis. Despite\nthe problems of \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 and the various alternatives scholars have\nproposed, I argue that there is no term better suited to the phenomenon\ninvestigated in this book.\n\nPages 23:\n8\nSpiritual Alchemy\nUnlike some of its alternatives, spiritual alchemy has a number of historic approximations. Here are examples that appear in sources dating from\naround 1600 to the mid-\u200beighteenth century: \u2018divine alchemy\u2019 (gottliche\nAlchimiam), \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 (alchymia spiritualis), \u2018spiritual chrysopoeia\u2019\n(geistliche Goldmachung), and \u2018mystical alchemy\u2019 (Alchymia Mystica); even\nEnglish \u2018Spiritual Chymistry\u2019 and German \u2018spiritual chymia\u2019 (geistliche\nChymie) or \u2018true spiritual chymia\u2019 appear.36 While the occurrence of \u2018mystical\u2019 and \u2018divine\u2019 signals an intriguing overlap with the religious domain,\n\u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 as studied in this book has little to do with contemporary\nnotions of spirituality. Boaz Huss notes that spirituality is now frequently\ndefined \u2018in opposition to religion,\u2019 which contrasts with \u2018the early modern\nand modern perceptions of spirituality as a subcategory, or the essence of\nreligion.\u201937\nWhile some of the protagonists we shall encounter indeed viewed spiritual\nalchemy as defining for true Christianity, that is not the main point. Instead,\nthe term \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 highlights early-\u200bmodern understandings of spiritus. This term carried a bewildering array of meanings in vastly different\ncontexts, particularly medicine and theology, but also anthropology, cosmology, and, last but not least, alchemy.38 Intellectual historian D. P. Walker\nhas perceptively noted that, against this background, the word spiritus\ncould give rise to \u2018dangerous contaminations or confusions\u2019 that might \u2018lead\ntowards religious unorthodoxies.\u201939 Spiritus vacillated between the divine\nand the physical, between medical and theological anthropology, between\nthe matter of heaven and the products of the alchemist\u2019s distillery. The interplay, interference, or even conflation of these various notions of spirit is\ncrucial but often remains implicit.\nTo gain an understanding of what this looked like in practice, we might\nbegin with the general medical understanding of spiritus. It was, writes\nKatharine Park, \u2018a subtle vapour or exhalation produced from blood and disseminated throughout the body,\u2019 serving as the soul\u2019s instrument to control\n\u2018all activity in the living body.\u201940 In a clear hierarchy, spirit thus mediated between the more noble soul and the inferior body. Credited with the recovery\nof Platonic philosophy for the early-\u200bmodern world, the Florentine physician, philosopher, and translator Marsilio Ficino extended this scheme to the\nmacrocosm and posited the spirit of the world (spiritus mundi) as a subtle\nmatter that mediated between the soul of the world (anima mundi) and its\nbody, the material world.41 Moreover, he identified the spiritus mundi as the\nquintessence and transmuting agent of alchemy. In so doing, Ficino inspired\n\nPages 24:\nIntroduction\n9\nmany alchemists to pursue the spiritus mundi for centuries to come.42 Partly\ndue to the Florentine philosopher, partly independently of him, the situation\ngets exceptionally tangled in alchemy. In a widely used collection of alchemical texts, for instance, the roles of spirit and soul are swapped, and we read\nthat \u2018spirit and body are one, through mediation of the soul.\u201943 Medical historian Marielene Putscher notes that this is not an isolated occurrence and that\nit is frequently difficult to assess \u2018whether soul or spirit is the medium that\nestablishes the connection to the body.\u201944\nFurthermore, in a theory popularised by medical iconoclast Theophrastus\nParacelsus Bombastus von Hohenheim and his followers, the three principles mercury, sulphur, and salt corresponded to spirit, soul, and body.45 In\nthis manner, alchemical Paracelsianism contributed to the spread of a trichotomous anthropology among religious dissenters in the late sixteenth\nand throughout the seventeenth century, particularly in German-\u200bspeaking\nLutheran contexts: it was in this intellectual, religious, and cultural environment that spiritual alchemy developed. On the trichotomous view, spirit\ncould refer to the divine spark, either preexistent within a human being and\nawaiting activation or implanted through rebirth.46 Rather than mediating\nbetween soul and body, the spirit could thus become the noblest component\nof the human being. This represented a notable departure from the dichotomous anthropology espoused by Aristotelian philosophy and orthodox\nLutheran theology. From the perspective of the latter, the crux was that this\nthird part of humans was not only immortal but divine: it was, quite literally, a part of God and would return to God after death.47 This view had\nfar-\u200breaching heterodox implications: sometimes the third component was\neffectively tied to an internalised Christus in nobis or participation in Christ\u2019s\nheavenly, ubiquitous body, doing away with the need for the outward rituals of baptism and the Eucharist.48 Indeed, in the late seventeenth century,\nLutheran heresy hunter Ehregott Daniel Colberg described \u2018the delusion\nof the three substantial parts of man\u2019 as the foundational error of \u2018Platonic-\u200b\nHermetic Christianity\u2019 from which all other heresies flowed.49\nBearing in mind the layers of meaning accruing around \u2018spirit\u2019 in the early-\u200b\nmodern world, I define the spiritual alchemy investigated here as the practical\npursuit of inward but real bodily transmutation. This transmutation amounted\nto the reversal of the Fall and its consequences; furthermore, it prepared the\nfaithful for the resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgement. This spiritual\nalchemy is thus closely connected to the idea of spiritual rebirth, which it\nhelped shape and by which it was shaped in turn.50 Apart from the fact that,\n\nPages 25:\n10\nSpiritual Alchemy\nfrom Jacob Boehme onward, all the figures studied here drew on his theosophy, there are three key elements of this alchemy. First, there is a three-\u200bway\nlapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy between the philosophers\u2019 stone, Christ incarnate, and the believer who mystically identifies with Christ. This element\nharks back to the more traditional lapis-\u200bChristus analogy but significantly\nexpands it by including the individual disciple. The mystical identification of\nChrist and the believer could be summed up in a single phrase: Christus in\nnobis, the notion that Christ dwells within his faithful who mystically relive\nhis life on a daily basis. In the seventeenth century, this phrase became popular in heterodox circles on the fringes of Lutheranism. Through the immediate access to the divine guaranteed by the divine logos within the individual\nbeliever, the implications of Christus in nobis effectively made the clergy, the\nchurch, and at times even the Bible unnecessary.51\nSecond, there is a physical process toward restoring the prelapsarian\nbody, characterised as subtle or spiritual, in preparation for life in Heaven.\nWith regard to the resurrection of the dead, the second element is fairly\namenable to Lutheran orthodoxy. The reformer Martin Luther himself\nhad praised alchemy as a visible demonstration of this article of faith, and\na court alchemist\u2019s obituary explicitly called it \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 (geistliche\nAlchymia) around 1660.52 Yet there are two important differences that concern timing and agency. In contrast to the delayed bodily transmutation at\nthe end of time, Boehme and his followers held that it began in the here and\nnow, albeit imperceptibly and in ways that cannot be measured with the tools\nof science. Furthermore, the orthodox understanding reserves agency solely\nfor God, in keeping with Luther\u2019s principle of sola gratia (by grace alone): on\nthis view, believers are passive matter in God\u2019s hands rather than spiritual\nadepts who participate actively in the cultivation of their resurrection bodies.\nThe issue of agency leads on directly to the third aspect, which is the practical pursuit of that process of spiritual rebirth and its bodiliness through\ndevotional acts or mystical paths. By practising spiritual alchemy, the individual believer actively nourishes the new birth within by means of prayer,\npenitence, ascetic deeds, or other rituals, which may also be purely internal\nor contemplative.53 By pursuing these practices over a prolonged period of\ntime, spiritual alchemists attain higher stages in their quest for ever closer\nunion with the divine. Sometimes the language of mysticism, particularly\nthat of the three stages of purificatio, illuminatio, and unio, appears in these\ncontexts. These devotional acts or mystical paths are explicitly described in\nterms of manual operations, alchemical techniques, or stages of the great\n\nPages 26:\nIntroduction\n11\nwork. In a way, then, spiritual alchemy is a peculiar form of Protestant mysticism. Contrary to a widespread perception, there is nothing that should\ncause us to view this term as self-\u200bcontradictory; in fact, mysticism had a rich\nand largely positive reception within early Protestantism.54 Yet the core three\nelements of spiritual alchemy do subtly depart from Lutheran orthodoxy by\ninternalising Christ, emphasising rebirth, and requiring individual agency,\nrespectively.\nI cannot possibly stress enough that, in the interaction of these aspects,\nspiritual alchemy ceases to be merely metaphorical. If I had to reduce this\nentire book to a single point it would be this: Boehme and his later disciples\nbelieved that actual bodily changes\u2014\u200balbeit not subject to the ordinary laws\nof physics or conventionally measurable\u2014\u200bwere taking place within them\nas they pursued the spiritual alchemy of rebirth and its processes.55 This is\nthe defining feature of spiritual alchemy proper, as opposed to any number\nof religious tropes, conceits, or metaphors one might uncover in alchemical literature. It is the reason that this book focuses on Boehme and ends\nwith Atwood rather than Hitchcock, whose moral interpretation of alchemy\nremained entirely allegorical. While we would tend to understand rebirth,\ndeification, or mystical union as non-\u200bphysical processes of religious transformation, that is not how Boehme and his followers viewed them. In other\nwords, even though spiritual alchemy did originate as a metaphor or conceit,\nit did not remain so. Instead, spiritual alchemy came to be viewed as literally\ndescribing the physical transfiguration of the human body through rebirth in\nthis life, culminating in resurrection at the Last Judgement.\nEven as it is challenging to transcend the hard-\u200band-\u200bfast distinctions between mind and matter, soul and body, that is precisely what we need to wrap\nour minds around. Otherwise, it remains impossible to understand spiritual\nalchemy, predicated on the early-\u200bmodern notion of spiritus. In important\nways, therefore, the spiritual alchemy of rebirth is the alchemy of spiritus\nas the subtle matter of the new birth, the kingdom of heaven, and Christ\u2019s\nhuman body turned heavenly. Through the spiritual alchemy of rebirth,\nbelievers could literally become members of Christ\u2019s body, as the Pauline\nmetaphor put it.56 Irrespective of what we might think of this nowadays,\nthe most methodologically sound way of approaching spiritual alchemy is\nthe suspension of disbelief. For the historical actors studied in this book, it\nwas real. Consequently, we have to also view it as real in precisely the same\nsense as the sun used to revolve around the earth, astrological influence determined the fate of people and nations, and (perhaps most appropriately)\n\nPages 27:\n12\nSpiritual Alchemy\nmany alchemists successfully transmuted lesser metals into gold and had\nwitnesses to tell the tale.\nFrom a historical perspective, it is a moot point to note that these views no\nlonger have a place in our current understanding of the world: borrowing a\nphrase coined by E. P. Thompson, historian of astrology Patrick Curry has\ndescribed this as \u2018the enormous condescension of posterity\u2019 that privileges\nwinners over losers among both historical actors and ideas.57 In her study\nAlchemy and Authority in the Holy Roman Empire, Tara Nummedal makes\nthis point with particular clarity: \u2018whatever we think of alchemy today, it is\nessential to remember that many people accepted the basic principles of alchemy in early modern Europe, even the transmutation of metals, and could\npoint to religious and natural philosophical justification for their belief.\u2019 For\nall intents and purposes of historical inquiry, \u2018we must accept that, in the\neyes of early modern Europeans,\u2019 alchemists \u2018did indeed transmute metals.\u201958\nWhile there may have been comparatively few who gave credence to the\nbodily reality of spiritual alchemy, this circumstance does not diminish the\nargument.\nBased on the features just described, I establish that spiritual alchemy was\nshared, transmitted, or semi-\u200bindependently rediscovered from Boehme to\nAtwood. This book traces the continued existence of the spiritual alchemy\nof rebirth in heterodox and specifically Boehmist circles from around 1600\nto the early twentieth century. The basic claim of continuity from Boehme to\nAtwood argued here is not new. A particularly apt expression may be found\nin F. Sherwood Taylor\u2019s 1949 book The Alchemists, in which the founding\neditor of Ambix notes \u2018the existence of a school of mystical alchemists whose\npurpose was self-\u200bregeneration.\u2019 With Boehme as an important early exponent, this \u2018tendency culminated in 1850\u2019 with Atwood\u2019s Suggestive Inquiry\ninto the Hermetic Mystery.59 Taylor\u2019s statement, it turns out, could hardly\nhave been more accurate yet has so far lacked the support of a comprehensive\npresentation. This led Principe and Newman to describe such claims of continuity regarding spiritual alchemy as mere \u2018conjecture\u2019 without \u2018clear historical evidence.\u201960 This book marshals that hitherto elusive evidence, much of it\nfound in obscure manuscript sources, and thus documents the continuity of\nspiritual alchemy that links the early-\u200bmodern to the modern era.\nWith broad brushstrokes, the story begins with an attempt to sketch the\nReformation-\u200bera developments that provided the necessary preconditions\nfor the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to take shape. Going beyond the usual\nsuspects such as Paracelsus, I argue that pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian texts that\n\nPages 28:\nIntroduction\n13\nhave previously gone largely unnoticed played an important role in this\n(\u00adchapter 1). Early readers of these cryptic works included the chymist\nJohann Siebmacher and the astrologer Paul Nagel. It remains difficult to assess whether Boehme also encountered them directly, yet thanks to Nagel\nwe can be sure that pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy circulated in the theosopher\u2019s\nnetwork (\u00adchapter 2). In Boehme\u2019s mature writings, the spiritual alchemy of\nrebirth comes into its own (\u00adchapter 3). Among his first generation of disciples, it was particularly the Silesian mystic Abraham von Franckenberg who\nabsorbed and articulated the lessons of spiritual alchemy, presenting them\nas part and parcel of ancient wisdom shared by pious pagans, gnostics, and\nearly Christians (\u00adchapter 4). He then actively communicated these insights to\nhis spiritual and philosophical son, Georg Lorenz Seidenbecher (\u00adchapter 5).\nLater to become notorious as a millenarian, Seidenbecher befriended\nFriedrich Breckling, who eventually rediscovered Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy and added his own accents in the 1680s (\u00adchapter 6). He did so partly\nin unmarked additions to the writings of an obscure sixteenth-\u200bcentury author, Bartholomaeus Sclei (\u00adchapter 7). Subsequently, Dionysius Andreas\nFreher took the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to England after spending a formative decade in Holland. In London, he introduced it to an English audience through his manuscript works (\u00adchapter 8). Freher received a delayed\nreception in the nineteenth century. Christopher Walton, a collector of\nFreher manuscripts, and Thomas South, the father of Mary Anne Atwood,\ndiscussed their shared enthusiasm for Boehme\u2019s expatriate expositor in letters written around the same time South\u2019s daughter composed her Suggestive\nInquiry (\u00adchapter 9). Early readers correctly perceived the mystical thrust of\nthis sprawling treatise, and Atwood herself expressed her understanding of\nalchemy more succinctly in later years (\u00adchapter 10).\n\nPages 29:\n1\nThe Radical Reformation, Paracelsian\nNetworks, and Pseudo-\u200bWeigelian Alchemy\nWhereas most proponents of spiritual alchemy have tended towards viewing\nit as timeless, it actually originated in a very specific historical context. In an\nimportant sense, the alchemy of spiritual rebirth at the origins of born-\u200bagain\nChristianity was a quintessentially German affair. When talking about rebirth, most other European languages use the technical Latin term regeneratio\nor its vernacular derivates such as the French r\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9ration. In stark contrast,\nGerman features the graphic Wiedergeburt, which Christ discussed in the\nGospel of John.1 References to rebirth occur in the writings of late medieval\nGerman mystics, yet they only play a marginal role.2 Only during the late\nsixteenth century did Wiedergeburt really come into its own and emerge as\nsomething distinct from baptism. Around that time, the German-\u200bspeaking\nworld witnessed the confluence of two important currents, the older one of\nGerman mysticism from Meister Eckhart onwards and the more recent development of alchemical Paracelsianism.3 These currents found their melting\npot in underground networks, in which Paracelsian and potentially heterodox works circulated. The activities of such networks intensified towards\n1600. It was in this context that the abstract language of rebirth that had\nalready baffled the Pharisee Nicodemus became more tangible through recourse to the concrete phenomena of alchemy. Previously neglected pseudepigrapha attributed to the unconventional Lutheran theologian Valentin\nWeigel appear to be among the oldest sources in which this took place.\nReformation-\u200bEra Developments\nThe preconditions for spiritual rebirth emancipating itself from baptism arose\nduring the age of the Reformation, due to Paracelsus, Caspar Schwenckfeld\nvon Ossig, and Valentin Weigel, among others. Charles Webster has placed\nParacelsus, chiefly famous for his medical innovations, in the context of the\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0002\n\nPages 30:\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n15\nradical Reformation despite the fact that he remained nominally Catholic.4\nAccording to Paracelsus\u2019 baptismal theology, a simple ritual involving water\nand accompanied by prayer imparted to those baptised a new, immortal\nbody. This spiritual body of rebirth then had to be nourished through Christ\u2019s\nbody and blood in the Eucharist.5 Boehme was to take up these core ideas,\nyet several important differences separated him from Paracelsus. Generally,\nthere was a change in the state of alchemical theorising about the mineral\nworld. In the early sixteenth century, Paracelsus stood at the very beginning\nof a time during which there was a \u2018porous boundary between alchemy and\nthe world of mining,\u2019 exemplified by Petrus Kerzenmacher\u2019s Alchimi und\nBergwerck (Alchemy and Mining) of 1534. It is in this context of alchemists\u2019\nengagement with vernacular mining lore that a new understanding of the\nunderground mineral realm began to take shape, one that was marked by\n\u2018death, decay, and rebirth just like the earthly surface.\u20196 Such an animate conception of the mineral world led alchemists and others who engaged with\nminers to increasingly speak of the birth, death, and, occasionally, rebirth of\nmetals towards the late sixteenth century. In view of this trend, it becomes\nless of a coincidence that the spiritual alchemy of rebirth began to take shape\nin the 1590s.\nFor that to happen, two further important shifts had to occur, and these\nalso separate Paracelsus from later developments and Boehme in particular.\nFirst and foremost, Paracelsus himself hardly ever used the vocabulary of\nalchemy to describe his theology of the immortal body that was acquired\nthrough baptism. In fact, Urs Leo Gantenbein notes that \u2018the consistent use\nof alchemical terminology\u2019 is \u2018untypical for authentic Paracelsian theology,\u2019\nalthough on rare occasions Paracelsus did establish parallels between theology and transmutational alchemy.7 To put it another way, while many\ncomponents of the spiritual alchemy of rebirth were already in place in the\nwritings of Paracelsus, he did for the most part not yet construe them as\nalchemy. This is the reason why my account does not begin with the Swiss\nmedical reformer. The second major discrepancy between Paracelsus and\nBoehme is theological and concerns the changing relationship between baptism and rebirth. Originally and even in later orthodox Lutheran practice,\nthe terms were largely synonymous: sermons and obituaries habitually spoke\nof \u2018holy baptism and the bath of rebirth\u2019 (Widergeburt), effectively conflating\nthe two.8 By 1600, however, Anabaptism and spiritualism had brought about\n\u2018a dissociation of baptism and rebirth,\u2019 something I have described in more\ndetail elsewhere. Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and \u2018highlighted an\n\nPages 31:\n16\nSpiritual Alchemy\nadult\u2019s conscious decision of faith as a crucial requirement for baptism and\nrebirth, even as the two remained closely linked.\u2019 Subsequently, spiritualist\ntheologians such as Schwenckfeld and Weigel \u2018privileged the spirit over the\nletter, the invisible church over the visible, and consequently viewed external\nrituals as irrelevant.\u20199\nInteriorised and spiritualised notions of baptism, the Eucharist, and the\n\u2018new birth\u2019 were central to Schwenckfeld\u2019s theology. It is possible that he\nborrowed these aspects of Paracelsus\u2019 theology, and Schwenckfeld may\nwell have met the controversial physician in person on various occasions.10\nParticularly in his native land, the reformer of Silesia had many adherents\ninto the seventeenth century and beyond, and it was in this vicinity that\nBoehme developed his theosophy.11 Another minister among the second\ngeneration of Reformers also contributed to the devotional literature\nBoehme read: Valentin Weigel. After a quiet life as a pastor in the Saxon\ntown of Zschopau, Weigel posthumously embarked on an impressive career as a heretic. Throughout the seventeenth century, his name became\nsynonymous with what theologians and church historians now call spiritualism: orthodox clergy and authorities aggressively cracked down\non Weigelians.12 While most of them had been baptised as infants, their\ntheological convictions led Schwenckfeldians, Weigelians, and Lutheran\nspiritualists to dismiss outward rites as ineffective.13 They therefore turned\nrebirth into something that was distinct from baptism, purely interior, happening continually rather than just once. The baptism of infants or adults\nritually imitates the death and resurrection of Christ once in their lives;\nrebirth does so daily through the mystical identification of Christ and the\nbeliever. Due to these shifts, spiritualists used rebirth to articulate an alternative Christianity, running counter to the church establishment they\ndespised, claiming a truer faith of the few in contrast to the empty ceremonies of the masses. Whereas baptism had played a prominent role for\nParacelsus as he wrote about the spiritual body, Boehme\u2019s mature works\ndiscussed spiritual rebirth as something unrelated to baptism.\nThose who espoused the doctrine of spiritual rebirth departed from\nLutheran orthodoxy, as codified in the confessional writings, particularly regarding the doctrine of justification. The position of Luther and\nPhilipp Melanchthon, as well as the Lutheran church in general, is often\ndescribed as forensic, although recent scholarship has complicated the\npicture somewhat.14 On the forensic understanding, the righteousness of\nChrist is imputed to the believer in a legal manner, per decree, as it were,\n\nPages 32:\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n17\nirrespective of that believer\u2019s past or future actions. One of the first to criticise this view was the theologian and mathematician Andreas Osiander,\nknown to historians of science chiefly for the infamous anonymous preface\nhe added to Nicolaus Copernicus\u2019 De revolutionibus orbium coelestium\n(On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) in 1543. In a fateful disputation held at the University of K\u00f6nigsberg on 9 November 1550, Osiander\ndeveloped an alternative theology of justification centred on \u2018becoming\nunited with Christ, born again (renasci) out of him, he being in us and\nwe in him, living through him, and believing ourselves righteous through\nhis righteousness dwelling in us.\u201915 Almost immediately, Justus Menius,\na minister in Gotha, attacked Osiander\u2019s interpretation as \u2018alchemical\u2019\n(Alcumistisch), and soon enough a knowledgeable reader combined the\ntheologies of Osiander and Paracelsus in pseudepigraphic writings attributed to the latter.16\nValentin Weigel also read and copied Paracelsus, and his writings featured\nan insistence on rebirth construed as a physico-\u200bspiritual but not yet alchemical process.17 At the same time, the pastor of Zschopau followed Osiander\nin stressing the mystical incarnation of Christ within the believer: this was a\nvital, post-\u200bParacelsian contribution that would eventually be absorbed into\nspiritual alchemy.18 In a change of emphasis compared to Osiander, Weigel\nparticularly positioned \u2018the new birth\u2019 (die newe geburt) as a replacement\nof the forensic understanding of justification.19 In so doing, he preceded\nsuch towering figures as Johann Arndt and Jacob Boehme.20 Arndt referred\nto the \u2018new birth\u2019 (newe Geburt) and \u2018rebirth\u2019 (Wiedergeburt) many times\nthroughout his devotional bestseller, Vier B\u00fccher Vom wahren Christenthumb\n(Four Books on True Christianity). Published from 1605, with a first complete edition in 1610, parts of the Vier B\u00fccher had been lifted straight from\nWeigel\u2019s writings, which caused a controversy around Arndt and his work.21\nAlongside Weigel, it was probably Arndt who shaped Boehme\u2019s views on\nthe subject most, and Sibylle Rusterholz plausibly asserts that the theosopher was familiar with Arndt\u2019s voluminous work from early on.22 In a rare\ninstance of admitting to reading the works of others, Boehme expressed subdued praise for Weigel, who had written \u2018beautifully on the new birth (neuen\nGebuhrt) and the unity of humanity through Christ among us.\u2019 Yet Boehme\nwent on to claim: \u2018I described it [rebirth] more clearly in my writings.\u201923\nThe eminent German church historian Martin Brecht lends support to the\ntheosopher\u2019s self-\u200bflattering claim, as he notes that particularly Boehme had\na lasting impact in spreading the notion of spiritual rebirth among radical\n\nPages 33:\n18\nSpiritual Alchemy\nPietists in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.24 By way of\nPietism and, particularly in England, Methodism, the idea of spiritual rebirth\nreached modern Evangelicalism, where it continues to thrive among born-\u200b\nagain believers. The midwifing role of alchemy is now all but forgotten, yet\nthis kind of Christianity continues to exist until today in congregations and\ncommunities that emphasise rebirth or in individuals who describe themselves as born again. Scholars of Evangelicalism and Pietism, such as W. R.\nWard and Douglas H. Shantz, have perceptively noted that such debts to alchemy do exist in these movements.25\nIn parallel, a number of alchemical writers around 1600 showed an\nincreasing awareness of their art\u2019s analogies with Christianity. The Paracelsian\nalchemists Gerard Dorn, Heinrich Khunrath, and Oswald Croll were remarkable for the extent to which religious concerns shaped their alchemical\nworks.26 In his famous Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae (Amphitheatre of\nEternal Wisdom), first published in 1595 but vastly expanded in the 1609\nedition, Khunrath wrote the following as a commentary on a verse of the\napocryphal Wisdom of Solomon:\nHappy he to whom is shown, and having been shown rightly knows: the\nperson, passion, and resurrection of JHSVH CHRIST; the matter, preparation, and more-\u200bthan-\u200bperfection in the glorifie\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 1 to page 33 out of a total of 337. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=216\nPages: 216,215\npsychologising approach of C. G. Jung and the vitalist emphasis of Mircea\nEliade.6 Yet at a deeper level, Principe and Newman, as well as the advocates\nof Jung and Eliade, have considered the general similarity more important\nthan the subtle differences.7 As the academic study of esotericism continues\nto emancipate itself from its religionist heritage that traditionally sought to\nEpilogue\n201\nperceive a singular universal truth through history\u2019s thicket, it is the small\ndifferences that matter and that will help us move beyond the claim that \u2018all\nthe sages agree.\u20198\nThis book has focussed on one particular kind of \u2018spiritual alchemy,\u2019\na Boehmist variety whose potential existence writers and scholars have\nflagged for more than a century.9 For the first time, this book has gathered\nand presented comprehensive evidence for its continuity into the nineteenth]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nand his work on alchemy informed scholarship for a considerable part of the\ntwentieth century. In fact, it provided the dominant paradigm for research\non the subject from the 1940s to the 1990s.10 In contrast to Eliade, Jung\nviewed the experimental study of nature as defining: he described an ideal\nor classical alchemy, \u2018in which the spirit of the alchemist really still wrestled\nwith the problems of matter, in which the inquisitive consciousness faced\nthe dark space of the unknown and believed that they recognised shapes and\nlaws therein, though these did not originate in the matter but in the soul.\u2019 In\ncontrast to simplified accounts, Jung clearly held that actual laboratory work\nprovided the basis for this to occur and lamented its neglect in the wake of\nJacob Boehme, who died in 1624.11 It is thus no coincidence that Boehme,\nthe theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz, plays a pivotal role in the story told in these pages.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=219\nPages: 219\nStichworte zu seinem Leben und Werk,\u2019 in Aus dem Kreis um Sigmund Freud: Zu\nden Protokollen der Wiener Psychoanalytischen Vereinigung, ed. Ernst Federn and\nGerhard Wittenberger (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer-\u200bTaschenbuch-\u200bVerlag, 1992), 170\u2013\u200b75.\n9. Mircea Eliade, ed., The Encyclopedia of Religion, 16 vols. (New York: Macmillan,\n1987), vol. 1, s.v. \u2018Alchemy,\u2019 on 183. See also Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible,\ntrans. Stephen Corrin (London: Rider, 1962).\n10. This is emphasised by Hereward Tilton, The Quest for the Phoenix: Spiritual Alchemy\nand Rosicrucianism in the Work of Count Michael Maier (1569\u2013\u200b1622) (Berlin: De\nGruyter, 2003), 2\u2013\u200b9; Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy, 288\u2013\u200b95.\n11. C. G. Jung, Psychologie und Alchemie, 2nd ed. (Olten: Walter-\u200bVerlag, 1972), 265\u2013\u200b67.\nJung even characterised the alchemical process as \u2018an essentially (an sich) chemical investigation\u2019 on 542. This aspect is also highlighted by Tilton, The Quest for the Phoenix,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=272\nPages: 272,271\n77. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 207.\n78. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. D, p. 245.\n79. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. D, p. 276; see also vol. E, pp. 99\u2013\u200b100.\n80. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 202.\n81. Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers, 121.\n82. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, pp. 206\u2013\u200b7. See Lives of Alchemystical\nPhilosophers, 122; [South], A Suggestive Inquiry, 501\u2013\u200b2. Compare Boehme, De\nsignatura rerum, 85 (SR 8:53).\n83. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. H, p. 48.\nNotes\n257\n84. Interviewed by Mircea Eliade in 1952, Jung succinctly summarised this view; see\nRobert Hinshaw and Lela Fischli, eds., C. G. Jung im Gespr\u00e4ch: Interviews, Reden,\nBegegnungen (Zurich: Daimon, 1986), 76\u2013\u200b86, on 79. For recent reiterations of this\nclaim, see e.g. Christine Maillard, \u2018Eine Wissensform unter Heterodoxieverdacht: Die\nspekulative Alchemie nach 1600,\u2019 in Heterodoxie in der fr\u00fchen Neuzeit, ed. Hartmut]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=293\nPages: 293,294\nEhrentreich, Alfred. \u2018Valentin Weigels religi\u00f6ser \u201cDialogus\u201d als literarische Sch\u00f6pfung.\u2019\nZeitschrift f\u00fcr Religions-\u200bund Geistesgeschichte 21 (1969): 42\u2013\u200b54.\nEliade, Mircea, ed. The Encyclopedia of Religion. 16 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1987.\nEliade, Mircea. The Forge and the Crucible. Translated by Stephen Corrin. London: Rider,\n1962. First published 1956.\nWorks Cited\n279\nErler, Georg. Die i\u00fcngere Matrikel der Universit\u00e4t Leipzig 1559\u2013\u200b1809: Als Personen-\u200bund\nOrtsregister bearbeitet und durch Nachtr\u00e4ge aus den Promotionslisten erg\u00e4nzt. 3 vols.\nNendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1976. First published 1909.\nEsti\u00e9, Paul. \u2018Die Auseinandersetzung von Charias, Breckling, Jungius und Gichtel\nin der lutherischen Gemeinde zu Kampen 1661\u2013\u200b1668.\u2019 Pietismus und Neuzeit 16\n(1990): 31\u2013\u200b52.\nEsti\u00e9, Paul. \u2018Die Entlassung Friedrich Brecklings als Pfarrer der Lutherischen Gemeinde\nzu Zwolle, 1667\u2013\u200b1668.\u2019 Pietismus und Neuzeit 18 (1992): 9\u2013\u200b39.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nof reference for the Viennese psychoanalyst Herbert Silberer, a longtime\nmember of Sigmund Freud\u2019s circle. He influentially linked alchemy to both\nmysticism and psychology in his 1914 book Probleme der Mystik und ihrer\nSymbolik (Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism).8\nIn the twentieth century, this second understanding shaped scholarship\non alchemy to a significant extent, in part because the first view discouraged\nactive engagement with the mysterious art. Romanian-\u200bborn historian of religion Mircea Eliade viewed alchemy as a \u2018spiritual\u2019 quest \u2018pursuing a goal similar or comparable to that of the major esoteric and \u201cmystical\u201d traditions.\u2019 He\nclearly stated that \u2018alchemists were not interested\u2014\u200bor only subsidiarily\u2014\u200bin\nthe scientific study of nature.\u20199 The Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung is probably\nthe most prominent exponent of a psychological conception of the royal art,\nand his work on alchemy informed scholarship for a considerable part of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=299\nPages: 299\nHessayon, Ariel, and Sarah Apetrei, eds. An Introduction to Jacob Boehme: Four Centuries\nof Thought and Reception. London: Routledge, 2014.\nHessayon, Ariel. \u2018Boehme\u2019s Life and Times.\u2019 In Hessayon and Apetrei, An Introduction to\nJacob Boehme, 13\u2013\u200b37.\nHessayon, Ariel, ed. Jane Lead and Her Transnational Legacy. London: Palgrave\nMacmillan, 2016.\nHessayon, Ariel. \u2018Lead\u2019s Life and Times,\u2019 3 pts. In Hessayon, Jane Lead, 13\u2013\u200b90.\nHillenbrand, Rainer. \u2018Cherubinische Trinit\u00e4tsmystik bei Angelus Silesius.\u2019 Daphnis 47\n(2019): 592\u2013\u200b638.\nHinshaw, Robert, and Lela Fischli, eds. C. G. Jung im Gespr\u00e4ch: Interviews, Reden,\nBegegnungen. Zurich: Daimon, 1986.\nHirai, Hiro. \u2018The World-\u200bSpirit and Quintessence in the Chymical Philosophy of Joseph\nDu Chesne.\u2019 In L\u00f3pez P\u00e9rez et al., Chymia, 247\u2013\u200b61.\nHirst, Julie. Jane Leade: Biography of a Seventeenth-\u200b\nCentury Mystic. Aldershot:\nAshgate, 2005.\nHitchcock, Ethan Allen. Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists, Indicating a Method]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=230\nPages: 230\nJulian Strube, Sozialismus, Katholizismus und Okkultismus im Frankreich des 19.\nJahrhunderts: Die Genealogie der Schriften von Eliphas L\u00e9vi (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016);\nR. A. Gilbert, A. E. Waite: Magician of Many Parts (Wellingborough: Thorsons, 1987);\nMarco Pasi, Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics (Durham: Acumen, 2014).\n31. To my knowledge, there are five extant manuscript versions predating the printed\neditions available from 1701, here listed by (partly conjectural) dating from oldest\nto youngest: Berlin, Staatsbibliothek\u2014\u200bPreu\u00dfischer Kulturbesitz (SB\u2013\u200bPK): Ms. germ.\nfol. 1070, ff. 21r\u2013\u200b23r, ff. 21r\u2013\u200b23r; Heidelberg, Universit\u00e4tsbibliothek (UB): Cod. Pal.\nGerm. 782, ff. 177r\u2013\u200b79v; Halle, Universit\u00e4ts-\u200bund Landesbibliothek (ULB): 23 B 11,\nvol. 1, ff. 289v\u2013\u200b90v; Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek (BLB): Cod. Allerheiligen\n3, pp. 397\u2013\u200b402; Berlin, SB\u2013\u200bPK: Ms. germ. quart. 1525, ff. 2r\u2013\u200b5v. Some of these are]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=313\nPages: 313,314\n1913): 17\u2013\u200b32.\nSteiger, Isabelle de. Memorabilia: Reminiscences of a Woman Artist and Writer.\nLondon: Rider, 1927.\nWorks Cited\n299\nSteiger, Isabelle de. On a Gold Basis: A Treatise on Mysticism. 2nd ed. London: Rider, 1909.\nFirst published 1907.\nSteiger, Isabelle de. \u2018To the Editor of the Occult Review.\u2019 Occult Review 14 (1911):\n346\u2013\u200b49.\nSteiger, Johann Anselm. \u2018Jacob B\u00f6hmes Rettung: Friedrich Brecklings Anticalovius (1688)\nals Apologie des mystischen Spiritualismus.\u2019 In K\u00fchlmann and Vollhardt, Offenbarung\nund Episteme, 283\u2013\u200b94.\nSteinmeyer, Elias von. Die Matrikel der Universit\u00e4t Altdorf. 2 vols. W\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigl.\nUniversit\u00e4tsdruckerei H. St\u00fcrtz, 1912.\nStockum, Th. C. van. Zwischen Jakob B\u00f6hme und Johann Scheffler: Abraham von\nFranckenberg (1593\u2013\u200b1652) und Daniel Czepko von Reigersfeld (1605\u2013\u200b1660). Amsterdam:\nN.V. Noord-\u200bHollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1967.\nStoeber, Michael. \u2018Evelyn Underhill on Magic, Sacrament, and Spiritual Transformation.\u2019\nWorship 77 (2003): 132\u2013\u200b51.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nthe theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz, plays a pivotal role in the story told in these pages.\nEven as he acknowledged the experimental side of alchemy and considered it foundational, Jung\u2014\u200bthe inventor of analytical psychology\u2014\u200bwas\nchiefly interested in alchemical imagery. He interpreted it as the projections\nof the unconscious. His 1946 contribution to Ambix, the leading journal for\nthe history of alchemy and chemistry, described the art of the philosophers\u2019\nstone as \u2018a real museum of projections.\u2019 Jung provocatively claimed that \u2018its\nhistory should never have been treated by chemists, for it offers an ideal\nhunting-\u200bground for the psychologists.\u201912 According to him, the approach\nto alchemy taken by chemists obscured much of its richness, which he as a\npsychologist was better able to appreciate and communicate. Jung\u2019s interpretation of alchemy was an attempt to understand its nigh-\u200bimpenetrable language and fascinating symbolism that was fresh and stimulating at its time. It]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18,19\nplayed the important role of establishing that alchemy was worthy of serious\n4\nSpiritual Alchemy\ninquiry rather than dismissal. Even pioneering historians such as Betty Jo\nTeeter Dobbs, who worked extensively on Isaac Newton\u2019s alchemy, initially\napproached the art through Jungian lenses.13 To this day, Jung\u2019s views inform\npopular portrayals and perceptions of alchemy and still continue to stimulate\ninterest in the subject.\nWhile mild criticism of Jung\u2019s ahistorical approach accompanied his\nreception in the historiography of alchemy from the start, only in 1982\ndid Swiss art historian Barbara Obrist call for its abolition and present a\nconvincing critique.14 According to her trenchant analysis, the very popularity of Jung\u2019s work had led to \u2018general confusion\u2019 due to an inflationary\nuse of the term \u2018alchemy\u2019 that saw it applied to all sorts of evocative art, including mythological depictions and the work of the famous Dutch artist]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=288\nPages: 288,289\nbibliothecam B. Jo. Guilielmus Baierus . . . instruxerat. Altdorf: Prostant exemplaria\ncatalogi in bibliopolio sub iisdem aedibus, 1731.\n274\nWorks Cited\nBaier, Karl. Meditation und Moderne: Zur Genese eines Kernbereichs moderner\nSpiritualit\u00e4t in der Wechselwirkung zwischen Westeuropa, Nordamerika und Asien.\n2 vols. W\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigshausen & Neumann, 2009.\nBarnes, Robin Bruce. Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran\nReformation. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.\nBates, A. W. H. Anti-\u200bVivisection and the Profession of Medicine in Britain: A Social History.\nLondon: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.\nBaur, J\u00f6rg. \u2018Ubiquit\u00e4t.\u2019 In Creator est Creatura: Luthers Christologie als Lehre von der\nIdiomenkommunikation. Edited by Oswald Bayer and Benjamin Gleede, 186\u2013\u200b301.\nBerlin: De Gruyter, 2007.\nBecker, J\u00f6rg Georg, and Nil\u00fcfer Kr\u00fcger. Die theologischen Handschriften der Staats-\u200bund\nUniversit\u00e4tsbibliothek Hamburg. 4 vols. Hamburg: Hauswedell, 1975\u2013\u200b98.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=220\nPages: 220\nLaube, eds., Goldenes Wissen: Die Alchemie\u2014\u200b\nSubstanzen, Synthesen, Symbolik\n(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014), 67\u2013\u200b72, 99\u2013\u200b110, resp. Trepp summarises findings\nfirst presented in her earlier monograph: Anne-\u200bCharlott Trepp, Von der Gl\u00fcckseligkeit\nalles zu wissen: Die Erforschung der Natur als religi\u00f6se Praxis in der Fr\u00fchen Neuzeit\n(Frankfurt a.M.: Campus Verlag, 2009). Schott\u2019s essay reiterates Jungian positions\nwithout due consideration of the New Historiography.\n19. Newman and Principe, \u2018Alchemy vs. Chemistry,\u2019 34\u2013\u200b35. For the place of this essay in\ncurrent historiography, see Marcos Martin\u00f3n-\u200bTorres, \u2018Some Recent Developments in\nthe Historiography of Alchemy,\u2019 Ambix 58 (2011): 215\u2013\u200b37, on 220\u2013\u200b22. For an early\ncritical reaction, see e.g. Ferdinando Abbri, \u2018Alchemy and Chemistry: Chemical\nDiscourses in the Seventeenth Century,\u2019 Early Science and Medicine 5 (2000): 214\u2013\u200b26.\n20. E.g. A. J. Rocke, \u2018Agricola, Paracelsus, and \u201cChymia,\u201d \u2019 Ambix 32 (1985): 38\u2013\u200b45,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=292\nPages: 292\nSelling (for Ready Money) at the Prices Affixed. London, 1829.\nCohen, I. Bernard. \u2018Ethan Allen Hitchcock: Soldier\u2014\u200bHumanitarian\u2014\u200bScholar. Discoverer\nof the \u201cTrue Subject\u201d of the Hermetic Art.\u2019 Proceedings of the American Antiquarian\nSociety 61 (1951): 29\u2013\u200b136.\nColberg, Ehregott Daniel. Das Platonisch-\u200bHermetisches Christenthum, Begreiffend Die\nHistorische Erzehlung vom Ursprung und vielerley Secten der heutigen Fanatischen\nTheologie. 2 vols. Frankfurt a.M./\u200bLeipzig: Bey Moritz Georg Weidmann, Druckts Joh.\nK\u00f6ler, 1690\u2013\u200b91.\nCrisciani, Chiara. \u2018The Conception of Alchemy as Expressed in the Pretiosa Margarita\nNovella of Petrus Bonus of Ferrara.\u2019 Ambix 20 (1973): 165\u2013\u200b81.\nCrollius, Oswald. Alchemomedizinische Briefe 1585 bis 1597. Edited by Wilhelm\nK\u00fchlmann and Joachim Telle. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1998.\nCrowley, Aleister. 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings. Edited by Israel Regardie.\nBoston: Weiser Books, 1973.\nCurry, Patrick. Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=284\nPages: 284,286\nlearning; sometimes it appears with qualifiers such as \u2018almost\u2019 (paene) or \u2018nearly\u2019\n(fere).\n6. Principe and Newman, \u2018Some Problems,\u2019 401\u2013\u200b4, 408\u2013\u200b12.\n7. The development outlined here can already be observed to have taken place in the\nwork of Hereward Tilton, who has a background in Jungian psychoanalysis. In 2003\nhe still endorsed a very broad concept of spiritual alchemy with the aim of defending\nJung; by 2012 he drew attention to the existence of several different kinds of\nalchemies that might be subsumed under the umbrella term \u2018 \u201cspiritual\u201d alchemical\ntraditions\u2019: Tilton, The Quest for the Phoenix; Tilton, \u2018Alchymia Archetypica,\u2019 180.\n8. On religionism and the study of esotericism, see Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the\nAcademy, esp. 295\u2013\u200b314.\n9. Waite, Azoth, 60; Taylor, The Alchemists, 227\u2013\u200b28; Principe and Newman, \u2018Some\nProblems,\u2019 399\u2013\u200b400.\n10. Neugebauer, \u2018The Study of Wretched Subjects.\u2019\nWorks Cited\nManuscript and Archival Sources\nAmsterdam]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19\nHieronymus Bosch.15 If all intriguing imagery could be studied as alchemy,\nthe term risked losing any analytical value it possessed. Two historians\nof science, William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, have since\nexpanded on Obrist\u2019s criticism of Jung. Through a series of studies, they\nsuccessfully replaced Jung\u2019s approach with a new paradigm, known as the\nNew Historiography of Alchemy, and firmly integrated alchemy into the\nhistory of science.16 In particular, Newman and Principe reproduce alchemical processes experimentally by decoding arcane language and imagery, thus demonstrating an alternative, historical interpretation for what\nJung viewed as timeless \u2018psychic processes expressed in pseudochemical\nlanguage.\u201917 Among specialists working in an Anglophone context, the \u2018old\nhistoriography\u2019 is now definitely a thing of the past. Scholarly debates in\nother linguistic contexts have been struggling to keep up with the rapid\ndevelopments brought about through the New Historiography.18]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=303\nPages: 303\nJacob Boehme.\u2019 Geschiedenis van de wijsbegeerte in Nederland 13 (2002): 119\u2013\u200b63.\nLatham, J. E. M. Search for a New Eden. James Pierrepont Greaves (1777\u2013\u200b1842): The Sacred\nSocialist and His Followers. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999.\nLavoie, Jeffrey D. A Search for Meaning in Victorian Religion: The Spiritual Journey and\nEsoteric Teachings of Charles Carleton Massey. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University\nPress, 2014.\nLehmann-\u200bBrauns, Sicco. Weisheit in der Weltgeschichte: Philosophiegeschichte zwischen\nBarock und Aufkl\u00e4rung. T\u00fcbingen: Niemeyer, 2004.\nLemper, Ernst-\u200bHeinz. Jakob B\u00f6hme: Leben und Werk. Berlin: Union, 1976.\nL\u00e9vi, Eliphas. Dogme et rituel de la haute magie. 2nd, expanded ed. 2 vols. Paris: Germer\nBailli\u00e8re, 1861.\nLibavius, Andreas. Wolmeinendes Bedencken, Von der Fama unnd Confession der\nBr\u00fcderschafft de\u00df RosenCreutzes. Erfurt: Bey Johann R\u00f6hbock, 1616.\nLibavius, Andreas, and Jacob Michael. De millenariorum haereticorum secta. . . . Disputatio]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=197\nPages: 197,198\nthe Christ in Man\u2019 or \u2018the Christ abiding within us.\u201944 In easing spiritual\nMary Anne Atwood\n183\nalchemy\u2019s transition from the individual plane to that of humanity generally,\nWaite paved the way for further variations spelled out by Rudolf Steiner, the\nfounder of anthroposophy, and C. G. Jung, among others. The stage was set\nfor a proliferation of spiritual alchemies as the twentieth century dawned.\nEarly readers correctly perceived that Christian mysticism and rebirth were\nat the centre of the Suggestive Inquiry, yet they soon developed their own divergent interpretations.\nAtwood\u2019s Disciple Isabelle de Steiger\nAtwood observed these developments largely in silence, yet she did have a\nfaithful deputy in Isabelle de Steiger, who increasingly spoke up on her behalf. During the final decades of Atwood\u2019s life, De Steiger\u2014\u200ba widow of\nmeans, a painter, and an occultist of constantly shifting allegiances\u2014\u200bbecame\nher closest confidante and correspondent. Their acquaintance reached back]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=300\nPages: 300,301\nBengels.\u2019 Pietismus und Neuzeit 31 (2005): 152\u2013\u200b95.\nJablonski, Daniel Ernst. Christliche Ged\u00e4chtn\u00fc\u00df-\u200bPredigt, Als . . . Levin Schardius, . . . Den\n12. Januarii 1699. selig aus diesem Leben abgefordert, und den 19. darauf zu seiner\nRuhestat gebracht worden. C\u00f6lln a.d. Spree: Druckts Ulrich Liebpert, Churf\u00fcrstl.\nBrandenb. Hoff-\u200bBuchdr., 1699.\nJanacek, Bruce. Alchemical Belief: Occultism in the Religious Culture of Early Modern\nEngland. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.\nJanssen, Frans A. \u2018B\u00f6hme\u2019s Wercken (1682): Its Editor, Its Publisher, Its Printer.\u2019 Quaerendo\n16 (1986): 137\u2013\u200b41.\nJanssen, Frans A. \u2018Die erste Ausgabe von B\u00f6hmes gesammelten Werken 1682.\u2019 In\nHarmsen, Jacob B\u00f6hmes Weg in die Welt, 249\u2013\u200b54.\nJ\u00f6cher, Christian Gottlieb. Allgemeines Gelehrten-\u200bLexicon. 4 vols. Leipzig: In Johann\nFriedrich Gleditschens Buchhandlung, 1750\u2013\u200b51.\n286\nWorks Cited\nJorink, Eric. Reading the Book of Nature in the Dutch Golden Age, 1575\u2013\u200b1715. Translated]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=204\nPages: 204,205\nauthority. As late as 1908, she schemed with others, including \u2018Archdeacon\n[Basil] Wilberforce,\u2019 whom she had known since he was \u2018a little curly headed\nboy\u2019 in the early 1840s, to bring about \u2018the republication of B\u00f6hme\u2019s works,\u2019\nalthough this endeavour ultimately came to nothing.94 To phrase this more\npositively, it could be said that she graduated to studying the master rather\nthan his disciple Freher.\nIt is particularly in the appendix compiled by Wilmshurst that the incomparable status Atwood accorded to Boehme finds expression. According\nto her, he easily surpassed not only later visionaries, such as Emanuel\nSwedenborg, who had been esteemed highly by her husband, but also the\nhigh-\u200b\nwater marks of ancient and modern philosophy, represented by\n190\nSpiritual Alchemy\nFig. 10.2 Dionysius Andreas Freher, Jesus Immanuel, 2 vols. This nineteenth-\u200b\ncentury copy of writings by Freher contains the text of volume A of the]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=216\nPages: 216,215\npsychologising approach of C. G. Jung and the vitalist emphasis of Mircea\nEliade.6 Yet at a deeper level, Principe and Newman, as well as the advocates\nof Jung and Eliade, have considered the general similarity more important\nthan the subtle differences.7 As the academic study of esotericism continues\nto emancipate itself from its religionist heritage that traditionally sought to\nEpilogue\n201\nperceive a singular universal truth through history\u2019s thicket, it is the small\ndifferences that matter and that will help us move beyond the claim that \u2018all\nthe sages agree.\u20198\nThis book has focussed on one particular kind of \u2018spiritual alchemy,\u2019\na Boehmist variety whose potential existence writers and scholars have\nflagged for more than a century.9 For the first time, this book has gathered\nand presented comprehensive evidence for its continuity into the nineteenth]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=272\nPages: 272,271\n77. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 207.\n78. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. D, p. 245.\n79. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. D, p. 276; see also vol. E, pp. 99\u2013\u200b100.\n80. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 202.\n81. Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers, 121.\n82. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, pp. 206\u2013\u200b7. See Lives of Alchemystical\nPhilosophers, 122; [South], A Suggestive Inquiry, 501\u2013\u200b2. Compare Boehme, De\nsignatura rerum, 85 (SR 8:53).\n83. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. H, p. 48.\nNotes\n257\n84. Interviewed by Mircea Eliade in 1952, Jung succinctly summarised this view; see\nRobert Hinshaw and Lela Fischli, eds., C. G. Jung im Gespr\u00e4ch: Interviews, Reden,\nBegegnungen (Zurich: Daimon, 1986), 76\u2013\u200b86, on 79. For recent reiterations of this\nclaim, see e.g. Christine Maillard, \u2018Eine Wissensform unter Heterodoxieverdacht: Die\nspekulative Alchemie nach 1600,\u2019 in Heterodoxie in der fr\u00fchen Neuzeit, ed. Hartmut]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nand his work on alchemy informed scholarship for a considerable part of the\ntwentieth century. In fact, it provided the dominant paradigm for research\non the subject from the 1940s to the 1990s.10 In contrast to Eliade, Jung\nviewed the experimental study of nature as defining: he described an ideal\nor classical alchemy, \u2018in which the spirit of the alchemist really still wrestled\nwith the problems of matter, in which the inquisitive consciousness faced\nthe dark space of the unknown and believed that they recognised shapes and\nlaws therein, though these did not originate in the matter but in the soul.\u2019 In\ncontrast to simplified accounts, Jung clearly held that actual laboratory work\nprovided the basis for this to occur and lamented its neglect in the wake of\nJacob Boehme, who died in 1624.11 It is thus no coincidence that Boehme,\nthe theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz, plays a pivotal role in the story told in these pages.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=293\nPages: 293,294\nEhrentreich, Alfred. \u2018Valentin Weigels religi\u00f6ser \u201cDialogus\u201d als literarische Sch\u00f6pfung.\u2019\nZeitschrift f\u00fcr Religions-\u200bund Geistesgeschichte 21 (1969): 42\u2013\u200b54.\nEliade, Mircea, ed. The Encyclopedia of Religion. 16 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1987.\nEliade, Mircea. The Forge and the Crucible. Translated by Stephen Corrin. London: Rider,\n1962. First published 1956.\nWorks Cited\n279\nErler, Georg. Die i\u00fcngere Matrikel der Universit\u00e4t Leipzig 1559\u2013\u200b1809: Als Personen-\u200bund\nOrtsregister bearbeitet und durch Nachtr\u00e4ge aus den Promotionslisten erg\u00e4nzt. 3 vols.\nNendeln: Kraus Reprint, 1976. First published 1909.\nEsti\u00e9, Paul. \u2018Die Auseinandersetzung von Charias, Breckling, Jungius und Gichtel\nin der lutherischen Gemeinde zu Kampen 1661\u2013\u200b1668.\u2019 Pietismus und Neuzeit 16\n(1990): 31\u2013\u200b52.\nEsti\u00e9, Paul. \u2018Die Entlassung Friedrich Brecklings als Pfarrer der Lutherischen Gemeinde\nzu Zwolle, 1667\u2013\u200b1668.\u2019 Pietismus und Neuzeit 18 (1992): 9\u2013\u200b39.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=219\nPages: 219\nStichworte zu seinem Leben und Werk,\u2019 in Aus dem Kreis um Sigmund Freud: Zu\nden Protokollen der Wiener Psychoanalytischen Vereinigung, ed. Ernst Federn and\nGerhard Wittenberger (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer-\u200bTaschenbuch-\u200bVerlag, 1992), 170\u2013\u200b75.\n9. Mircea Eliade, ed., The Encyclopedia of Religion, 16 vols. (New York: Macmillan,\n1987), vol. 1, s.v. \u2018Alchemy,\u2019 on 183. See also Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible,\ntrans. Stephen Corrin (London: Rider, 1962).\n10. This is emphasised by Hereward Tilton, The Quest for the Phoenix: Spiritual Alchemy\nand Rosicrucianism in the Work of Count Michael Maier (1569\u2013\u200b1622) (Berlin: De\nGruyter, 2003), 2\u2013\u200b9; Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy, 288\u2013\u200b95.\n11. C. G. Jung, Psychologie und Alchemie, 2nd ed. (Olten: Walter-\u200bVerlag, 1972), 265\u2013\u200b67.\nJung even characterised the alchemical process as \u2018an essentially (an sich) chemical investigation\u2019 on 542. This aspect is also highlighted by Tilton, The Quest for the Phoenix,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nof reference for the Viennese psychoanalyst Herbert Silberer, a longtime\nmember of Sigmund Freud\u2019s circle. He influentially linked alchemy to both\nmysticism and psychology in his 1914 book Probleme der Mystik und ihrer\nSymbolik (Problems of Mysticism and Its Symbolism).8\nIn the twentieth century, this second understanding shaped scholarship\non alchemy to a significant extent, in part because the first view discouraged\nactive engagement with the mysterious art. Romanian-\u200bborn historian of religion Mircea Eliade viewed alchemy as a \u2018spiritual\u2019 quest \u2018pursuing a goal similar or comparable to that of the major esoteric and \u201cmystical\u201d traditions.\u2019 He\nclearly stated that \u2018alchemists were not interested\u2014\u200bor only subsidiarily\u2014\u200bin\nthe scientific study of nature.\u20199 The Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung is probably\nthe most prominent exponent of a psychological conception of the royal art,\nand his work on alchemy informed scholarship for a considerable part of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=219\nPages: 219,220\nle Sycomore, 1982), 11\u2013\u200b36. On the significance of Obrist\u2019s critique, see Tilton, The\nQuest for the Phoenix, 8\u2013\u200b9; Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy, 293, n. 124. For\nan exemplary early review of Jung\u2019s work on alchemy, balancing lavish praise with\nmild criticism, see e.g. Walter Pagel, \u2018Jung\u2019s Views on Alchemy,\u2019 Isis 39 (1948): 44\u2013\u200b48.\n15. Obrist, Les d\u00e9buts de l\u2019imagerie alchimique, 35\u2013\u200b36, on 35.\n16. For the most important essays in this regard, see William R. Newman, \u2018 \u201cDecknamen\nor Pseudochemical Language\u201d? Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung,\u2019 Revue d\u2019histoire\ndes sciences 49 (1996): 159\u2013\u200b88; William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe,\n\u2018Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographic Mistake,\u2019\nEarly Science and Medicine 3 (1998): 32\u2013\u200b65; Lawrence M. Principe and William\nR. Newman, \u2018Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\u2019 in Secrets of\nNotes\n205\nNature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ed. William R. Newman and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19\nHieronymus Bosch.15 If all intriguing imagery could be studied as alchemy,\nthe term risked losing any analytical value it possessed. Two historians\nof science, William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, have since\nexpanded on Obrist\u2019s criticism of Jung. Through a series of studies, they\nsuccessfully replaced Jung\u2019s approach with a new paradigm, known as the\nNew Historiography of Alchemy, and firmly integrated alchemy into the\nhistory of science.16 In particular, Newman and Principe reproduce alchemical processes experimentally by decoding arcane language and imagery, thus demonstrating an alternative, historical interpretation for what\nJung viewed as timeless \u2018psychic processes expressed in pseudochemical\nlanguage.\u201917 Among specialists working in an Anglophone context, the \u2018old\nhistoriography\u2019 is now definitely a thing of the past. Scholarly debates in\nother linguistic contexts have been struggling to keep up with the rapid\ndevelopments brought about through the New Historiography.18]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=157\nPages: 157,158\nwritings. Partly responding to requests, he composed a considerable body\nof works elucidating these writings\u2019 secrets as well as resolving perceived\ntensions. To this day posterity remembers Freher as a faithful expositor of\nBoehme\u2019s writings, and he is even more widely known as the creator of fascinating images. These he presented throughout his virtually unknown\nwritings but also in concentrated form, with works largely consisting of figures, such as the cosmogonical Hieroglyphica sacra (Sacred Hieroglyphics),\nthe anthropological Three Tables, and the emblematic Paradoxa, emblemata,\naenigmata, hieroglyphica de uno, toto, puncto, centro (Paradoxes, Emblems,\nRiddles, Hieroglyphics on the One, Whole, Point, Centre).3 While these\nvisual creations may be more popular today, the main fruit of Freher\u2019s long\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0009\nDionysius Andreas Freher\n143]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=317\nPages: 317,318\nCentury.\u2019 Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 39 (1976): 104\u2013\u200b38.\nZuber, Mike A. \u2018Alchemical Promise, the Fraud Narrative, and the History of Science from\nBelow: Peter Moritz\u2019s Encounter with Robert Boyle and Ambrose Godfrey.\u2019 Ambix 68\n(2021): 28\u2013\u200b48.\nZuber, Mike A. \u2018Between Alchemy and Pietism: Wilhelm Christoph Kriegsmann\u2019s\nPhilological Quest for Ancient Wisdom.\u2019 Correspondences 2 (2014): 67\u2013\u200b104.\nWorks Cited\n303\nZuber, Mike A. \u2018The Duke, the Soldier of Fortune, and a Rosicrucian Legacy: Exploring\nthe Roles of Manuscripts in Early-\u200bModern Alchemy.\u2019 Ambix 65 (2018): 122\u2013\u200b42.\nZuber, Mike A. \u2018Franckenberg, Abraham von.\u2019 In Literaturwissenschaftliches\nVerfasserlexikon: Fr\u00fche Neuzeit in Deutschland 1620\u2013\u200b1720. Edited by Stefanie Arend\net al., vol. 3: F\u2013\u200bH, s.v. Berlin: De Gruyter, forthcoming.\nZuber, Mike A. \u2018Jacob B\u00f6hme and Alchemy: A Transmutation in Three Stages.\u2019 In\nAndersson et al., Jacob B\u00f6hme and His World, 262\u2013\u200b85.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=320\nPages: 320,318\nAndersson et al., Jacob B\u00f6hme and His World, 262\u2013\u200b85.\nZuber, Mike A. \u2018Surely Born-\u200bAgain Christianity Has Nothing to Do with Occult Stuff\nLike Alchemy?\u2019 In Hermes Explains: Thirty Questions on Western Esotericism. Edited by\nWouter J. Hanegraaff, Peter Forshaw, and Marco Pasi, 252\u2013\u200b60. Amsterdam: Amsterdam\nUniversity Press, 2019.\nZuber, Mike A. \u2018Theosophische Spekulation und erbauliche Fr\u00f6mmigkeit: Jacob B\u00f6hme,\ndie neue Wiedergeburt und ihre Alchemisierung.\u2019 In Grund und Ungrund: Der Kosmos\ndes mystischen Philosophen Jacob B\u00f6hme. Edited by Claudia Brink and Lucinda Martin,\n114\u2013\u200b29. Dresden: Sandstein, 2017.\nZuber, Mike A., and Leigh T. I. Penman. \u2018Robert Boyle\u2019s Anonymous \u201cCrosey-\u200bCrucian\u201d\nIdentified: The German Alchemist and Religious Dissenter Peter Moritz.\u2019 Notes and\nRecords 74 (2020): 95\u2013\u200b103.\nIndex\nPage ranges (e.g. 40\u2013\u200b41) refer to the paragraph(s) in which indexed terms appear.\nFigures are indicated by f following the page number\nActs of the Apostles, 59\u2013\u200b60\nAdam 52\u2013\u200b53]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18,19\nplayed the important role of establishing that alchemy was worthy of serious\n4\nSpiritual Alchemy\ninquiry rather than dismissal. Even pioneering historians such as Betty Jo\nTeeter Dobbs, who worked extensively on Isaac Newton\u2019s alchemy, initially\napproached the art through Jungian lenses.13 To this day, Jung\u2019s views inform\npopular portrayals and perceptions of alchemy and still continue to stimulate\ninterest in the subject.\nWhile mild criticism of Jung\u2019s ahistorical approach accompanied his\nreception in the historiography of alchemy from the start, only in 1982\ndid Swiss art historian Barbara Obrist call for its abolition and present a\nconvincing critique.14 According to her trenchant analysis, the very popularity of Jung\u2019s work had led to \u2018general confusion\u2019 due to an inflationary\nuse of the term \u2018alchemy\u2019 that saw it applied to all sorts of evocative art, including mythological depictions and the work of the famous Dutch artist]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nthe theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz, plays a pivotal role in the story told in these pages.\nEven as he acknowledged the experimental side of alchemy and considered it foundational, Jung\u2014\u200bthe inventor of analytical psychology\u2014\u200bwas\nchiefly interested in alchemical imagery. He interpreted it as the projections\nof the unconscious. His 1946 contribution to Ambix, the leading journal for\nthe history of alchemy and chemistry, described the art of the philosophers\u2019\nstone as \u2018a real museum of projections.\u2019 Jung provocatively claimed that \u2018its\nhistory should never have been treated by chemists, for it offers an ideal\nhunting-\u200bground for the psychologists.\u201912 According to him, the approach\nto alchemy taken by chemists obscured much of its richness, which he as a\npsychologist was better able to appreciate and communicate. Jung\u2019s interpretation of alchemy was an attempt to understand its nigh-\u200bimpenetrable language and fascinating symbolism that was fresh and stimulating at its time. It]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=121\nPages: 121,122\nBreckling\u2019s livelihood depended on the publishing business: he worked as a\nproofreader and took a very active role in disseminating heterodox literature\nin print. Particularly the way Breckling included Boehme\u2019s complete works\u2014\u200b\nalongside a number of his own writings\u2014\u200bin a chronological account of his\nlife suggests that he may have contributed to the project in some capacity.\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0007\nFriedrich Breckling\n107\nImmediately afterwards, Breckling published two short treatises with promising titles: Christus mysticus, sol et sal sapientiae (The Mystical Christ, Sun\nand Salt of Wisdom) and Pseudosophia mundi (The Fake Wisdom of the\nWorld). Both of these pamphlets were published in 1682, just like Boehme\u2019s\ncomplete works. In a concise, condensed manner, Breckling used these two\nworks to outline his spiritual alchemy.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=313\nPages: 313,314\n1913): 17\u2013\u200b32.\nSteiger, Isabelle de. Memorabilia: Reminiscences of a Woman Artist and Writer.\nLondon: Rider, 1927.\nWorks Cited\n299\nSteiger, Isabelle de. On a Gold Basis: A Treatise on Mysticism. 2nd ed. London: Rider, 1909.\nFirst published 1907.\nSteiger, Isabelle de. \u2018To the Editor of the Occult Review.\u2019 Occult Review 14 (1911):\n346\u2013\u200b49.\nSteiger, Johann Anselm. \u2018Jacob B\u00f6hmes Rettung: Friedrich Brecklings Anticalovius (1688)\nals Apologie des mystischen Spiritualismus.\u2019 In K\u00fchlmann and Vollhardt, Offenbarung\nund Episteme, 283\u2013\u200b94.\nSteinmeyer, Elias von. Die Matrikel der Universit\u00e4t Altdorf. 2 vols. W\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigl.\nUniversit\u00e4tsdruckerei H. St\u00fcrtz, 1912.\nStockum, Th. C. van. Zwischen Jakob B\u00f6hme und Johann Scheffler: Abraham von\nFranckenberg (1593\u2013\u200b1652) und Daniel Czepko von Reigersfeld (1605\u2013\u200b1660). Amsterdam:\nN.V. Noord-\u200bHollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1967.\nStoeber, Michael. \u2018Evelyn Underhill on Magic, Sacrament, and Spiritual Transformation.\u2019\nWorship 77 (2003): 132\u2013\u200b51.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=45\nPages: 45,46\npublished in 1618. The second part of the chapter explores Nagel\u2019s reception\nof pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy, documenting how a member of Boehme\u2019s network elaborated its ideas further in his own scribal publications.\nJohann Siebmacher and His Wasserstein\nEver since the eighteenth century, the authorship of the Wasserstein has been\nshrouded in confusion. General agreement exists only regarding the author\u2019s\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0003\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n31\nsurname: Siebmacher. His first name is given as Johann, Johann Ambrosius,\nAmbrosius, or even Wolfgang.2 As a consequence, there has so far been no\ndistinct authorial profile allowing for contextualisation of the Wasserstein.\nAlthough two scholars arrived at what I take to be the correct solution more]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=299\nPages: 299\nHessayon, Ariel, and Sarah Apetrei, eds. An Introduction to Jacob Boehme: Four Centuries\nof Thought and Reception. London: Routledge, 2014.\nHessayon, Ariel. \u2018Boehme\u2019s Life and Times.\u2019 In Hessayon and Apetrei, An Introduction to\nJacob Boehme, 13\u2013\u200b37.\nHessayon, Ariel, ed. Jane Lead and Her Transnational Legacy. London: Palgrave\nMacmillan, 2016.\nHessayon, Ariel. \u2018Lead\u2019s Life and Times,\u2019 3 pts. In Hessayon, Jane Lead, 13\u2013\u200b90.\nHillenbrand, Rainer. \u2018Cherubinische Trinit\u00e4tsmystik bei Angelus Silesius.\u2019 Daphnis 47\n(2019): 592\u2013\u200b638.\nHinshaw, Robert, and Lela Fischli, eds. C. G. Jung im Gespr\u00e4ch: Interviews, Reden,\nBegegnungen. Zurich: Daimon, 1986.\nHirai, Hiro. \u2018The World-\u200bSpirit and Quintessence in the Chymical Philosophy of Joseph\nDu Chesne.\u2019 In L\u00f3pez P\u00e9rez et al., Chymia, 247\u2013\u200b61.\nHirst, Julie. Jane Leade: Biography of a Seventeenth-\u200b\nCentury Mystic. Aldershot:\nAshgate, 2005.\nHitchcock, Ethan Allen. Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists, Indicating a Method]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=142\nPages: 142\nFrom his home in Amsterdam, Gichtel was able to report on various tensions affecting the collaborators, whereas \u00dcberfeld in Leiderdorp\nwas less directly involved in these conflicts. In his next letter, dated 10\nFebruary, Gichtel mentioned the reclusive physician Isaac Schmidberger.\nApparently, Schmidberger had complained about Breckling to Gichtel,\nwho immediately proceeded to gossip about Schmidberger in his letter to\n\u00dcberfeld: \u2018Schmidberger judges Breckling\u2019s addition (Zugabe) to be but blind\nzeal, and his own thorny preface itself is not worth a bean.\u201913 We might read\nGichtel\u2019s verdict on Schmidberger\u2019s preface as an unfavourable comparison to \u00dcberfeld\u2019s alternative, which he had praised in the previous letter.\nUnfortunately, it remains unclear whether \u2018Breckling\u2019s addition\u2019 refers to a\nseparate text or interspersed extrapolations.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=288\nPages: 288,289\nbibliothecam B. Jo. Guilielmus Baierus . . . instruxerat. Altdorf: Prostant exemplaria\ncatalogi in bibliopolio sub iisdem aedibus, 1731.\n274\nWorks Cited\nBaier, Karl. Meditation und Moderne: Zur Genese eines Kernbereichs moderner\nSpiritualit\u00e4t in der Wechselwirkung zwischen Westeuropa, Nordamerika und Asien.\n2 vols. W\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigshausen & Neumann, 2009.\nBarnes, Robin Bruce. Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran\nReformation. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.\nBates, A. W. H. Anti-\u200bVivisection and the Profession of Medicine in Britain: A Social History.\nLondon: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.\nBaur, J\u00f6rg. \u2018Ubiquit\u00e4t.\u2019 In Creator est Creatura: Luthers Christologie als Lehre von der\nIdiomenkommunikation. Edited by Oswald Bayer and Benjamin Gleede, 186\u2013\u200b301.\nBerlin: De Gruyter, 2007.\nBecker, J\u00f6rg Georg, and Nil\u00fcfer Kr\u00fcger. Die theologischen Handschriften der Staats-\u200bund\nUniversit\u00e4tsbibliothek Hamburg. 4 vols. Hamburg: Hauswedell, 1975\u2013\u200b98.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=160\nPages: 160\nwas never Freher\u2019s strong suit. Deichmann and Scheller together then took\nFreher to meet Leade. During this much-\u200banticipated meeting, the prophetess agreed to write an individual letter to each of them. Scheller received\nthe lion\u2019s share of Leade\u2019s praise, leaving Freher offended that she had failed to\nrecognise his own superiority.\nHe promptly admonished her in a reply, yet Leade cut him down to size by\nresponding that \u2018even if he had Solomon\u2019s wisdom, there would yet be more\nwith her, which instantly lessened Freher\u2019s affection\u2019 for her. Disappointed in\nhis high hopes for the encounter with Leade, the former disciple of Gichtel\nand \u00dcberfeld sought to emulate them and found his own spiritual community. However, Deichmann and particularly Scheller showed no enthusiasm.\nAs Freher proved an unpopular roommate, his would-\u200bbe disciples soon left\nhim, one after the other.22 Following this initial disappointment with Leade]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=306\nPages: 306\nReformation Germany. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.\nNummedal, Tara, and Donna Bilak, eds. Furnace and Fugue: A Digital Edition of Michael\nMaier\u2019s Atalanta fugiens (1618) with Scholarly Commentary. https://\u200bdoi.org/\u200b10.26300/\u200b\nbdp.ff. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019.\nOberl\u00e4nder, Erwin. \u2018K\u00f6nigliches Intermezzo in Kurland: Ludwig XVIII. in Mitau und\nBlankenfeld.\u2019 In Ostseeprovinzen, Baltische Staaten und das Nationale: Festschrift f\u00fcr\nGert von Pistohlkors zum 70. Geburtstag. Edited by Norbert Angermann, Michael\nGarleff, and Wilhelm Lenz, 165\u2013\u200b84. M\u00fcnster: LIT, 2005.\nObrist, Barbara. Les d\u00e9buts de l\u2019imagerie alchimique (XIVe\u2013\u200bXVe si\u00e8cles). Paris: Editions le\nSycomore, 1982.\nOsiander, Andreas. Disputationes duae: Una, de lege et evangelio, habita nonis Aprilis.\n1549. Altera, de iustificatione, habita 9. cal. Novembris. 1550. K\u00f6nigsberg: Ex officina\nhaeredum Joannis Lufftii, 1550.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=219\nPages: 219,220\nle Sycomore, 1982), 11\u2013\u200b36. On the significance of Obrist\u2019s critique, see Tilton, The\nQuest for the Phoenix, 8\u2013\u200b9; Hanegraaff, Esotericism and the Academy, 293, n. 124. For\nan exemplary early review of Jung\u2019s work on alchemy, balancing lavish praise with\nmild criticism, see e.g. Walter Pagel, \u2018Jung\u2019s Views on Alchemy,\u2019 Isis 39 (1948): 44\u2013\u200b48.\n15. Obrist, Les d\u00e9buts de l\u2019imagerie alchimique, 35\u2013\u200b36, on 35.\n16. For the most important essays in this regard, see William R. Newman, \u2018 \u201cDecknamen\nor Pseudochemical Language\u201d? Eirenaeus Philalethes and Carl Jung,\u2019 Revue d\u2019histoire\ndes sciences 49 (1996): 159\u2013\u200b88; William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe,\n\u2018Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographic Mistake,\u2019\nEarly Science and Medicine 3 (1998): 32\u2013\u200b65; Lawrence M. Principe and William\nR. Newman, \u2018Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\u2019 in Secrets of\nNotes\n205\nNature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ed. William R. Newman and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19\nHieronymus Bosch.15 If all intriguing imagery could be studied as alchemy,\nthe term risked losing any analytical value it possessed. Two historians\nof science, William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, have since\nexpanded on Obrist\u2019s criticism of Jung. Through a series of studies, they\nsuccessfully replaced Jung\u2019s approach with a new paradigm, known as the\nNew Historiography of Alchemy, and firmly integrated alchemy into the\nhistory of science.16 In particular, Newman and Principe reproduce alchemical processes experimentally by decoding arcane language and imagery, thus demonstrating an alternative, historical interpretation for what\nJung viewed as timeless \u2018psychic processes expressed in pseudochemical\nlanguage.\u201917 Among specialists working in an Anglophone context, the \u2018old\nhistoriography\u2019 is now definitely a thing of the past. Scholarly debates in\nother linguistic contexts have been struggling to keep up with the rapid\ndevelopments brought about through the New Historiography.18]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=12\nPages: 12\nInstitute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Many read the book or\nparts of it at various stages of completion, including Jacqueline Borsje,\nChristine Ferguson, Olav Hammer, Ian Hesketh, Eric Jorink, Lucinda\nMartin, Cecilia Muratori, Guido Naschert, Lawrence Principe, Aren\nRoukema, and Vincent Roy-\u200bDi Piazza. I received important, indeed crucial,\npointers from Scott Brown, Carlos Gilly, and Frank van Lamoen. Others engaged with my ideas, responded to queries, supported my research, or taught\nme much: Bo Andersson, Rosalie Basten, G\u00fcnther Bonheim, Jos\u00e9 Bouman,\nHartmut Broszinski, Paul Dijstelberge, Marcel Elias, J. Christian Greer,\nYaniv Hagbi, Cis van Heertum, Ariel Hessayon, T\u00fcnde Beatrix Karnitscher,\nAndreas B. Kilcher, Martin Mulsow, Sonja Noll, Tara Nummedal, Julian\nPaulus, Horst Pfefferl, Rafa\u0142 Prinke, Joost R. Ritman, Esther Ritman, J. J\u00fcrgen\nSeidel, the late Joachim Telle, Andrew Weeks, and Matthias Wenzel. Among]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=308\nPages: 308\nPfister, Kathrin. \u2018Joachim Polemann: Biographische Notizen zu einem Fachschriftsteller\nund Alchemiker des 17. Jahrhunderts.\u2019 In Minera discipulorum: Vorst\u00f6sse in das\nFachschrifttum der fr\u00fchen Neuzeit. Gedenkschrift f\u00fcr Joachim Telle. Edited by Laura\nBalbiani and Kathrin Pfister, 161\u2013\u200b70. Heidelberg: Mattes, 2014.\nPhilalethes, Lover of. A Short Enquiry concerning the Hermetic Art. Edited by Non Omnis\nMoriar [William Wynn Westcott]. London: Theosophical Publishing Society, 1894.\nPietsch, Andreas. \u2018Expanding the Boundaries of Orthodoxy? Friedrich Breckling and\nthe 1687/\u200b90 German Edition of Hiel\u2019s Works.\u2019 Church History and Religious Culture 98\n(2018): 91\u2013\u200b110.\nPoortman, J. J. Vehicles of Consciousness: The Concept of Hylic Pluralism (Och\u0113ma).\nTranslated by N. D. Smith. 4 vols. Utrecht: Theosophical Society, 1978.\nPordage, John. \u2018Ein Gr\u00fcndlich Philosophisch Sendschreiben vom rechten und wahren\nSteine der Wei\u00dfheit.\u2019 In Theologia mystica: oder Geheime und verborgne g\u00f6ttliche Lehre]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=288\nPages: 288,289\nbibliothecam B. Jo. Guilielmus Baierus . . . instruxerat. Altdorf: Prostant exemplaria\ncatalogi in bibliopolio sub iisdem aedibus, 1731.\n274\nWorks Cited\nBaier, Karl. Meditation und Moderne: Zur Genese eines Kernbereichs moderner\nSpiritualit\u00e4t in der Wechselwirkung zwischen Westeuropa, Nordamerika und Asien.\n2 vols. W\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigshausen & Neumann, 2009.\nBarnes, Robin Bruce. Prophecy and Gnosis: Apocalypticism in the Wake of the Lutheran\nReformation. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.\nBates, A. W. H. Anti-\u200bVivisection and the Profession of Medicine in Britain: A Social History.\nLondon: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.\nBaur, J\u00f6rg. \u2018Ubiquit\u00e4t.\u2019 In Creator est Creatura: Luthers Christologie als Lehre von der\nIdiomenkommunikation. Edited by Oswald Bayer and Benjamin Gleede, 186\u2013\u200b301.\nBerlin: De Gruyter, 2007.\nBecker, J\u00f6rg Georg, and Nil\u00fcfer Kr\u00fcger. Die theologischen Handschriften der Staats-\u200bund\nUniversit\u00e4tsbibliothek Hamburg. 4 vols. Hamburg: Hauswedell, 1975\u2013\u200b98.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=316\nPages: 316,317\nnothwendiges Colloquium oder Gespr\u00e4che, dreyer f\u00fcrnembsten Personen in der Welt.\nHalle: In verlegung Joachim Krusicken, 1614.\nWeigel, Valentin. Schriften: Neue Edition. Edited by Horst Pfefferl. 14 vols. Stuttgart-\u200bBad\nCannstatt: Frommann-\u200bHolzboog, 1996\u2013\u200b2015.\nWeigelt, Horst. Spiritualistische Tradition im Protestantismus: Die Geschichte des\nSchwenckfeldertums in Schlesien. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1973.\nWeigelt, Horst. Von Schlesien nach Amerika: Die Geschichte des Schwenckfeldertums.\nCologne: B\u00f6hlau, 2007.\nWei\u00df, Ulman. Die Lebenswelten des Esajas Stiefel oder Vom Umgang mit Dissidenten.\nStuttgart: Steiner, 2007.\nWengert, Timothy John. Defending Faith: Lutheran Responses to Andreas Osiander\u2019s\nDoctrine of Justification, 1551\u2013\u200b1559. T\u00fcbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012.\n302\nWorks Cited\nWiedeburg, Heinrich, and Christoph Tobias Wiedeburg. Disputatio theologica inauguralis\nqua theologiae fanaticae fundamentum de tribus partibus hominis corpore anima et]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=204\nPages: 204,205\nauthority. As late as 1908, she schemed with others, including \u2018Archdeacon\n[Basil] Wilberforce,\u2019 whom she had known since he was \u2018a little curly headed\nboy\u2019 in the early 1840s, to bring about \u2018the republication of B\u00f6hme\u2019s works,\u2019\nalthough this endeavour ultimately came to nothing.94 To phrase this more\npositively, it could be said that she graduated to studying the master rather\nthan his disciple Freher.\nIt is particularly in the appendix compiled by Wilmshurst that the incomparable status Atwood accorded to Boehme finds expression. According\nto her, he easily surpassed not only later visionaries, such as Emanuel\nSwedenborg, who had been esteemed highly by her husband, but also the\nhigh-\u200b\nwater marks of ancient and modern philosophy, represented by\n190\nSpiritual Alchemy\nFig. 10.2 Dionysius Andreas Freher, Jesus Immanuel, 2 vols. This nineteenth-\u200b\ncentury copy of writings by Freher contains the text of volume A of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=199\nPages: 199\nand expressed but one minor criticism\u2014\u200bthe discussion of \u2018the Abraxas\nwhich were the foundation and resultants of the Idolatry that the Bible\nso strongly inveighs against.\u201951 Although De Steiger\u2019s book engaged with\nmany distinctively modern discussions, trends, and terms, the spiritual\nalchemy it articulated remained faithful to Atwood and her predecessors.\nBoehme was the dominant authority: the original theosopher appeared\nthroughout De Steiger\u2019s book, and its prologue largely consisted of\nquotations from Boehme\u2019s works, especially his Signatura rerum.52 After\nappealing to that same treatise yet again, De Steiger explained that the\n\u2018mystics fully believe . . . that the process by which regeneration is attained\nis portrayed in its various degrees in the different events in the life of\nChrist\u2019\u2014\u200bthe core idea of the process of Christ as Boehme described it in\nSignatura rerum.53 Indeed, that \u2018same interior process, or the history of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=267\nPages: 267\nReichsstadt, itzt K\u00f6niglich W\u00fcrtembergischen Kreisstadt, Reutlingen vom dritten Viertel\ndes 16ten bis gegen die Mitte des 18ten Jahrhunderts. Nebst einem Anhang von 1789\nbis 1803 (Reutlingen: Fleischhauer und Spohn, 1845), 261; Dieter Ising, \u2018Radikaler\nPietismus in der fr\u00fchen Korrespondenz Johann Albrecht Bengels,\u2019 Pietismus und\nNeuzeit 31 (2005): 152\u2013\u200b95, on 183. Hoffstetter\u2019s letters to Breckling may be found in\nGotha, FB: Chart. B 198, ff. 192r\u2013\u200b217v; Hamburg, Staats-\u200bund Universit\u00e4tsbibliothek\n(SUB): Cod. theol. 1894, pp. 249\u2013\u200b50.\n72. Hamburg, SUB: Cod. theol. 1894, pp. 249\u2013\u200b50. On the woman alchemist in question,\nsee Alexander Kraft, \u2018Dorothea Juliana Wallich (1657\u2013\u200b1725) and Her Contributions\nto the Chymical Knowledge about the Element Cobalt,\u2019 in Women in Their\nElement: Selected Women\u2019s Contributions to the Periodic System, ed. Annette Lykknes\nand Brigitte van Tiggelen (Singapore: World Scientific, 2019), 57\u2013\u200b69; Alexander\nKraft, \u2018Dorothea Juliana Wallich, geb. Fischer (1657\u2013\u200b]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=296\nPages: 296\ngeschichtlicher und religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung. Leipzig: Deichert, 1907.\nGentilcore, David. \u2018 \u201cCharlatans, Mountebanks and Other Similar People\u201d: The\nRegulation and Role of Itinerant Practitioners in Early Modern Italy.\u2019 Social History 20\n(1995): 297\u2013\u200b314.\nGentilcore, David. Medical Charlatanism in Early Modern Italy. Oxford: Oxford\nUniversity Press, 2006.\nGeyer, Hermann. Verborgene Weisheit: Johann Arndts \u2018Vier B\u00fccher vom Wahren\nChristentum\u2019 als Programm einer spiritualistisch-\u200b\nhermetischen Theologie. 3 vols.\nBerlin: De Gruyter, 2001.\nGibbons, B. J. Gender in Mystical and Occult Thought: Behmenism and Its Development in\nEngland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.\nGibson, K. \u2018Apocalyptic and Millenarian Prophecy in Early Stuart Europe: Philip Ziegler,\nLudwig Friedrich Gifftheil and the Fifth Monarchy.\u2019 In Prophecy: The Power of Inspired\nLanguage in History 1300\u2013\u200b2000. Edited by Bertrand Taithe and Tim Thornton, 71\u2013\u200b84.\nStroud: Sutton, 1997.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=302\nPages: 302\nKober, Tobias. \u2018Umst\u00e4ndlicher Bericht . . . von der Kranckheit, Absterben und Begr\u00e4bni\u00df\ndes sel. Autoris Theosophi, an die Edlen Herren von Schweinichen.\u2019 In Jacob Boehme,\nDe vita et scriptis, 40\u2013\u200b52. [Leiden?], 1730.\nKoitzsch, Kerry E. \u2018Mrs Atwood and the Utopian Tradition: A Nineteenth-\u200bCentury\nAlchemist as Utopian Theorist.\u2019 In The Individual and Utopia: A Multidisciplinary\nStudy of Humanity and Perfection. Edited by Clint Jones and Cameron Ellis, 99\u2013\u200b114.\nFarnham: Ashgate, 2015.\nKornexl, Dietrich. \u2018Studien zu Marquard Freher (1565\u2013\u200b\n1614): Leben, Werke und\ngelehrtengeschichtliche Bedeutung.\u2019 PhD thesis, Albert-\u200bLudwigs-\u200bUniversit\u00e4t Freiburg\ni.Br., 1967.\nKoyr\u00e9, Alexandre. La philosophie de Jacob Boehme. Paris: Librarie philosophique\nJ. Vrin, 1929.\nKraft, Alexander. \u2018Dorothea Juliana Wallich, geb. Fischer (1657\u2013\u200b1725), eine Alchemistin\naus Th\u00fcringen.\u2019 Genealogie: Deutsche Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Familienkunde XXXIII/\u200b66\n(2017): 539\u2013\u200b55.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=313\nPages: 313,314\n1913): 17\u2013\u200b32.\nSteiger, Isabelle de. Memorabilia: Reminiscences of a Woman Artist and Writer.\nLondon: Rider, 1927.\nWorks Cited\n299\nSteiger, Isabelle de. On a Gold Basis: A Treatise on Mysticism. 2nd ed. London: Rider, 1909.\nFirst published 1907.\nSteiger, Isabelle de. \u2018To the Editor of the Occult Review.\u2019 Occult Review 14 (1911):\n346\u2013\u200b49.\nSteiger, Johann Anselm. \u2018Jacob B\u00f6hmes Rettung: Friedrich Brecklings Anticalovius (1688)\nals Apologie des mystischen Spiritualismus.\u2019 In K\u00fchlmann and Vollhardt, Offenbarung\nund Episteme, 283\u2013\u200b94.\nSteinmeyer, Elias von. Die Matrikel der Universit\u00e4t Altdorf. 2 vols. W\u00fcrzburg: K\u00f6nigl.\nUniversit\u00e4tsdruckerei H. St\u00fcrtz, 1912.\nStockum, Th. C. van. Zwischen Jakob B\u00f6hme und Johann Scheffler: Abraham von\nFranckenberg (1593\u2013\u200b1652) und Daniel Czepko von Reigersfeld (1605\u2013\u200b1660). Amsterdam:\nN.V. Noord-\u200bHollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1967.\nStoeber, Michael. \u2018Evelyn Underhill on Magic, Sacrament, and Spiritual Transformation.\u2019\nWorship 77 (2003): 132\u2013\u200b51.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=310\nPages: 310,311\nIn Christliche Kabbala. Edited by Wilhelm Schmidt-\u200b\nBiggemann, 183\u2013\u200b\n97. Ostfil\u00ad\ndern: Thorbecke, 2003.\n296\nWorks Cited\nRusterholz, Sibylle. \u2018Jacob B\u00f6hme im Lichte seiner Gegner und Anh\u00e4nger: Die zentralen\nArgumente der Streitschriften von ihren Anf\u00e4ngen zu Lebzeiten B\u00f6hmes bis zum Ende\ndes 17. Jahrhunderts.\u2019 In K\u00fchlmann and Vollhardt, Offenbarung und Episteme, 7\u2013\u200b32.\nRusterholz, Sibylle. \u2018Jacob B\u00f6hme im Spiegel totalit\u00e4ren Denkens: Hans Alfred\nGrunskys nationalsozialistische Sicht des Philosophus teutonicus.\u2019 B\u00f6hme-\u200bStudien 3\n(2013): 91\u2013\u200b116.\nRusterholz, Sibylle. \u2018Jakob B\u00f6hme und Anh\u00e4nger.\u2019 In Die Philosophie des 17.\nJahrhunderts: Das Heilige R\u00f6mische Reich Deutscher Nation, Nord-\u200bund Ostmitteleuropa.\nEdited by Helmut Holzhey, Wilhelm Schmidt-\u200bBiggemann, and Vilem Mudroch, 61\u2013\u200b\n102. Basel: Schwabe, 2001.\nRusterholz, Sibylle. \u2018Zum Verh\u00e4ltnis von Liber Naturae und Liber Scripturae bei Jacob\nB\u00f6hme.\u2019 In Garewicz and Haas, Gott, Natur und Mensch, 129\u2013\u200b46.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=205\nPages: 205,206\nthe pen of an erudite Englishwoman. Just as Breckling had placed Boehme\non a par with Luther, Atwood elevated him to the same status as Newton.\nIndeed, \u2018Sir Isaac Newton,\u2019 she claimed, \u2018should be named amongst the\nadmirers of J. B\u00f6hmen.\u201998 She could have said the same of Georg Wilhelm\nMary Anne Atwood\n191\nFriedrich Hegel, and she indeed viewed the situation as similar with regard\nto the German Idealists.99 \u2018Many modern metaphysicians,\u2019 she wrote, \u2018I mean\nFichte, Schelling, Hegel, Kant, and others of kindred mind . . . worked hard\non the margin of intellectual intuition of truth.\u2019 Like Boehme, they shared\n\u2018their starting point\u2019 with \u2018the Mystics\u2019; unlike him, they never achieved mystical union with the divine.100 The German Idealists could see and perhaps\neven intuit the scientific corollaries better than Boehme, yet he was able to\ncompletely enter into the divine mystery they contemplated. In other words,\nthe theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz had achieved mystical union with the divine.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=10\nPages: 10\nLandesbibliothek: Ms. Allerheiligen 3, p. 397. \u00a9 BLB Karlsruhe, Digitale\nSammlungen.\n22\n2.1. Johann Siebmacher, Introduction hominis. The Hague, Koninklijke\nBibliotheek\u2014\u200bNational Library of the Netherlands: PH404 M315 (Ritman\nKerncollectie), title page. \u00a9 KB Beeldstudio.\n33\n5.1. Abraham von Franckenberg, S\u00e6phiriel. Zurich, Zentralbibliothek: Bibliothek\nOskar R. Schlag, SCH R 809, f. 12r. \u00a9 ZB Zurich, Digitalisierungszentrum.\n102\n6.1. Friedrich Breckling, undated autograph letter. The Hague, Koninklijke\nBibliotheek\u2014\u200bNational Library of the Netherlands: 72 E 14, unpaginated.\n\u00a9 KB Beeldstudio.\n117\n7.1. Bartholomaeus Sclei, Theosophische-\u200bSchrifften, frontispiece designed by\nMichael Andreae. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek\u2014\u200bNational Library of\nthe Netherlands: PH2762 (Ritman Kerncollectie). \u00a9 KB Beeldstudio.\n129\n10.1. Mary Anne South, autograph letter pasted into A Suggestive Inquiry into the\nHermetic Mystery. London, Wellcome Collection Library: EPB/\u200bB/\u200b49072,\nback flyleaf. \u00a9 Author.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=291\nPages: 291,292\nBruckner, John. \u2018A Bibliography of Abraham von Franckenberg: Problems and\nPropositions.\u2019 German Life and Letters 36 (1983): 213\u2013\u200b18.\nBruns, Paul Jacob. Catalogus bibliothecae D. Antonii Julii von der Hardt Abbatis\nMichaelsteinensis. Helmstedt: Typis Vid. Schnorrianae acad. typ., 1786.\nBucklow, Spike. The Alchemy of Paint: Art, Science and Secrets from the Middle Ages.\nLondon: Marion Boyars, 2009.\nBuddecke, Werner, ed. Jacob B\u00f6hme: Die Urschriften. 2 vols. Stuttgart-\u200bBad Cannstatt:\nFrommann, 1963\u2013\u200b66.\nBuddecke, Werner. Die Jakob B\u00f6hme-\u200bAusgaben: Ein beschreibendes Verzeichnis. 2 vols.\nG\u00f6ttingen: Dr. Ludwig H\u00e4ntzschel, 1937\u2013\u200b57.\nBuddecke, Werner. Verzeichnis von Jakob B\u00f6hme-\u200bHandschriften. G\u00f6ttingen: Dr. Ludwig\nH\u00e4ntzschel, 1934.\nBuddecke, Werner, and Matthias Wenzel. Jacob B\u00f6hme: Verzeichnis der Handschriften und\nfr\u00fchen Abschriften. G\u00f6rlitz: Oberlausitzische Bibliothek der Wissenschaften, 2000.\nWorks Cited\n277\nBuddecke, Wolfram. \u2018Die Jakob-\u200b\nB\u00f6hme-\u200b]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=199\nPages: 199\ndeath on 13 April 1910, by which time she had \u2018long since ceased to write\nto any one else,\u2019 as her final letter indicated.48 Indeed, after Penny\u2019s death in\n1893, the younger woman took her place as Atwood\u2019s \u2018chief and only correspondent.\u2019 To her dismay, acquaintances were quick to identify her as heiress\ndesignate not merely in the intellectual sense. Perhaps as a token of this special relationship, De Steiger received \u2018Mrs. Atwood\u2019s own original copy of The\nSuggestive Enquiry,\u2019 which in August 1900 narrowly escaped the flames of an\nEdinburgh fire that consumed most of De Steiger\u2019s belongings and art.49\nDuring her elderly friend\u2019s lifetime but largely independently, De Steiger\nwrote her own study of alchemy and mysticism. Titled On a Gold Basis: A\nTreatise on Mysticism, it was published in 1907 against the backdrop of economic crisis and the failing of the gold standard.50 When Atwood eventually read the copy De Steiger had given her, she commended the work]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=311\nPages: 311\nSchmidt, Martin. \u2018Christian Hoburg and Seventeenth-\u200bCentury Mysticism.\u2019 Journal of\nEcclesiastical History 18 (1967): 51\u2013\u200b58.\nSchmidt-\u200bBiggemann, Wilhelm. \u2018Abraham von Franckenberg.\u2019 In Geschichte der christlichen\nKabbala. 4 vols., 2:235\u2013\u200b57. Stuttgart-\u200bBad Cannstatt: Frommann-\u200bHolzboog, 2013.\nSchmidt-\u200bBiggemann, Wilhelm. \u2018Abraham von Franckenberg als christlicher Kabbalist.\u2019 In\nRealit\u00e4t als Herausforderung: Literatur in ihren konkreten historischen Kontexten. Edited\nby Ralf Bogner, Ralf Georg Czapla, Robert Seidel, and Christian von Zimmermann,\n233\u2013\u200b48. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011.\nSchmidt-\u200bBiggemann, Wilhelm. Philosophia Perennis: Historical Outlines of Western\nSpirituality in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought. Dordrecht: Springer,\n2004.\nSchmitz, Christian. Ratsb\u00fcrgerschaft und Residenz: Untersuchungen zu Berliner\nRatsfamilien, Heiratskreisen und sozialen Wandlungen im 17. Jahrhundert. Berlin: De\nGruyter, 2002.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=263\nPages: 263\nBibliothek befindlich, 2nd ed. (Nuremberg: Bey Wolfgang Schwartzkopf, 1776),\n127. The book\u2019s previous owner was Johann Wilhelm Baier, professor of theology,\nphysics, and mathematics at the University of Altdorf: Johann Wilhelm Baier,\nCatalogus librorum theologicorum . . . quibus suam olim bibliothecam B. Jo. Guilielmus\nBaierus . . . instruxerat (Altdorf: Prostant exemplaria catalogi in bibliopolio sub iisdem\naedibus, 1731), 391, no. 23. His \u2018sizable collection of fanatical and mystical writings,\u2019\nwhich had largely failed to attract buyers at an auction in June 1731, represented a significant addition to the library: Rinder, Catalogus Bibliothecae Fenizerianae, f. b7r.\n24. Sclei, Theosophische-\u200bSchrifften, f. **4v (Nuremberg, Landeskirchliches Archiv\n[LKA]: Fen II 914 8\u00b0).\n25. Sclei, Theosophische-\u200bSchrifften, f. *3r and 779, resp. (Nuremberg, LKA: Fen II 914 8\u00b0).]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=29\nPages: 29,30\n1600. It was in this context that the abstract language of rebirth that had\nalready baffled the Pharisee Nicodemus became more tangible through recourse to the concrete phenomena of alchemy. Previously neglected pseudepigrapha attributed to the unconventional Lutheran theologian Valentin\nWeigel appear to be among the oldest sources in which this took place.\nReformation-\u200bEra Developments\nThe preconditions for spiritual rebirth emancipating itself from baptism arose\nduring the age of the Reformation, due to Paracelsus, Caspar Schwenckfeld\nvon Ossig, and Valentin Weigel, among others. Charles Webster has placed\nParacelsus, chiefly famous for his medical innovations, in the context of the\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0002\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n15\nradical Reformation despite the fact that he remained nominally Catholic.4]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=28\nPages: 28,29\nFreher manuscripts, and Thomas South, the father of Mary Anne Atwood,\ndiscussed their shared enthusiasm for Boehme\u2019s expatriate expositor in letters written around the same time South\u2019s daughter composed her Suggestive\nInquiry (\u00adchapter 9). Early readers correctly perceived the mystical thrust of\nthis sprawling treatise, and Atwood herself expressed her understanding of\nalchemy more succinctly in later years (\u00adchapter 10).\n1\nThe Radical Reformation, Paracelsian\nNetworks, and Pseudo-\u200bWeigelian Alchemy\nWhereas most proponents of spiritual alchemy have tended towards viewing\nit as timeless, it actually originated in a very specific historical context. In an\nimportant sense, the alchemy of spiritual rebirth at the origins of born-\u200bagain\nChristianity was a quintessentially German affair. When talking about rebirth, most other European languages use the technical Latin term regeneratio\nor its vernacular derivates such as the French r\u00e9g\u00e9n\u00e9ration. In stark contrast,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=32\nPages: 32,33\nwent on to claim: \u2018I described it [rebirth] more clearly in my writings.\u201923\nThe eminent German church historian Martin Brecht lends support to the\ntheosopher\u2019s self-\u200bflattering claim, as he notes that particularly Boehme had\na lasting impact in spreading the notion of spiritual rebirth among radical\n18\nSpiritual Alchemy\nPietists in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.24 By way of\nPietism and, particularly in England, Methodism, the idea of spiritual rebirth\nreached modern Evangelicalism, where it continues to thrive among born-\u200b\nagain believers. The midwifing role of alchemy is now all but forgotten, yet\nthis kind of Christianity continues to exist until today in congregations and\ncommunities that emphasise rebirth or in individuals who describe themselves as born again. Scholars of Evangelicalism and Pietism, such as W. R.\nWard and Douglas H. Shantz, have perceptively noted that such debts to alchemy do exist in these movements.25]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=30\nPages: 30\n15\nradical Reformation despite the fact that he remained nominally Catholic.4\nAccording to Paracelsus\u2019 baptismal theology, a simple ritual involving water\nand accompanied by prayer imparted to those baptised a new, immortal\nbody. This spiritual body of rebirth then had to be nourished through Christ\u2019s\nbody and blood in the Eucharist.5 Boehme was to take up these core ideas,\nyet several important differences separated him from Paracelsus. Generally,\nthere was a change in the state of alchemical theorising about the mineral\nworld. In the early sixteenth century, Paracelsus stood at the very beginning\nof a time during which there was a \u2018porous boundary between alchemy and\nthe world of mining,\u2019 exemplified by Petrus Kerzenmacher\u2019s Alchimi und\nBergwerck (Alchemy and Mining) of 1534. It is in this context of alchemists\u2019\nengagement with vernacular mining lore that a new understanding of the\nunderground mineral realm began to take shape, one that was marked by]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=31\nPages: 31\nritually imitates the death and resurrection of Christ once in their lives;\nrebirth does so daily through the mystical identification of Christ and the\nbeliever. Due to these shifts, spiritualists used rebirth to articulate an alternative Christianity, running counter to the church establishment they\ndespised, claiming a truer faith of the few in contrast to the empty ceremonies of the masses. Whereas baptism had played a prominent role for\nParacelsus as he wrote about the spiritual body, Boehme\u2019s mature works\ndiscussed spiritual rebirth as something unrelated to baptism.\nThose who espoused the doctrine of spiritual rebirth departed from\nLutheran orthodoxy, as codified in the confessional writings, particularly regarding the doctrine of justification. The position of Luther and\nPhilipp Melanchthon, as well as the Lutheran church in general, is often\ndescribed as forensic, although recent scholarship has complicated the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=330\nPages: 330,331\nRaadt, Alhardt de, 112\u2013\u200b15\nrebirth (palingenesis), 26\u201327, 50\nrebirth (Wiedergeburt), 54, 166\u2013\u200b67\nand baptism, dissociation of, 14\u2013\u200b18\nand born-\u200bagain Christians, 209\u2013\u200b10n.51\nand justification doctrine, 16\u2013\u200b17\nin late medieval German writings, 14\nand modern evangelicalism, 17\u2013\u200b18\nand mystical incarnation of Christ\nwithin believer, 17\nand spiritual alchemy, 9\u2013\u200b10\nin spiritual alchemy compared to\nLutheranism, 9\u2013\u200b11, 16\u2013\u200b17\nand spiritus, 11\u2013\u200b12\nterms for, 14\nrebis. See hermaphrodite\nRedgrove, H. Stanley, 156\nReformation, 12\u2013\u200b13, 20, 24\u2013\u200b25, 70,\n170\u2013\u200b71\nradical, 14\u2013\u200b15\nregeneration, 1\u2013\u200b13, 14\u2013\u200b29, 30\u2013\u200b47,\n87\u2013\u200b105, 125\u2013\u200b41, 142\u2013\u200b59,\n161\u2013\u200b62, 184, 191, 194\u2013\u200b95, 196\nSee also rebirth (Wiedergeburt)\nReise Frieder[ich] Galli, 99\u2013\u200b100, 105\n316\nIndex\nreligion, compared to spirituality, as\nterms, 8\nreligious/\u200bspiritual dimensions of\nalchemy, 6\u2013\u200b7\nresurrection\nbaptism and, 16, 39\nof Christ, 63\nand Christ\u2019s transformation into\ntincture, 152\nat Last Judgement, 50\nand lifting of the Curse, 148\u2013\u200b49]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=65\nPages: 65\nthe Aurora refers to the restoration of creation and the resurrection of the\ndead at the Last Judgement.9 It was precisely in this sense that Luther himself had viewed alchemy as confirming Christian revelation. \u2018Rebirth\u2019 thus\nreferred to cosmic renewal, and the term also applied to restoration in the\nongoing process of divine becoming, which involved God\u2019s seven source\nspirits. Derived from the Book of Revelation, they functioned as analogues\nof the seven planets and metals.10 Only with the benefit of hindsight can we\nperceive the subtle germs of Boehme\u2019s later individualised and interiorised\nunderstanding of spiritual rebirth.11\nThe theosopher\u2019s life and works came to be indelibly marked by the controversy that erupted surrounding his first work. Independent confirmation\nremains elusive, but Boehme later claimed that a nobleman obtained a manuscript version, copied it, and disseminated it against the author\u2019s will. The]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=89\nPages: 89\nwisdom (prisca sapientia) and how he outlined his views on spiritual rebirth\nthroughout the Theophrastia Valentiniana.30 Indeed, to a significant extent,\nFranckenberg\u2019s Theophrastia Valentiniana reads like a study or paraphrase\nof Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy. The treatise is important for the manner in\nwhich its spiritual alchemy united ancient wisdom and Boehme\u2019s theosophy\nwhile linking individual rebirth to the restoration of all creation at the end\nof time.\nIn a radical departure from earlier accounts that inevitably described\nValentinus as a heretic, Franckenberg styled him as the prototypical born-\u200b\nagain believer. According to Franckenberg\u2019s treatment, rebirth was central to \u2018the philotheosophy of Valentinus\u2019 as well as to the story of his life.\nHe construed the lack of understanding the gnostic Valentinus encountered in others, presumably especially those endowed with ecclesiastical\nauthority, as the gnostic\u2019s main trial. In this he shared the fate of \u2018all born-\u200b]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=25\nPages: 25\namenable to Lutheran orthodoxy. The reformer Martin Luther himself\nhad praised alchemy as a visible demonstration of this article of faith, and\na court alchemist\u2019s obituary explicitly called it \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 (geistliche\nAlchymia) around 1660.52 Yet there are two important differences that concern timing and agency. In contrast to the delayed bodily transmutation at\nthe end of time, Boehme and his followers held that it began in the here and\nnow, albeit imperceptibly and in ways that cannot be measured with the tools\nof science. Furthermore, the orthodox understanding reserves agency solely\nfor God, in keeping with Luther\u2019s principle of sola gratia (by grace alone): on\nthis view, believers are passive matter in God\u2019s hands rather than spiritual\nadepts who participate actively in the cultivation of their resurrection bodies.\nThe issue of agency leads on directly to the third aspect, which is the practical pursuit of that process of spiritual rebirth and its bodiliness through]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=98\nPages: 98\nhis life repeatedly and becoming purer and purer in the process.\nLike Boehme, Franckenberg viewed spiritual rebirth as an ongoing process that started inwardly in the here and now but also had eternal and physical implications. Rebirth was virtually a \u2018first resurrection\u2019 of the spirit that\nprefigured the final, bodily one:\nIt happens here, according to time, as we fall and move in the flesh; yet according to the soul, it reaches into the principle of the spirit or the light\nof faith in CHRIST, from which originates\u2014\u200bin the daily enactment of\npenitence\u2014\u200ba foretaste and part of the tinctURe of the future, eternal life of\njoy, and it brings good fruit, both in this world and the next.72\nFor the time being, the effects of that divine transmuting agent could therefore only be felt to a limited extent. They did cause anticipatory \u2018delight in the\nresurrection of our bodies\u2019 among born-\u200bagain believers and foreshadowed]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=31\nPages: 31\ninto the seventeenth century and beyond, and it was in this vicinity that\nBoehme developed his theosophy.11 Another minister among the second\ngeneration of Reformers also contributed to the devotional literature\nBoehme read: Valentin Weigel. After a quiet life as a pastor in the Saxon\ntown of Zschopau, Weigel posthumously embarked on an impressive career as a heretic. Throughout the seventeenth century, his name became\nsynonymous with what theologians and church historians now call spiritualism: orthodox clergy and authorities aggressively cracked down\non Weigelians.12 While most of them had been baptised as infants, their\ntheological convictions led Schwenckfeldians, Weigelians, and Lutheran\nspiritualists to dismiss outward rites as ineffective.13 They therefore turned\nrebirth into something that was distinct from baptism, purely interior, happening continually rather than just once. The baptism of infants or adults]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=30\nPages: 30,31\n\u2018a dissociation of baptism and rebirth,\u2019 something I have described in more\ndetail elsewhere. Anabaptists rejected infant baptism and \u2018highlighted an\n16\nSpiritual Alchemy\nadult\u2019s conscious decision of faith as a crucial requirement for baptism and\nrebirth, even as the two remained closely linked.\u2019 Subsequently, spiritualist\ntheologians such as Schwenckfeld and Weigel \u2018privileged the spirit over the\nletter, the invisible church over the visible, and consequently viewed external\nrituals as irrelevant.\u20199\nInteriorised and spiritualised notions of baptism, the Eucharist, and the\n\u2018new birth\u2019 were central to Schwenckfeld\u2019s theology. It is possible that he\nborrowed these aspects of Paracelsus\u2019 theology, and Schwenckfeld may\nwell have met the controversial physician in person on various occasions.10\nParticularly in his native land, the reformer of Silesia had many adherents\ninto the seventeenth century and beyond, and it was in this vicinity that]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=50\nPages: 50\nradicalism. As the idea that spiritual rebirth is a necessary precondition\nfor alchemical success appears in both Azoth and Fire and A Conversation\non Death, it is hardly surprising that the Wasserstein also contains similar\nstatements. But rather than specifically discussing rebirth as a requirement for the successful completion of the philosophers\u2019 stone, Siebmacher\nheld that one had to be born again in order to achieve an appropriate understanding of nature generally: \u2018If you want to understand [the quality and\nproperty of nature], you have to be like unto nature, that is, truly humble,\npatient, and constant, yes, God-\u200bfearing and harmless to your neighbour;\nin sum, be a born-\u200bagain and new man.\u201920 An unimpeded understanding of\nnature and, by implication only, success in laboratory alchemy therefore required the believer-\u200bpractitioner to have been born again. In Siebmacher\u2019s\ntake, the pseudo-\u200bWeigelian statements lost their narrow focus on transmutational alchemy.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=106\nPages: 106\nthe Jesuits of \u2018castrating writings of this kind,\u2019 he also criticised Lutheranism\nfor paying so little heed to spiritual rebirth: \u2018On regeneration, but little is\ncontained in the Augsburg Confession.\u201921 This evaluation is defining for\nFranckenberg\u2019s stance towards the Lutheran church; to a significant extent, the spiritual alchemy he developed sought to address this perceived\nshortcoming. On Sunday afternoon, 15/\u200b25 July, Franckenberg derided the\nimpiety of his age and extolled the virtue of pagan sages, such as Hermes\nTrismegistus. Seidenbecher noted that Franckenberg \u2018showed me a certain treatise written by himself, to be published in Holland at some point.\u201922\nThough the title is not mentioned in this context, the treatise in question was\nmost likely Franckenberg\u2019s 1637 Via veterum sapientum (Path of the Ancient\nSages) in manuscript\u2014\u200bit was eventually published in 1675. He handed it to\nSeidenbecher to read a few days later, on 19/\u200b29 July, when there was no time]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=75\nPages: 75,76\nthe individual human, that medicine would therefore be the restoration\nof the prelapsarian state: in this sense, for Boehme the universal was spiritual rebirth. After attaining the medicine of Christus in nobis as the lapis\nphilosophorum, the believer would be a spiritual adept with the ability to heal\nthe sick and, perhaps more importantly, to tinge others who had not yet been\nreborn.\nEsaias Stiefel\u2019s Challenge and the Fall\nas Reverse Transmutation\nAround the same time that Boehme composed Signatura rerum, Esaias\nStiefel criticised the theosopher\u2019s alchemical understanding of rebirth as inappropriate. Hailing from Langensalza in Thuringia, Stiefel was considerably\nmore radical than the cobbler of G\u00f6rlitz.70 Initially, there had been a sense of\npotential alignment between them, since they both appealed to a very similar audience. Probably inspired by the hope of joining forces and relying on\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n61]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=67\nPages: 67\nneeded to live through the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to become proficient\nin its reflection, the alchemy of the laboratory.\nThe theosopher first penned a comprehensive account of rebirth in\n\u00adchapter 22 of Description of the Three Principles of Divine Being, his second\nmajor work completed in 1619. The views Boehme expressed here owed\na lot to Valentin Weigel and Paracelsus.21 Yet Boehme also added his own\nemphases, particularly in how firmly he embedded rebirth into the entire arc\nof salvation history. At the same time, he integrated rebirth into his theosophical cosmology: after all, he was both a profoundly speculative thinker\nand a writer of popular devotional literature, two aspects much too often\nconsidered in isolation.22 Rebirth, particularly, provides a bridge between the\nspeculative and the devotional Boehme, as it situates the individual\u2019s journey\nto salvation in the dynamic and layered cosmology of theosophy.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=80\nPages: 80\nview of the soul itself and of God, . . . the final resurrection of the whole man,\nand the Last Judgment itself, follow instantaneously upon death.\u2019 Indeed,\nfor Luther the Christian believer already \u2018lived outside of time through\ngrace\u2019 but also still \u2018within time as a creature,\u2019 a dual existence that would\nconclude on the Last Day, \u2018the end of time in a fully literal sense.\u201990 This description equally applies to Boehme\u2019s views: for all his arcane language and\nits potentially heterodox implications, he saw himself as a pious Lutheran\nand defended doctrines of his confession against religious dissenters such as\nStiefel.\nBy April 1622, Boehme had come to think of rebirth in terms of spiritual\nalchemy to such an extent that even his understanding of the Fall had become alchemical. If rebirth amounted to transmutation and reversed the\nFall, Boehme conversely came to view the Fall and its consequences for the\nhuman body as a transmutation in the wrong direction. Adam and Eve had]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82,83\nto Boehme, spiritual rebirth reversed the effects of the Fall: it reversed the\nreverse transmutation, as it were. Although this process would only be completed on the Last Day, it was held to begin here and now, during the believer\u2019s\nlife on earth.\nWhile it is a challenge to grasp Boehme\u2019s shifting theosophy, he did tend\ntowards identifying the body of Christ with the holy element of Paradise\nand the second principle of love and light, as well as with the quintessence.\nAll of these\u2014\u200bChrist\u2019s body, holy element, and quintessence\u2014\u200bBoehme designated lapis philosophorum. For the theosopher, the spiritual body of the\nnew birth was Christ and the philosophers\u2019 stone at once\u2014\u200bnot figuratively\nand by way of analogy but literally and in reality. Going far beyond pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian alchemy in its ambitious scope, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy was\n68\nSpiritual Alchemy\nintricately connected not only to the daily experience of the believer, but]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=64\nPages: 64\n49\nlaboratory and to the spiritual rebirth of the believer. Around the same time,\nBoehme engaged with another religious dissenter, Esaias Stiefel, who competed for disciples with him. In his Apologia, Betreffend Die Vollkommenheit\ndes Menschen (Apology Concerning Human Perfection), the second treatise\nhe addressed to Stiefel, the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz outlined the spiritual alchemy of rebirth and its intricate connections to salvation history from the\nvery beginning until the end of time, from creation and the Fall to the Last\nJudgement.\nAlchemy in Boehme\u2019s Aurora\nBoehme\u2019s Aurora articulated a general stance regarding alchemy from which\nhe did not depart even in his later writings. The most pertinent passage is\nfound in c\u00ad hapter 22, in a section titled \u2018Concerning the metals in the earth.\u20193\nHere Boehme described the purification of gold in seven stages. Due to the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=26\nPages: 26\ncause us to view this term as self-\u200bcontradictory; in fact, mysticism had a rich\nand largely positive reception within early Protestantism.54 Yet the core three\nelements of spiritual alchemy do subtly depart from Lutheran orthodoxy by\ninternalising Christ, emphasising rebirth, and requiring individual agency,\nrespectively.\nI cannot possibly stress enough that, in the interaction of these aspects,\nspiritual alchemy ceases to be merely metaphorical. If I had to reduce this\nentire book to a single point it would be this: Boehme and his later disciples\nbelieved that actual bodily changes\u2014\u200balbeit not subject to the ordinary laws\nof physics or conventionally measurable\u2014\u200bwere taking place within them\nas they pursued the spiritual alchemy of rebirth and its processes.55 This is\nthe defining feature of spiritual alchemy proper, as opposed to any number]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 33 to page 56 out of a total of 337:\nPages 33:\n18\nSpiritual Alchemy\nPietists in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.24 By way of\nPietism and, particularly in England, Methodism, the idea of spiritual rebirth\nreached modern Evangelicalism, where it continues to thrive among born-\u200b\nagain believers. The midwifing role of alchemy is now all but forgotten, yet\nthis kind of Christianity continues to exist until today in congregations and\ncommunities that emphasise rebirth or in individuals who describe themselves as born again. Scholars of Evangelicalism and Pietism, such as W. R.\nWard and Douglas H. Shantz, have perceptively noted that such debts to alchemy do exist in these movements.25\nIn parallel, a number of alchemical writers around 1600 showed an\nincreasing awareness of their art\u2019s analogies with Christianity. The Paracelsian\nalchemists Gerard Dorn, Heinrich Khunrath, and Oswald Croll were remarkable for the extent to which religious concerns shaped their alchemical\nworks.26 In his famous Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae (Amphitheatre of\nEternal Wisdom), first published in 1595 but vastly expanded in the 1609\nedition, Khunrath wrote the following as a commentary on a verse of the\napocryphal Wisdom of Solomon:\nHappy he to whom is shown, and having been shown rightly knows: the\nperson, passion, and resurrection of JHSVH CHRIST; the matter, preparation, and more-\u200bthan-\u200bperfection in the glorified body (corpore glorificato) of\nthe PHILOSOPHERS\u2019 STONE; and your rebirth (regeneratio), formed in\nthe image and likeness of GOD according to body, spirit, and soul.27\nThus, Khunrath was among the very first to explicitly posit a linkage between\nthe Incarnation of Christ, the preparation of the philosophers\u2019 stone, and the\nrebirth of the individual believer.\nDespite the clarity of this passage, there are reasons to look elsewhere for\nthe beginning of the story to be told in these pages. Khunrath used the abstract Latin term regeneratio and did not dwell on this complex analogy to\nexplain it further. Since he died in 1605, this commentary would have been\ncomposed several years prior to its appearance in print. If Johann Arndt\u2019s\nChristmas day 1599 letter to Khunrath\u2019s associate and later editor, Erasmus\nWolfart, is any indication, the alchemist did indeed give rise to discussions of\nrebirth as analogous to alchemical transmutation much earlier than 1609.28\nYet in this letter, the mystical identification of Christ and the believer is\nmissing. Instead of originating with Khunrath, spiritual alchemy began to\ntake shape in pseudepigraphic texts attributed to Valentin Weigel.\n\nPages 34:\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n19\nPseudo-\u200bWeigelian Alchemy\nNeither Schwenckfeld nor Weigel\u2014\u200b\nwho both contributed to shaping\nBoehme\u2019s theosophy\u2014\u200bexplicitly described the new birth and its bodiliness\nin alchemical terms. Indeed, according to Andrew Weeks, the genuine\nWeigel was \u2018without interest in medicine or alchemy.\u201929 Yet pseudepigraphic\nadditions to his oeuvre, were quick to make up for this perceived shortcoming. Previously largely ignored, two pseudo-\u200bWeigelian texts established\na close connection between spiritual rebirth and alchemy. The first of these,\nAzoth et Ignis (Azoth and Fire), was composed between the mid-\u200b1580s and\n1599 but first printed only in 1701. An exceedingly cryptic text, Azoth and\nFire combined Weigelian spiritualism with alchemical terminology and\napocalyptic speculation. The strange term in Azoth and Fire was a mystifying\ncorruption of the Arabic word for mercury, az-\u200bz\u0101\u02be\u016bq, rendered as azoc in\nMorienus\u2019 Testament, the first alchemical work to circulate in Latin Europe\nfrom 1144.30 The second and considerably more accessible text was written\nafter the former and published in 1614. Ad dialogum de morte (Concerning\nthe Dialogue on Death) presented an addition to Weigel\u2019s genuine Dialogus\nde Christianismo (Dialogue on Christianity), composed in 1584 and printed\nin 1614. Both works feature striking statements on spiritual rebirth and\noutline parallels between it and alchemical transmutation. Moreover, they\nstrongly emphasise an alliance of rebirth and alchemy as an alternative to\nthe doctrine of forensic justification. Instead of the law, with all the negative associations of the Old Covenant, superseded by the New Testament, alchemy provided another theological paradigm, based on the natural world\nas God\u2019s creation. The story of the spiritual alchemy of rebirth thus begins\nwith two short and obscure works that were the first to systematically outline\ncorrelations between the great work of alchemy and the believer\u2019s mystical\nidentification with Christ as spiritual rebirth. The remainder of this chapter\ndiscusses both texts of pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy in turn.\nAzoth and Fire\nMost manuscripts of Azoth and Fire only run to a handful of leaves. Yet for\nall its brevity, the work establishes significant parallels between the heavenly\ncornerstone, Jesus Christ, and the terrestrial stone of the philosophers, as\nwell as between spiritual rebirth and alchemical transmutation.31 In the late\n\nPages 35:\n20\nSpiritual Alchemy\nsixteenth and all throughout the seventeenth century, Azoth and Fire circulated in manuscript and found readers as well as copyists among alchemists,\nreligious dissenters, and some who qualified as both.32 Its pseudepigraphic\nattribution to Weigel contributed to this relative popularity. Two older\nmanuscripts of the text conclude with the following statement: \u2018These are the\nchoicest secrets (secreta secretorum) out of Weigel\u2019s autograph, not to be revealed to any but the faithful sons of wisdom.\u201933 This claim was part of the\npseudepigraphic fiction but also hinted at a process of compilation.\nWhile it remains difficult to identify many of the sources the anonymous\ncompiler used, one of them was the Theologia Weigelii (Weigel\u2019s Theology),\na work composed in 1584 and published in 1618. Horst Pfefferl has attributed it to Benedict Biedermann, Weigel\u2019s deacon, collaborator, and successor,\nwho wrote many pseudo-\u200bWeigelian treatises.34 Indeed, a number of elements and statements in Azoth and Fire already occur in this work. However,\nthe Theologia Weigelii completely lacks the dominant emphasis on alchemy,\nwhich only appears as one branch of learning among others.35 This distinctive aspect of Azoth and Fire points away from Biedermann and renders\nWeigel\u2019s cantor, the Paracelsian Christoph Weickhart, a more likely candidate\nfor its authorship.36 There is, however, not enough evidence to attribute the\ntext to him. Furthermore, Azoth and Fire not only included Weigelian material. It begins with a stark revaluation of the number of the beast (666), which\nis held to contain all the secrets of God\u2019s two books, Scripture and Nature.37\nThis positive reinterpretation of the number of the beast is an idiosyncrasy\nthat goes back to Paul Lautensack, a Nuremberg artist and visionary of the\nReformation era. For him, as Berthold Kress puts it, \u2018this number had . . . divine connotations.\u201938 Weigel and Lautensack represent important traditions\nof spiritualist devotion and apocalyptic speculation that found themselves\ncombined with alchemy in Azoth and Fire.\nIn the contexts of the work\u2019s transmission, we encounter the same intriguing combination of normally distinct intellectual currents. A consideration of the textual neighbours of Azoth and Fire, the texts alongside which it\nwas copied and read, bears this out. The oldest dated version was completed\nin 1599. In this witness, Azoth and Fire occurs as an appendix to a more substantial work inspired by Lautensack. Like most Azoth and Fire manuscripts,\nit concludes with a magic square whose lines add up to 666, clearly harking\nback to the Nuremberg artist.39 Yet for some reason the copyist ascribed this\nvolume filled with Lautensack material to Weigel.40 Conversely, another copy\nof Azoth and Fire, attributed to \u2018Wigellus,\u2019 appears in a massive collection\n\nPages 36:\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n21\nof Lautensack tracts in two volumes, compiled in 1611.41 In a large book of\nalchemical excerpts acquired for the library of the Palatine Electors prior to\nthe sack of Heidelberg in 1622, Azoth and Fire follows a brief passage derived from the pseudo-\u200bParacelsian Liber Azoth sive de ligno et linea vitae\n(The Book Azoth, or: On the Tree and Line of Life).42 Its first copyists and\nreaders studied Azoth and Fire in the contexts of Weigelian spiritualism,\nLautensackian apocalypticism, and Paracelsian alchemy.\nThe one copy of Azoth and Fire whose scribe can be identified further\ncorroborates this assessment. The astrologer and millenarian Paul Nagel\nof Torgau included \u2018Weigel\u2019s Azoth and Fire\u2019 in his book of alchemical\nexcerpts.43 Despite being mainly known for his numerological speculations,\nNagel devoted considerable efforts to the mysterious art, as this manuscript\ndocuments. He corresponded with the famous Polish alchemist Michael\nSendivogius and accumulated the bulk of his alchemical excerpts around\n1614.44 As Nagel collected these texts, he copied pseudo-\u200bWeigel\u2019s Azoth and\nFire between two prayers for alchemical success and a process of ten operations towards the philosophers\u2019 stone. The latter was attributed to Heinrich\nKhunrath, \u2018the highly renowned theosopher and physician.\u201945 Along with\nthe Paracelsian alchemists Gerard Dorn and Oswald Croll, who also figured in Nagel\u2019s excerpts, Khunrath was a key representative of a growing\ntrend towards emphasising religious aspects within alchemical literature.\nFurthermore, Nagel added marginalia throughout his copy of Azoth and\nFire, documenting his attempt to interpret this challenging text. Eventually,\nhe also took up its ideas in his own scribal publications and became an important node in the network of Jacob Boehme. While noting relevant discrepancies in other witnesses, I chiefly rely on Nagel\u2019s version of Azoth and\nFire throughout the following discussion (fig. 1.1).\nAzoth and Fire integrated the Lautensackian number 666 into an alchemical frame of reference. The text claimed that it corresponded to the one subject of the art: the eponymous \u2018azoth and fire.\u2019 At this point, Nagel added a\nmarginal note that glossed azoth as \u2018mineral gold and silver\u2019 and fire as\nmercury, that is, presumably mercurius philosophorum, not to be confused\nwith common quicksilver.46 While just about all alchemists would have\nagreed that the mercury of the philosophers was of crucial importance, it\nwas also subject to wildly different interpretations. Nagel likely understood\nmercurius philosophorum to be a powerful solvent, able to dissolve gold into\nits prima materia, or undifferentiated metallic matter, as the Swiss alchemist\nRaphael Egli construed it in a manuscript discussed by Bruce T. Moran.47\n\nPages 37:\nFig. 1.1 Pseudo-\u200bWeigel, Azoth et Ignis Weigelii, as copied by Paul Nagel. The\nfirst page of Azoth and Fire in Nagel\u2019s hand documents how the millenarian\ngrappled with the text, adding marginalia with his interpretations. Karlsruhe,\nBadische Landesbibliothek: Cod. Allerheiligen 3, p. 397. \u00a9 BLB Karlsruhe,\nDigitale Sammlungen.\n\nPages 38:\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n23\nPseudo-\u200bWeigel promised that \u2018whoever knows and can understand and\nrule both [azoth and fire] has the philosophers\u2019 stone.\u2019 From the terrestrial\nstone, pseudo-\u200bWeigel moved instantly to the \u2018heavenly stone (lapis coelestis)\nof all the wise\u2014\u200bof all the faithful: Jesus Christ, God and man\u2019 (J. C. G[ott]\nundt M[ensch]).48 The other manuscripts lack the phrase about the faithful,\nwhich could thus be a gloss added by Nagel. This simple addition effectively\nconflates true believers and alchemical adepts.\nIf the philosophers\u2019 stone and Christ as the \u2018celestial stone\u2019 are analogous,\nfamiliarity with the latter entails alchemical success. One only ought to seek\nChrist, \u2018so you will have proper alchemy and, in addition, true theology.\u2019\nConsequently, pseudo-\u200bWeigel contrasted misguided alchemists and their\ntoil with Christian adepts, noting that \u2018theosophers seek the heavenly [stone]\nand find the terrestrial one besides, without effort or trouble; indeed, . . . in\ntheir sleep.\u2019 In addition, the reader learns that \u2018you cannot be a proper alchemist unless you are also a true Christian.\u201949 Disregarding Christ, impious\nalchemists toil in vain; they discard \u2018the cornerstone of the wise that the\nbuilders rejected,\u2019 according to a verse from the Psalms recalled repeatedly\nthroughout the New Testament. This cornerstone is none other than \u2018Jesus\nChrist God [and] Man\u2014\u200b666.\u201950 For pseudo-\u200bWeigel and some of his readers,\nin the wake of Lautensack, the number of the beast was no longer associated\nwith the Antichrist but with Christ himself. In a 1618 scribal publication,\nLeo rugiens (Roaring Lion), Nagel provided a possible rationale for this complete reversal. The Book of Revelation explicitly states that it is \u2018the number\nof a man,\u2019 and Christ is \u2018the Son of Man.\u201951 \u2018Therefore,\u2019 Nagel continued, \u2018this\nnumber also carries within itself the secrets of Jesus Christ and all his saints.\u201952\nIn keeping with Weigel\u2019s Gnothi seauton (Know Thyself), composed in\n1571 and first printed in 1615, Azoth and Fire extols self-\u200bknowledge in a succinct prayer. The stance it articulates corresponds to the scathing criticism of\nacademic learning pervasive among religious non-\u200bconformists:53\nI thank you God, father of our Lord Christ Jesus, that you hide theology and\nalchemy\u2014\u200bthat is, all celestial and terrestrial wisdom\u2014\u200bfrom the wise and\nlearned of the world and reveal it only to the simple (einfeltigen) who study\nthe \u2018Know Thyself \u2019 (Gnothi se auton), that is, to recognise oneself in God.54\nHere as elsewhere, the intricate connection between knowing oneself and\nknowing God hints at the underlying concept of Christus in nobis: if Christ\ndwells within the believer, introspection is tantamount to contemplation of\n\nPages 39:\n24\nSpiritual Alchemy\nthe divine. Azoth and Fire further specifies the analogy between alchemy and\ntheology in the more specific domains of eschatology and soteriology, the\ndoctrines of final things and salvation, respectively. Mirroring the alchemical\nprocess as well as Christ\u2019s redemptive work, both macrocosm and microcosm\nhave to suffer death and destruction in order to be made new: \u2018Just as Christ\ndoes not bring anyone to life or salvation without cross and death, so gold\ncannot be, nor become, the tincture or [philosophers\u2019] stone without death\nin the mercurial water.\u2019 Just as the destruction of the world by fire would have\nto precede the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, so the individual believer has to die with Christ in order to be saved and resurrected.\nBased on this reasoning, pseudo-\u200bWeigel very explicitly criticised the\nLutheran doctrine of justification that construed human salvation in forensic, legal terms as the imputation of righteousness. Instead, he presented\nan alternative:\nChrist\u2019s cross and death do not have to be imputed from the outside, as the\npseudo-\u200btheologian pretends, but by a corporeal union and essential implantation. How should Christ\u2019s cross and death tinge [transmute] me into\na new, heavenly man, unless I really died to sin and were killed in, with, and\nthrough him?55\nMystical identification with Christ lay at the core of this spiritual alchemy,\nwhich was to effect the transmutation of man into a heavenly state. An apodictic statement in Latin did not mince words: \u2018Therefore, imputative righteousness from outside is fictitious theology and of the devil.\u201956 Heightening\nOsiander\u2019s critique to the extreme, pseudo-\u200bWeigel used alchemy to launch a\nfrontal attack on a core doctrine of orthodox Lutheranism. While the polemical aspect may have been more important to pseudo-\u200bWeigel, mystical identification with Christ was central for spiritual alchemy.\nThe alternative paradigm espoused by pseudo-\u200bWeigel was that of rebirth. Pseudo-\u200bWeigel insisted that spiritual rebirth and the making of the\nlapis philosophorum were analogous: \u2018Rebirth (renascentia) is necessary,\nwe have to be born again (renasci) out of spirit and water; the same goes for\nthe stone.\u201957 The use of this term established a conscious contrast against the\nmore common regeneratio. Compared to other manuscripts, Nagel\u2019s version\nhighlights this aspect most emphatically, while simultaneously stressing the\nidentification of Christ and the born-\u200bagain believer: \u2018Jesus Christ is the new\nJerusalem, the city of God in which the deity lives incarnate. Homo renatus,\n\nPages 40:\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n25\nthe born-\u200bagain human, is the new Jerusalem, the city of God in which the\nTrinity lives incarnate.\u201958 Nagel underlined this passage in red. It combined\nthe mystical identification of Christ and the believer with the much more\ncontentious notion of Christus in nobis. Whereas leading theologians of the\nReformation era had previously used that phrase, it came to acquire heterodox associations as spiritualists and other dissenters used it to claim independence from regular church instruction and asserted divine authority for\ntheir own prophetic revelations. Mostly ignored by previous scholarship and\nprinted only after a century of scribal transmission, pseudo-\u200bWeigel\u2019s Azoth\nand Fire was likely the very first text to draw an analogy between laboratory\nalchemy and spiritual rebirth while emphasising the mystical identification\nof Christ and the believer.\nConcerning the Dialogue on Death and\nA Conversation on Death\nMany of the core ideas of Azoth and Fire reappear in Concerning the Dialogue\non Death, the pseudepigraphic addition to Weigel\u2019s genuine Dialogus de\nChristianismo. Indeed, the later text derived some of its most poignant\nstatements from the obviously spurious Azoth and Fire. Since Concerning the\nDialogue on Death is not contained in the most reliable manuscript witnesses\nof the Dialogus, Weigel scholars have classified this piece as an inauthentic\ncontribution and consistently excluded it from modern editions.59 Yet as already noted by Will-\u200bErich Peuckert, the additional dialogue emulates the\nreal Weigel quite convincingly, certainly more so than Azoth and Fire.60\nAccordingly, Concerning the Dialogue on Death found inclusion in the first\nedition of Weigel\u2019s Dialogus in 1614, printed at Halle.61 Within five years,\nin 1616 and 1618, the Dialogus was reprinted twice by Johann Knuber of\nNewenstatt (New City), a pseudonym and fake imprint that probably concealed the identity of Johann Francke of Magdeburg.62 The pseudo-\u200bWeigelian\naddition was thus readily available in print. A single extant copy shows that\nConcerning the Dialogue on Death also circulated in manuscript, likely before it was printed, albeit under a slightly different German title: Ein Gesprech\nvom Tode (A Conversation on Death). Compared to this older manuscript\nversion, the printed edition preserves the exact outline of the conversation\nbetween the three interlocutors Death, Preacher, and Listener. However, it is\nmuch shorter, omitting almost half of the text by drastically shortening some\n\nPages 41:\n26\nSpiritual Alchemy\nof the conversation\u2019s longer contributions. Nevertheless, the print edition\nshould not be disregarded, as the manuscript contains various imperfections\nthat can be corrected based on it. In what follows, I draw on both versions\nand highlight significant differences.\nProposing an alternative theology of rebirth based on alchemy, the main\nthrust of A Conversation on Death was directed against the Lutheran doctrine of justification, a concern Weigel shared with his imitators.63 The\npastor of Zschopau prefaced the authentic Dialogus with an explanation of\nthe significance of each interlocutor, according to which Death represents\nChrist: \u2018Mors, Death, entails Christ Jesus, . . . everything that Christ discussed,\nsuffered, did, and lived. He is one with Christ.\u201964 As Christ\u2019s alter ego, Death\nalso figures in A Conversation on Death. In one passage, Death specifically\nattacks the forensic understanding of justification proposed by the Preacher,\nthe representative of the clergy and orthodox Lutheranism: \u2018If you want to\nattain true life, you have to die first, uniting with me bodily (leibhafftig), instead of letting something be imputed to yourself from the outside.\u201965 This\nderives directly from Azoth and Fire. Whereas that text contains a frontal\nassault on orthodox Lutheran theology, A Conversation on Death tempers its\nradicalism somewhat, and the explicit final clause mentioning imputation\nfrom the outside is only found in the printed version. In contrast, the manuscript version is much clearer in its presentation of the alternative model of\nrebirth: \u2018True and permanent life comes from resurrection (Resuscitation),\nregeneration, and rebirth (Wieder geburdt). [The Gospel of] John in the\nthird chapter: \u201cUnless someone is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of\nGod.\u201d \u201966 Through the mystical identification of the believer with Christ in\ndeath and resurrection, the believer is born again.\nRegenerated life thus depended on a prior death. Through processes such\nas putrefaction and fermentation, alchemy showed that the same held true\nfor nature generally. While praising the art, pseudo-\u200bWeigel particularly\nemphasised the alchemy of rebirth, both spiritual and natural. In the shortened, printed version of A Conversation on Death, the Listener, representing\nlay Christianity, announces that he holds alchemy in high esteem, \u2018for it is a\ngift of the Most High and teaches the new birth (newe Geburt) so that one can\nsee it with one\u2019s own eyes.\u201967 Luther had said something similar in praise of alchemy, yet the contrast is illuminating: for the reformer, alchemy prefigured\nthe physical resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgement.68 With recourse to the Gospel of Matthew, \u2018palingenesis\u2019 (Wiedergeburt) could also\nrefer to the restoration brought about at the Last Judgement, including the\n\nPages 42:\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n27\nresurrection of the dead.69 Luther thus assimilated alchemy to Christianity\nby embedding it into a providential and eschatological frame of reference.\nFor pseudo-\u200bWeigel, however, alchemy became the model for spiritual rebirth\nand helped articulate Christian beliefs in alchemical terms.\nThis tendency is even more apparent in the manuscript version. The corresponding passage emphasises rebirth and describes alchemy as divine,\nconflating it with both the apocalyptic woman clad with the sun and the\neternal virgin of wisdom. Pseudo-\u200bWeigel thus presented divine alchemy as\nthe mother of born-\u200bagain believers who subsequently dwelled with them,\nmaking them wise like King Solomon:\nBut divine alchemy, which is a chaste and eternal virgin, I esteem highly,\nfor she shall be my mother (Revelation 12). She is clad with the sun and\nsteps on the moon, and on her head she carries a crown of twelve stars. To\nwhomever she gives that same crown, he will be her son. She is a gift of the\nMost High; she is called Wisdom, for she has been with God from eternity;\na virgin chaste and without blemish, she admits no bestial man with two\nhorns, only the unicorn, the unsplit horn, the godly, who is born of God\nhimself, by the Spirit of God. She teaches the new birth.70\nIn this passage, pseudo-\u200bWeigel effectively used the term \u2018divine alchemy,\u2019\ncentred on rebirth, to refer to what I call spiritual alchemy.\nWhile the religious dimension dominates in A Conversation on Death,\nthe text also contains some practical information for aspiring alchemists.\nThere are several references to antimony and hints regarding the crucial\nrole of this substance in transmutational alchemy. The fundamental importance attributed to antimony allows us to contextualise the pseudo-\u200bWeigel\nbehind A Conversation on Death as one of the \u2018wretched antimonialists\u2019\ndenounced by Heinrich Khunrath.71 This school of transmutational alchemy found its most prominent representative in Basilius Valentinus, the\nfictitious Benedictine monk whose writings appeared from 1599.72 Yet prior\nto that, Khunrath specifically mentioned Alexander von Suchten\u2014\u200ba former\nprot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Copernicus\u2014\u200bas a prime exponent.73 Hence, it is no surprise that A\nConversation on Death also contained a reference to Suchten\u2019s writings.\nAlluding to the iconography of Christ as saviour of the world (salvator\nmundi), the Listener notes that since the world despised him, Christ \u2018also\ncarries such a character \u2641 in the left hand.\u201974 Usually, the cross-\u200bbearing orb\nin Christ\u2019s hand is a symbol of his dominion and authority, yet here it is\n\nPages 43:\n28\nSpiritual Alchemy\nreinterpreted as antimony in an alchemical frame of reference. The disregard\noften accorded to this substance paralleled the rejection Christ experienced\nthroughout his life on earth:\nHe has created a thing which the magi paint in his left hand \u2641 and not in\nhis right hand. This is also disdainfully despised, no one knows it, only the\nwise; all people search only for gold and silver, leaving behind that through\nwhich they could attain gold and silver.75\nIn the jargon of Weigelians, or spiritualists more generally, true believers\nwere sometimes called magi. The manuscript version emphasised the sinister associations of the left hand, highlighting the low esteem in which the\nworld held what this symbol represented. Pseudo-\u200bWeigel thus presented\nantimony as the crucial substance that was \u2018above,\u2019 or better than, \u2018sun and\nmoon,\u2019 gold and silver, yet \u2018mean and despised among all people.\u201976 Suchten\u2019s\nantimonialist influence here caused a departure from Azoth and Fire, where\nantimony figured alongside lead as \u2018the core (principal) of alchemy\u2019 for transmuting other metals into gold and silver.77\nSince antimony was often neglected by alchemists chasing after gold and\nsilver, this reinforced the analogy between Jesus Christ and the philosophers\u2019\nstone. Christ was \u2018the stone that the builders rejected,\u2019 and the notion that the\nphilosophers\u2019 stone was hiding in plain sight was a common staple of alchemical literature.78 The manuscript version of A Conversation on Death even\nquoted the Practica of the fifteenth-\u200bcentury German alchemist Bernardus\nTrevisanus to that effect: \u2018The whole world has it in front of its eyes and does\nnot recognise it.\u201979 Though the Preacher was dismissive and ill-\u200binformed regarding alchemy, he cannot but concede the force of the analogy between\nChrist and the transmuting agent: \u2018It is true, Christ is humble and mean for\nall people, and yet he is the saviour of the world; if such a thing \u2641 should\nexist in nature, I had not heard of it before.\u201980 Only by cultivating this awareness would potential adepts be able to recognise the value of such a despised\nsubstance. Fearing that the Listener was revealing too much, Death repeatedly tried to stop him: \u2018Beware that you do not reveal everything, lest people\npursue this in heated desire! You have already done much in revealing the\ncharacter.\u2019 Responding, the Listener emphasised that only those born again\nand \u2018taught by God . . . in Christ Jesus\u2019 would be able to make anything of\nhis clues.81 Since Jacob Boehme emphatically met both requirements, it may\nwell be that he felt called to simultaneously expand on alchemy and spiritual\n\nPages 44:\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n29\nrebirth, as adumbrated in A Conversation on Death. In Boehme\u2019s extensive\ndiscussion of alchemy in Signatura rerum, for instance, the symbol for antimony also figured prominently. As in the printed editions of Concerning the\nDialogue on Death (where this appears to have happened unintentionally),\nBoehme too analysed that character in its constituent parts.82 It is thus highly\nlikely that the theosopher encountered Concerning the Dialogue on Death in\none of the three editions printed between 1614 and 1618.\nThis chapter has sketched how spiritual rebirth gradually came into its\nown and found itself closely associated with alchemy in pseudepigraphic\ntexts attributed to Valentin Weigel. Pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy presented\nan embryonic stage of spiritual alchemy. For all the prominence accorded\nto him throughout this study, Boehme was not entirely innovative when\nwriting about spiritual alchemy: he owed much to earlier writers such as\nParacelsus, Schwenckfeld, and Weigel, as well as to inauthentic texts that circulated under their names. Yet due to his many later readers, the cobbler,\ntrader, and heretic of G\u00f6rlitz became a towering figure in intellectual history\nand did more than anyone else to propagate the spiritual alchemy of rebirth.\nBefore we can turn to Boehme\u2019s writings to see what he made of this combination, we have to consider two early readers of pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy\nas possible avenues by which it could have reached the theosopher.\n\nPages 45:\n2\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau\nAstrologer Read Pseudo-\u200bWeigel\nIt is very likely that Boehme encountered aspects of pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy in print, but that would only have been the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Excepting the shortened version of A Dialogue on Death, almost all\npertinent passages remained unprinted during the theosopher\u2019s life. As\nAzoth and Fire circulated exclusively in manuscript throughout the entire\nseventeenth century, it quickly found readers such as the Nuremberg chymist\nJohann Siebmacher and Paul Nagel, the astrologer of Torgau. Existing scholarship on Boehme and alchemy frequently attaches great importance to\nSiebmacher\u2019s Wasserstein der Weysen (Water-\u200bStone of the Wise), printed\nanonymously in 1619. After all, it is the only alchemical work to which the\ntheosopher referred by its title. However, the assumption that the theosopher relied on the Wasserstein while composing the treatises of his late period hinges on a letter mistakenly dated 1622; actually, it dates to May 1624, a\nmere few months before Boehme\u2019s death, when all his major treatises had already been written.1 Once this is taken into account, it becomes much more\ndifficult to claim that the theosopher\u2019s work was shaped by the Wasserstein.\nNonetheless, the Wasserstein still merits attention as a very early example\nof the reception of pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy. It becomes recognisable as\nsuch once the question of its authorship is resolved and Wasserstein is read in\nconjunction with a related work, Introductio hominis (Introduction of Man),\npublished in 1618. The second part of the chapter explores Nagel\u2019s reception\nof pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy, documenting how a member of Boehme\u2019s network elaborated its ideas further in his own scribal publications.\nJohann Siebmacher and His Wasserstein\nEver since the eighteenth century, the authorship of the Wasserstein has been\nshrouded in confusion. General agreement exists only regarding the author\u2019s\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0003\n\nPages 46:\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n31\nsurname: Siebmacher. His first name is given as Johann, Johann Ambrosius,\nAmbrosius, or even Wolfgang.2 As a consequence, there has so far been no\ndistinct authorial profile allowing for contextualisation of the Wasserstein.\nAlthough two scholars arrived at what I take to be the correct solution more\nthan twenty years ago, earlier, mistaken identifications continue to be repeated in much more recent publications.3 Based on a thorough survey of\nthe evidence and various clues in scholarship, Johann Siebmacher emerges as\nthe author of the Wasserstein. A contemporary, the well-\u200bconnected Augsburg\nphysician Carl Widemann, described him as a \u2018philosopher and chymist\nat Nuremberg,\u2019 not to be confused with his more famous namesake, the\nengraver-\u200bpublisher of a heraldic work.4\nSurprisingly, the most important clues regarding Siebmacher\u2019s authorship\nappear in a 1736 edition presenting the Wasserstein under a very different\ntitle as Das G\u00fcldne Vlie\u00df (The Golden Fleece).5 Rather than deriving from the\n1619 edition, this publication must have been based on independent manuscript transmission of Siebmacher\u2019s treatise. Despite appearing more than a\ncentury after the first edition and featuring modernised spelling, this alternative version of the Wasserstein ought to be taken very seriously. It contains\nnumerous playful allusions to the author\u2019s identity throughout.6 The first of\nthese occurs already on the title page, where the author is described as \u2018an\nunnamed but well-\u200bknown, etc. I Say Nought,\u2019 a play on the initials \u2018J. S. N.\u20197\nA poem titled \u2018Why I do not mention my name here\u2019 contains a highlighted\nanagram that can be reshuffled to render \u2018Johann Siebmacher of Nuremberg\u2019\n(Johannes Sibmacher von Nurnnberg).8 Since none of these riddles provide\nany reason to believe that the author was called Wolfgang or had the middle\nname Ambrosius, we can safely discard these alternatives.\nSiebmacher deliberately used one of the more elaborate plays on his name\nto create the impression that a second person had been involved in the composition or compilation of his treatise: the pseudonym \u2018J. Bachsmeier von\nRegenbrun.\u20199 \u2018J.\u2019 stands for Johann, \u2018Bachsmeier\u2019 is an anagram of Siebmacher,\nand \u2018Regenbrun\u2019 thinly disguises Nuremberg. Once resolved, this plays\nthe important role of linking the Wasserstein to two other productions by\nSiebmacher, in which a very similar pseudonym appears that replaces the\nfirst-\u200bname initial \u2018J.\u2019 with \u2018Huldreich.\u2019 Translating to \u2018rich in mercy,\u2019 this is a\nsemantic cognate of Johann derived from the Hebrew for \u2018God is merciful.\u201910\nThe relevant works are Introductio hominis, published in 1618 as part of\nthe Philosophia mystica (Mystical Philosophy), an important collection of\nwritings attributed to Paracelsus and Weigel, and Zwey sch\u00f6ne B\u00fcchlein (Two\n\nPages 47:\n32\nSpiritual Alchemy\nBeautiful Booklets), containing two Weigelian treatises edited by Siebmacher\neither in 1618 or 1621.11 A lavish manuscript copy of the former text, under\nthe ungrammatical title Introduction hominis, dates the composition of the\ntreatise to 1607 and contains clues and riddles very similar to those encountered in Das G\u00fcldne Vlie\u00df, leaving few doubts about their shared author\n(Fig. 2.1).\nIn fact, careful reading of the Introductio hominis reveals that it was composed shortly after the work known as the Wasserstein. In the \u2018Appendix\u2019\nsigned with the Bachsmeier pseudonym, Siebmacher described how exactly\nthe two treatises related to one another. Without acknowledging that he himself was the author, he showed several acquaintances a treatise he had written\n\u2018on the high secret of the philosophical stone,\u2019 that is, the Wasserstein.12 Not\nsatisfied by their incomprehension and greed for the lapis philosophorum\nbut unwilling to reveal his authorship, he sought to elucidate some contentious points more clearly in his Introductio hominis. Siebmacher\u2019s wording\nindicates that the test audience was too caught up in the pursuit of gold to\nappreciate the mystical bent of his work. According to his description of\nthese events, that treatise bore the following title: \u2018The Golden Fleece, or the\nhighest, noblest and most artful jewel as well as most ancient and most hidden\ntreasure of the wise.\u201913 This was the very same title as that of the eighteenth-\u200b\ncentury Wasserstein edition, which thus presented the title Siebmacher originally chose for his work when he first composed it in 1607, immediately prior\nto the Introductio hominis.\nDespite the sequence in which these two treatises were written, it makes\nsense to discuss the Introductio hominis first. Conceived as an addition and\ncompanion piece to the Wasserstein, this shorter treatise is more theological and has considerably less to say about alchemy. In a somewhat bewildering move, Siebmacher sought to defend his unconventional alchemy with\nrecourse to heterodox theology. For him the two were intimately linked.\nThis connection derived from the pseudo-\u200bWeigelian Azoth and Fire, and\nthe Nuremberg chymist revealed his familiarity with this text in Introductio\nhominis. Significantly, the theological views he expressed in this treatise\nwere also greatly indebted to Weigelian literature more generally, in which\nthe emphasis on the \u2018Know thyself \u2019 imperative figured prominently. For instance, Siebmacher borrowed key ideas from the pseudepigraphic third part\nof Gnothi seauton, to which he must have had access prior to its print publication in 1618: it had been composed about thirty years earlier.14 Beyond his\n\nPages 48:\nFig. 2.1 Johann Siebmacher, Introduction hominis (1607). In this beautiful\npresentation copy, the line at the bottom hides Siebmacher\u2019s initials. This\nwas lost on the printer of Philosophia mystica, who failed to highlight the\nlarger letters J. S. N. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek\u2014\u200bNational Library\nof the Netherlands: PH404 M315 (Ritman Kerncollectie), title page. \u00a9 KB\nBeeldstudio.\n\nPages 49:\n34\nSpiritual Alchemy\nlater edition of two Weigelian treatises, this proves that he had access to the\nmanuscript circulation of such literature.\nAt the outset of Introductio hominis, Siebmacher praises alchemy with\nfamiliar tropes borrowed from works such as the Pretiosa margarita novella of Petrus Bonus.15 Among all the arts, Siebmacher holds, \u2018philosophical chymia or, vulgarly, the art of the lapis\u2019 is currently among \u2018the\nnoblest and most eagerly pursued by almost everyone,\u2019 including \u2018high\nand mighty people.\u2019 Quoting Hermes Trismegistus, Siebmacher posits\nthat alchemy \u2018does not only provide complete insight into natural matters,\nbut also into things divine, and it ought to and must be esteemed an especial gift of the Holy Spirit.\u201916 In view of this, Siebmacher argued that\nmost aspiring alchemists toiled in vain, since they lacked the modesty\nand disregard for personal wealth that God would reward with alchemical success.\nHaving showered the art with praise at the outset, Siebmacher only\nreturned to the subject of alchemy at the end of the Introductio hominis.\nAddressing \u2018particularly those\u2019 who \u2018melancholically, in such deluded understanding, dwell on the aforementioned art of the stone so deeply hidden from\nthis world,\u2019 Siebmacher told them that they were wide of the mark but also\noffered them advice:\nIn closing, I want to clearly indicate the correct prime matter or the subject of this true philosophical stone to them (if they do not desire to seek\nor learn anything better from this treatise) and take the number-\u200bletters out\nof the name of the said matter known to everyone and name the number or\nsum of the same, which number is thus 999.17\nSiebmacher approached the number of the beast carefully by initially introducing it as 999. However, treating this number \u2018according to philosophical custom,\u2019 it is at length \u2018opened and unlocked\u2019 and ultimately inverted to\nrender 666, \u2018which is truly also the number of a man, of which mention is\nmade in the Revelation of John, [chapter] 13.\u201918\nApart from linking it to the Antichrist, the relevant verse implied that\nthis number contained great secrets. Since many early-\u200bmodern alchemists\nsuspected relevant mysteries in biblical texts, they would have expected\nto find important insights in Scripture. Siebmacher made this explicit and\nclaimed that the number 666 contained the key to the philosophers\u2019 stone:\n\nPages 50:\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n35\n\u2018Whoever learns to recognise the matter of the said art out of this, already\ncertainly and truly has . . . the true beginning of the proper philosophical\nstone, for it (the said matter) is\u2014\u200band also will be for all eternity\u2014\u200bthe correct beginning and also the end, the alpha and the omega . . . of this whole\nart.\u201919 As previously observed, Paul Lautensack\u2019s positive reinterpretation of\nthe number of the beast was a striking idiosyncrasy that found inclusion in\nAzoth and Fire, where it was explicitly linked to alchemy. Consequently, if the\nWasserstein only provided grounds for suspecting as much, the Introductio\nhominis leaves no doubt that Siebmacher must have known this pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian text on alchemy. This familiarity also informed the Nuremberg\nchymist\u2019s earlier treatise.\nRebirth and the Alchemical Process of Christ\u2019s Passion\nSiebmacher\u2019s Wasserstein restated the basic points of pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy and expanded upon them while at the same time dampening its\nradicalism. As the idea that spiritual rebirth is a necessary precondition\nfor alchemical success appears in both Azoth and Fire and A Conversation\non Death, it is hardly surprising that the Wasserstein also contains similar\nstatements. But rather than specifically discussing rebirth as a requirement for the successful completion of the philosophers\u2019 stone, Siebmacher\nheld that one had to be born again in order to achieve an appropriate understanding of nature generally: \u2018If you want to understand [the quality and\nproperty of nature], you have to be like unto nature, that is, truly humble,\npatient, and constant, yes, God-\u200bfearing and harmless to your neighbour;\nin sum, be a born-\u200bagain and new man.\u201920 An unimpeded understanding of\nnature and, by implication only, success in laboratory alchemy therefore required the believer-\u200bpractitioner to have been born again. In Siebmacher\u2019s\ntake, the pseudo-\u200bWeigelian statements lost their narrow focus on transmutational alchemy.\nWhen discussing laboratory alchemy, Siebmacher frequently employed\nphrases such as \u2018in the philosophical,\u2019 \u2018terrestrial,\u2019 or \u2018chymical work.\u201921\nThese are to be expected in alchemical literature, yet he tellingly also used\nthe analogous but considerably less common expression \u2018theological work\u2019\nfive times.22 In so doing, he created correspondences between the alchemical\nwork and what he described as the theological work. As his usage makes clear,\n\nPages 51:\n36\nSpiritual Alchemy\nhis \u2018theological work\u2019 is tantamount to the spiritual alchemy of rebirth. One\npassage is particularly noteworthy for its clarity: \u2018Just like\u2019 the purification of\ngold through antimony while preparing the lapis, which, \u2018I say, happens and\nmust happen in the chymical work, so it also has to be well-\u200bobserved here in\nour theological work of the spiritual renewal and heavenly rebirth of man.\u201923\nIn this way, Siebmacher instituted the analogy between alchemical transmutation and spiritual rebirth.\nYet, particularly when he first used it, the Nuremberg chymist employed the\nterm \u2018theological work\u2019 to explicitly refer to the Incarnation of Christ as a historical event that also corresponded to the \u2018philosophical work.\u2019 Specifically,\nSiebmacher wrote that the prima materia required \u2018another metallic body\u2019\nif it was to become \u2018a tincture to perfect the other base metals.\u2019 In the same\nway, \u2018in the theological work of the divine nature of God\u2019s Son,\u2019 Christ had\nto take on \u2018another likewise metallic and terrestrial body, that is, flesh and\nblood, humanity or human nature\u2019 in order to become an effective tincture of\nsouls.24 Just as the rebis (two-\u200bthing), or hermaphrodite, united sulphur and\nmercury, male and female in alchemy, Christ united the opposites of deity\nand humanity in himself through the Incarnation. In alchemical imagery, the\nformation of the hermaphrodite often precedes the destructive turmoil it has\nto suffer.25 Siebmacher thus took for granted Christ\u2019s Incarnation and the redemption it brought about. But ultimately, he was more concerned with its\ninternalisation as the birth of Christus in nobis, through which the believer\nwas reborn. Through the phrase \u2018in the theological work,\u2019 Siebmacher established the three-\u200bway lapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy and summed up his spiritual alchemy.\nPart of the significance of the Wasserstein lies in how it went beyond\npseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy by extending the lapis-\u200bChristus analogy to apply\nto the entire biography of Christ. However, this extension could readily be\nfound in earlier alchemical literature: what may well be the oldest extant\nGerman manuscript work on alchemy, known as Liber Trinitatis, posits\nextensive parallels between the alchemical work and the life of Christ.26\nThe Rosarium philosophorum also portrays the philosophers\u2019 stone as the\nrisen Christ.27 Yet there is an important difference between these earlier\ncontributions to alchemical literature and what we encounter from around\n1600 onwards. In the early seventeenth century, there was a new insistence\non the spiritual rebirth of the believer that cannot be expected in a late medieval work such as the Liber Trinitatis. This crucial element is needed to\n\nPages 52:\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n37\ncomplete the three-\u200bway analogy between laboratory alchemy, the spiritual\nalchemy of rebirth, and the redemptive work accomplished through Christ\u2019s\nincarnation, death, and resurrection. This is one of the hallmarks of spiritual\nalchemy that also occurs in Siebmacher\u2019s Wasserstein.\nThe Nuremberg chymist also expanded more explicitly upon the analogy\nbetween Christ\u2019s Incarnation and the opus magnum. He held that alchemy\nmirrored the events described in the Gospels: \u2018The matter and preparation\nof [the terrestrial, philosophical stone of the wise], as stated, is a beautiful\ntype and living imitation of the divine incarnation in Christ.\u201928 Just as the\nsubstance of the work had to putrefy, Christ was \u2018placed in the furnace of\ntribulation and well-\u200bcooked therein\u2019 when, following his baptism, he spent\nforty days in the desert and was tempted by Satan.29 Siebmacher also mentioned other events in Christ\u2019s life as described in the Gospels and related\nthem to processes in the alchemical work. Christ\u2019s temptation and even more\nso his death on the cross were reflected in the black stage of death and decay\n(nigredo), both of which corresponded to the believer\u2019s ongoing process of\nrebirth.\nSiebmacher compared the believer, who had to endure much in the hands\nof God, to alchemical substances manipulated by the adept: \u2018Like the compound in the terrestrial work, such a man will be placed in the furnace of\ntribulation by God and afflicted by all kinds of cross, suffering, and adversity, . . . until he is dead to the old Adam and the flesh.\u201930 Apart from the\nblackness of nigredo, alchemists commonly also referred to other colour\nstages: the many-\u200bcoloured cauda pavonis (peacock\u2019s tail), albedo (white),\ncitrinitas (yellow), and rubedo (red).31 Just as the various colours of the alchemical work were signs that the adept was on the right track, the manifold trials associated with them served to both identify and purify true\nbelievers.32 Siebmacher described in colourful terms the manner in which\nthe believer was boiled in God\u2019s furnace: in the \u2018digestion and cooking of the\nspiritual, dead body within man,\u2019 there would be \u2018manifold colours and signs\n(as can be seen in the terrestrial work).\u201933 Siebmacher held that spiritual alchemy also involved a physical process, operating on an interior body with a\nsubtle corporeality.\nIn describing the process of rebirth, Siebmacher attained greater specificity than pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy. He declared that this rebirth was\nbrought about through Christ, who related to humans as the philosophers\u2019\nstone to the lesser metals:\n\nPages 53:\n38\nSpiritual Alchemy\nFor if we, who are by nature impure, mortal, and imperfect, are to become\npure, reborn, immortal, and perfect again, this must happen by no other\nmeans than only and uniquely through this one heavenly foundation and\ncornerstone, Christ Jesus.34\nIn contrast to alchemy but in keeping with salvation history, Siebmacher\u2019s\nwording suggested that the prelapsarian state of humankind was restored\nthrough rebirth: believers were made not perfect but \u2018perfect again,\u2019 restored\nto their prelapsarian state. This is a decisive aspect that will be encountered\nrepeatedly throughout this book, particularly in Boehme.\nSiebmacher further described this spiritual alchemy in technical language\nwhile alluding to mystical union as well. The augmentation and multiplication of the lapis, which served to enhance the potency of the philosophers\u2019\nstone once it had been attained, corresponded to believers, who were \u2018like\nyet imperfect metals.\u2019 They were transmuted and became Christ-\u200blike themselves, \u2018purified and united with him, through his rosy-\u200bcoloured and beatific\ntincture, and . . . completed with a pure spiritual body.\u201935 Christ propagated\nhimself by transmuting sinners into little Christs. Siebmacher also made\nexplicit that this process would undo the consequences of the Fall under\nwhich humanity laboured; only \u2018through a new [birth] and rebirth of the\nHoly Spirit\u2019 would believers be \u2018redeemed.\u2019 Literally rather than figuratively,\nChrist becomes one with born-\u200bagain believers, \u2018just as the philosophical\nstone unites itself with the imperfect metals through its tincture and is made\na perfect and indissoluble body with them.\u201936 In this manner, Siebmacher\ntransitioned from mystical identification with Christ to physical participation in his transmuted, spiritualised body.\nCompared to pseudo-\u200bWeigel, Siebmacher adopted a less aggressive stance\ntowards the doctrine of forensic justification: Christ\u2019s redemptive work\nis complete and believers \u2018are completely saved from all impurity,\u2019 yet they\ncannot enjoy the full benefits of \u2018his redeeming and wholly divine tincture\u2019\nwithout also embracing God\u2019s \u2018holy word, which is pure and purified, like\ngold and silver tried seven times in the earthen crucible,\u2019 one\u2019s saving faith\nand love of one\u2019s neighbour.37 The way Siebmacher construed rebirth was\nthus much more amenable to orthodox Lutheran theology, which viewed\nregeneratio as a natural consequence of the justification by faith that preceded it. Instead, pseudo-\u200bWeigel had posited rebirth as a stark alternative to\nthe forensic imputation of righteousness, which would fail to save anyone.\nEven if Siebmacher agreed that the believer was saved on an imputative basis,\n\nPages 54:\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n39\nhe held that Christ could furthermore effect an alchemical projection. It was\nbrought about by Christ\u2019s \u2018saving entrance,\u2019 that is, the mystical incarnation\nof Christ within the believer.38 Once transmuted in this manner, the believer\nwould experience salvation to a fuller extent than those who had merely been\njustified in a legal sense. This position, while integrating spiritualist notions,\nwas much less radical than pseudo-\u200bWeigel\u2019s aggressive dismissal of forensic\njustification.\nAlthough it was not as pronounced as in pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy, the\naspect of human agency also contrasted with the standard understanding\nof transmutational alchemy. Whereas the lesser metals were commonly\nportrayed as entirely passive and dependent on the application of the tincture,\nSiebmacher\u2019s spiritual alchemy implied that believers could become transmuting agents themselves. Initially, however, they simply needed to be transmuted, and Siebmacher drew on a familiar figure encountered in alchemical\nliterature, that of the risen king.39 Siebmacher\u2019s reference to the \u2018chymical\nking\u2019 alludes to an oft-\u200bdepicted scene that particularly resembles the two last\nfigures of the cycle preceding Bonus\u2019 Margarita pretiosa novella in its first\nedition.40 Corresponding to the six lesser metals, the servants are shown as\npleading with the resurrected king to receive the tincture. This chymical king\ncorresponded to both Christ and the lapis philosophorum. Just like these, in\na process compared to alchemical transmutation, the born-\u200bagain Christian\nhad to die and rise again, which was ritually symbolised through baptism \u2018by\nwater and spirit.\u201941 Yet, the initial transmutation would be followed by painful\ntrials and tribulations, akin to those encountered in the preparation of the\ntransmuting agent. Through Christus in nobis, the believer would then be\nable to tinge others in turn. Written in 1607, Siebmacher\u2019s Wasserstein is one\nof the earliest examples of the reception of pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy. Even\nif the treatise did not influence Boehme as profoundly as previously believed,\nit shows how a chymist practically conversant with laboratory alchemy developed aspects of spiritual alchemy.\nPaul Nagel on Divine Gold, Azoth, and Rebirth\nLike Siebmacher, Paul Nagel was another early reader of pseudo-\u200bWeigelian\nalchemy. The astrologer and millenarian was keenly interested in alchemy,\ncopied pseudo-\u200bWeigel\u2019s Azoth and Fire, and added comments that shed light\non his interpretation of that cryptic treatise. Not only did the astrologer of\n\nPages 55:\n40\nSpiritual Alchemy\nTorgau grapple with Azoth and Fire over the course of several years, he concurrently also became an important part of Boehme\u2019s intellectual networks.\nNagel owed his introduction to his friend Balthasar Walther, the theosopher\u2019s\nwidely travelled mentor, interlocutor, and student. Walther gave Nagel some\nof Boehme\u2019s writings in 1619. Nagel was absorbed in copying Boehme\u2019s\nAurora as early as 1620; in fact, Leigh Penman has established that the Torgau\nastrologer was the first to see Boehme\u2019s words into print, in a 1620 publication by Nagel that included portions of the Aurora.42 In 1621, about two\nyears after its composition, Nagel copied Boehme\u2019s Beschreibung der Drey\nPrincipien G\u00f6ttliches Wesens (Description of the Three Principles of Divine\nBeing).43 Eventually, Nagel also played a part in distributing the theosopher\u2019s\nwritings. A letter Boehme composed on the Sunday after Easter 1623 mentioned Nagel affectionately: \u2018From Mr Nagel, MA, you will receive instruction where my works are known throughout Saxony; please greet him on my\nbehalf.\u201944\nWhile there is no conclusive evidence that Nagel himself had introduced\nBoehme to pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy, I deem it highly likely that this\nhappened directly or indirectly. At the very least, there can be no doubt that\nNagel both appropriated and propagated pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy in his\nnetwork, which overlapped with Boehme\u2019s own to a very significant extent.\nNagel\u2019s copy of Azoth and Fire shows that this work would have been available within Boehme\u2019s network by the second half of the 1610s. It was therefore potentially accessible to the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz himself. However,\nNagel\u2019s engagement with pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy did not exhaust itself\nin reproducing and annotating Azoth and Fire. In his scribal publications\nand correspondence, he repeatedly revisited key topics of pseudo-\u200bWeigelian\nalchemy. In Aurum divinum 666. centenariorum (Divine Gold of the 666\nHundredweights), Nagel meditated on the positively revalued number of\nthe beast and described it as the divine gold of wisdom. Leo rugiens, a work\nNagel composed two years later in 1620, contains a treatise titled \u2018Our\nAzoth Turned to Gold\u2019 (Azoth nostrum solificatum), which presents Nagel\u2019s\nspiritual alchemy at length. This material is complemented by his extant correspondence with the Leipzig physician Arnold Kerner.45\nNagel\u2019s Aurum divinum survives in Halle as a beautifully executed presentation copy. On 12 March 1618 he dedicated it to Duke August of Anhalt-\u200b\nPl\u00f6tzkau, a Calvinist and eager supporter of the Rosicrucian cause. Nagel had\nfirst established contact with him years earlier in 1611.46 In many ways, the\nmanuscript is quite a typical example of the writings in which he advertised\n\nPages 56:\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n41\nhis millenarian views centred on the year 1624. The mathematician relied\non numbers that occurred throughout Scripture and sought to explore their\ndeeper significance. Even the number of years in the millennium was \u2018not\na simple but a mystical number like the others.\u201947 In Aurum divinum, Nagel\nwas particularly concerned with the number 666, which appeared only twice\nin the Bible. According to the Old Testament, King Solomon annually received \u2018666 talents of gold,\u2019 while in the New Testament 666 appeared as the\napocalyptic number of the beast. The latter verse in Luther\u2019s Bible, which\nNagel used, can be translated into English as follows: \u2018Here is wisdom.\nWhoever has understanding, let him consider the number of the beast, for\nit is a man\u2019s number, and his number is 666.\u201948 In a way, Nagel\u2019s exegetical\napproach generalised this injunction to consider one specific numeral and\napplied it to all others that appeared in Scripture. Further exampl\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 33 to page 56 out of a total of 337. 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{"result":["[Summary from page 56 to page 77 out of a total of 337:\nPages 56:\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n41\nhis millenarian views centred on the year 1624. The mathematician relied\non numbers that occurred throughout Scripture and sought to explore their\ndeeper significance. Even the number of years in the millennium was \u2018not\na simple but a mystical number like the others.\u201947 In Aurum divinum, Nagel\nwas particularly concerned with the number 666, which appeared only twice\nin the Bible. According to the Old Testament, King Solomon annually received \u2018666 talents of gold,\u2019 while in the New Testament 666 appeared as the\napocalyptic number of the beast. The latter verse in Luther\u2019s Bible, which\nNagel used, can be translated into English as follows: \u2018Here is wisdom.\nWhoever has understanding, let him consider the number of the beast, for\nit is a man\u2019s number, and his number is 666.\u201948 In a way, Nagel\u2019s exegetical\napproach generalised this injunction to consider one specific numeral and\napplied it to all others that appeared in Scripture. Further examples he mentioned include the figures attached to other cases in which King Solomon\nobtained gold: 120 hundredweights from the Queen of Sheba and a shipment\nof 450 hundredweights from Ophir.49 Ironically, it would seem that in the\nlatter case Nagel did not have his numbers straight: the biblical figure is, in\nfact, 420.\nNonetheless, a lack of numerical accuracy did not get in the way of apocalyptic significance. Using the very same words as Luther\u2019s Bible, Nagel repeatedly insisted: \u2018Truly, here is wisdom. Whoever has understanding, let\nhim consider the number of the [hundredweights of] gold.\u2019 Consequently,\nevery numeral encountered in the Bible hid great wisdom, but only the one\nwho first grasped the mystery of 666 would be able to unlock it. According to\nNagel, who took his cue from a Lautensack-\u200binspired pseudo-\u200bWeigel, this was\na very special number indeed:\nIt is a secret, mystical, divine, angelic, and prophetic number, with which\nthe greatest secrets are sealed; therefore, whoever can properly consider\nand unlock it, to him the secrets will be open, and he will be counted among\nthe prophets and have the spirit of prophecy; he knows what is past and\nwhat is yet to come.50\nThrough the association of 666 with gold based on Solomon\u2019s annual income, Nagel held that this numeral contained \u2018divine gold\u2019 (aurum divinum).\nTherefore, he viewed it as key to apocalyptic insights.\nIn a passage that closely resembles pseudo-\u200b\nWeigel\u2019s diatribe against\nworldly knowledge, Nagel chastised the learned for their disregard of this\n\nPages 57:\n42\nSpiritual Alchemy\n\u2018veritable number of marvels.\u201951 In contrast, he praised \u2018one by the name of\nValentin Weigel,\u2019 who had \u2018correctly understood the ground and the secret of\nthis number, as can be seen from the book of his Theologia, but not everyone\nwill be able to hear nor understand it; instead, many will be offended.\u201952 Nagel\nwas referring to the Theologia Weigelii, probably composed by Benedict\nBiedermann, Weigel\u2019s faithful deacon. The astrologer thus knew one of the\nsources for Azoth and Fire, which also relied on Lautensack\u2019s interpretation\nof 666 and emphasised John\u2019s Revelation as the most important book of the\nBible.53\nIn order for their eyes to be opened, those who were learned according\nto the standards of the world had to endure the spiritual alchemy of rebirth. Only by undergoing that arduous process could the gold of wisdom\nbe obtained: \u2018a spiritual dying and being buried, yes, an incineration and\ncomplete putrefaction is needed for this, namely, of the old Adam, so that\nthe new one might live, who alone has the gold.\u201954 According to Martin\nRuland\u2019s Lexicon alchemiae, a famous dictionary of Paracelsian and alchemical terms, incineration was the technical term used for burning vegetable and animal substances to ashes, corresponding to the calcination of\nmineral substances.55 Calcination was an ancient process to purify gold;\nincineration could be associated with palingenesis (literally, rebirth),\nwhich referred to the alchemical attempt to resurrect plants that had been\nburnt to ash.56 After being likewise reduced to ash, the believer would rise\nwith Christ and thus be born again. The use of alchemical language in\nthis connection was no coincidence: writing to Kerner on 10 March 1622,\nNagel quoted a phrase from Vergil\u2019s Aeneid popular among alchemists to\nrefer to the death of the old Adam: \u2018This is the work, this is the labour.\u201957\nDying to oneself and rising reborn in Christ was the true opus of spiritual\nalchemy.\nThrough this process, the believer obtained the \u2018divine gold,\u2019 which Nagel\ndefined as \u2018the living, one and only, powerful, most dear, and holiest word of\nGod within him\u2019\u2014\u200bChristus in nobis, to put it another way.58 In his later work\nLeo rugiens, equally discussing 666, Nagel made this even more explicit and\ndescribed it as the \u2018essential indwelling (Wesentliche einwohnung) of Christ.\u201959\nAnother passage in the same treatise expanded upon rebirth: \u2018Furthermore,\nall of a reborn person\u2019s (renati) doing and living must also come out of\nGod, . . . Christ must be born in every one, and nobody has any part in\nGod . . . unless God the Lord through the Holy Ghost in Christ, his living\nword, has his throne and seat in him.\u201960 Expanding Christus in nobis with\n\nPages 58:\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n43\nthe remaining persons of the Trinity, the Torgau astrologer must have had in\nmind pseudo-\u200bWeigel\u2019s Azoth and Fire. It expressly advanced the same idea,\nrendered in a particularly forceful manner in Nagel\u2019s own version.\nThe Supernatural Azoth\nWhen Nagel wrote Leo rugiens in 1620, two years after Aurum divinum, he\nwas probably also familiar with A Conversation on Death, the second text of\npseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy that was by then readily available in print. Nagel\ncould easily have obtained a copy of Weigel\u2019s Dialogus de Christianismo:\nTorgau was close to Leipzig, where important book fairs took place twice a\nyear, as well as Halle and Magdeburg, where three editions of Weigel\u2019s work\nhad been printed between 1614 and 1618. Leo rugiens is a rambling work filled\nwith Nagel\u2019s usual numerological, astrological, and apocalyptic speculations.\nIts engagement with spiritual alchemy is largely concentrated in a passage\ntitled \u2018Our Azoth Turned to Gold.\u2019 Near the outset, Nagel explained that the\nazoth of which he treated was \u2018twofold.\u2019 In the first instance, it was the lapis\nphilosophorum, \u2018in which prime and ultimate matter are united, by which all\nmetals can be transmuted into the purest and finest gold.\u2019 Yet in the second\ncase, it was \u2018supernatural, heavenly, and divine; whoever has this one, he shall\nnot lack the former one either.\u2019 Nagel referred to the first as \u2018their azoth,\u2019 that\nis, that of the alchemists, and to the second as \u2018our azoth.\u201961\nBased on pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy, we would expect this second kind\nof azoth to have something to do with rebirth. Indeed, Nagel had already\ngiven away as much before adding the distinction almost as an afterthought.\nPlaying on the familiar expectations many associated with the philosophers\u2019\nstone, Nagel claimed that \u2018our azoth\u2019 would deliver on these and even surpass\nthem. It had the ability to turn sinful humans into \u2018children of God,\u2019 making\n\u2018them entirely spiritual.\u2019 Furthermore, it \u2018gives them clarified bodies like unto\nGod\u2019s angels, able to survive in the heavenly essence (Wesen). In this our azoth\nlies hidden the treasure of reflorescence, regeneration, or rebirth (thesaurus\nreflorescentiae, Regenerationis s[ive] renascentiae), by which everything\nbecomes green again, flourishes, and is rejuvenated or reborn. . . . Whoever\nattains this azoth has as much as Adam had in God\u2019s paradise prior to the\nFall.\u201962 According to Nagel\u2019s description, this azoth transmuted believers\ninto deified creatures with angelic bodies fit for heaven, by the same token\nrestoring them to the prelapsarian state.\n\nPages 59:\n44\nSpiritual Alchemy\nFurther comparing the two kinds of azoth, Nagel emphasises that the\nnatural kind also has effects upon humans but that the supernatural one\nis far superior. Through the former, \u2018man is purified of all evil fruit and astral infections; he reaches the highest perfection of health and all of nature stands open before him.\u201963 Quite apart from making one rich, the lapis\nphilosophorum counteracts malign astrological influence, guarantees perfect\nhealth, and allows for a complete understanding of nature. The effects of the\nsupernatural azoth are quite similar but operate at a deeper level:\nThrough the other, heavenly, and eternal azoth and golden fleece, man is\nmost highly purified of all his sins and misdeeds, attains the highest perfection and fulfilment, and man is thereby spiritualised, deified, or he becomes\nGod\u2019s child, obtains a transfigured body, and becomes entirely spiritual,\npartakes of the eternal heavenly wisdom, sanctity, and justice as well as all\nheavenly goods, and also has eternal life through this. The tongues of men\ndo not suffice to describe this surpassing, infinite, inexpressible treasure.64\nIf the natural azoth could cleanse human beings physically, undoing the\neffects of God\u2019s Curse upon creation imposed after Adam and Eve\u2019s transgression, the supernatural azoth could even undo the Fall, removing human\nsinfulness altogether.65 Beyond enjoying perfect health in a mortal body,\nthe physically transfigured and reborn believer could already participate in\neternal life.\nIn a central passage redolent of pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian alchemy, Nagel\ndescribed the supernatural azoth not as a transmuting agent but as an instructive example. In effect, he recapitulated pseudo-\u200bWeigel\u2019s alchemical\nimitatio Christi:\nOur azoth teaches us . . . how one can attain this heavenly, surpassing, inexpressible treasure and how the new birth can be obtained; it must die\nand pass into incineration, if something new is to grow out of it: the grain,\nthe seed must be thrown into the earth, putrefy, and decay, if it is to grow\nforth beautifully and gloriously. In sum, it has to become an azoth, that is,\nthat God the Lord through Christ\u2014\u200bthe living word\u2014\u200bin his Holy Ghost\nbecomes all in all within us. Prime and ultimate matter have to come together and become one. The Lord must be azoth, that is, alpha and omega,\nbeginning and end, the first and the last, God and man\u2014\u200bthat is, Christ: he\nmust be revealed. Without and outside of him, man remains damned, and\n\nPages 60:\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n45\nimputative justice from the outside cannot save him. O ye humans, let\nus look for this surpassing treasure, our azoth, in which our blessed state\nconsists, and it is the great mystery: Christ within us.66\nThrough the mystical identification of Christ and the believer in death and\nresurrection, Christus in nobis became all in all within the born-\u200bagain person.\nChrist within was the transmuting agent of Nagel\u2019s spiritual alchemy.\nNagel likened various stages of this process to alchemical activities\nthroughout \u2018Our Azoth Turned to Gold.\u2019 He also did so in his correspondence, in which spiritual alchemy surfaced as well. In a 1620 letter to Kerner,\nthe millenarian mentioned \u2018the angelic stone which rejuvenates through the\nnew birth.\u2019 He further alluded to the spagyric art of separating the pure from\nthe impure in connection with the spiritual alchemy of rebirth.67 In a later\nletter, Nagel indicated to his correspondent that \u2018for my part, I still daily have\nto beg for the divine gold.\u201968 This emphasised that constancy was a basic requisite in its pursuit. The spagyria Nagel described involved certain practices\nthat would help believers attain union with Christ, comparable to the paths\nof mysticism.\nIn the first instance, the flame needed to be fed continually: Nagel construed \u2018our stone or azoth as a fire, first, ignited within us by the Holy Ghost;\nsecond, prepared by fire, consisting in fire and being fire. . . our azoth is\nnothing other than a fire of God\u2019s beloved children, naturally and supernaturally.\u201969 This fire, which could be understood as the love of God, formed the\nbasis for the work of spiritual alchemy. Its heat effected sublimation:\nSo that the true union of the heavenly, the spiritual, and the corporeal mercury can take place and an azoth be formed out of it, the sublimation of the\nwise is required: that is, continual prayers, poured out incessantly in spirit\nand in truth. Thus the azoth develops, that is, CHRIST, who is the first-\u200b\nborn according to the alpha; he also becomes human in us according to the\nomega\u2014\u200bhence AZOTH. Enough for the wise (Sapienti satis).70\nThrough the practice of continual prayer, believers sublimated themselves,\ngradually giving birth to Christ within. If this sounded comparatively easy,\nother processes dissuaded many from pursuing spiritual alchemy: \u2018For faith\nis not everyone\u2019s work; if anyone wants to attain it, he has to enter into calcination, reverberation, putrefaction, and digestion\u2014\u200b\nwholly becoming\nnought\u2014\u200bby the annihilation, abnegation, renunciation, immolation, and\n\nPages 61:\n46\nSpiritual Alchemy\nmortification of oneself.\u2019 In this manner, Nagel established analogies between\nvarious alchemical techniques and mystical practices intended to subdue\none\u2019s selfish will and to bring one to a state of \u2018serene equanimity\u2019 (gelassene\nGelassenheit), as Nagel put it, using a key term of German mysticism and\nquoting Biedermann\u2019s Theologia Weigelii.71\nWith recourse to laboratory alchemy, Nagel further explained the significance of azoth. For him the core meaning of the term consisted in uniting two\nthings, the first and the last, and one source for this assertion was once again the\nTheologia Weigelii. The lapis philosophorum, uniting prime and ultimate matter,\nmet this requirement. But the term could also be applied to God himself:\nFor it is at once certain and true: the one who let the Old Testament write\nabout himself and himself confirmed in Revelation that he is the first and\nthe last, beginning and end, alpha and omega among the Greeks. Among\nthe Hebrews, he is also aleph and tav. And among the Romans and Germans\nA and Z\u2014\u200bthe first and the last.72\nNagel claimed that the term was formed based on God\u2019s very own statement,\n\u2018according to these four main languages\u2019: the first letters corresponding to\nA, \u2018together and taken as one; the other three letters form a syllable, zoth,\nand the whole word reads Azoth, that is, beginning and end\u2019 (principium et\nfinis).73 Christ not only united the opposites of deity and humanity; he also\nembodied the union of beginning and end, prelapsarian perfection and its ultimate restoration through rebirth. Christ could therefore aptly be described\nas the supernatural azoth.\nNagel did not stop there and tied this term and its meaning back to alchemical imagery, in which snakes figured prominently and concealed great mysteries. The first example he mentioned was the ouroboros, usually considered\na symbol of eternity: \u2018The alchemists (Philosophi) have described their natural azoth with many marvels, speeches, or also figures and images, as when\nthey posited a snake, with its tail in the mouth, consuming and devouring itself.\u2019 Even \u2018the two snakes on Mercury\u2019s staff,\u2019 the caduceus, and the two kinds\nof snakes with which Moses and the Pharaoh\u2019s magicians competed against\none another ultimately drove at the union of opposites:\nTwo snakes must become one. Behold, a splendid snake lies hidden within\nus, which is poison and death unto us, yes, it gives birth to damnation. But\nwhen this our snake is devoured and swallowed up by the heavenly and\n\nPages 62:\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n47\nMoses\u2019 snake, so that they become one and the heavenly alone exists, our\nazoth is at hand: in this God is beginning and end, prime and ultimate\nmatter, God and man alone and at once. Thus Christ is revealed.74\nLaboratory and spiritual alchemy mirrored one another: the alchemists\u2019 \u2018two\nsnakes are a double mercury, a physical and a spiritual one, a poisonous mercury or snake, and a regulus or lion.\u201975 This lion would vanquish and devour\nthe snake, aiding the completion of the great work of alchemy.\nAs Nagel\u2019s chief obsession was the Book of Revelation, he was quick to\nidentify this alchemical lion with Christ as the Lion of Judah.76 Through his\nmillenarian astrology and alchemy, Nagel had calculated that Christ\u2019s rule\nwas only a few years away, scheduled to start in 1624 or 1625. The latter date\ncorresponded to the numerical value of azoth, though Nagel had to resort to\nthe trick of positing a dotted tav, which doubled it from 400 to 800. He concluded his lengthy chapter \u2018Our Azoth Turned to Gold\u2019 by exhorting readers\nto repent and persistently anticipate the roars of the Lion of Judah, who would\nvanquish the poisonous snakes within them and turn them into \u2018exceedingly\nstrong lions.\u201977 The Book of Revelation portrayed persisting and overcoming\nas crucial for believers. Those who overcame and emerged victoriously were\nto receive \u2018a white stone,\u2019 an object obviously amenable to alchemical interpretations.78 In contrast to Nagel, who focused on the final book of the Bible,\nBoehme was less given to millenarian and apocalyptic speculation. Instead\nof Revelation, he emphasised Genesis and recognised that same snake in the\nproto-\u200bevangelium, the very first promise of the saviour who would remedy\nthe Fall and Curse that Adam and Eve had brought on themselves and all of\ncreation.79 In so doing, Boehme firmly embedded the spiritual alchemy of\nrebirth into the whole arc of salvation history.\n\nPages 63:\n3\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual\nAlchemy of Rebirth\nOn the face of it, Jacob Boehme was an unlikely candidate to become the prolific author of speculative and devotional treatises. He was born to an affluent\npeasant family in Alt-\u200bSeidenberg during the year 1575. During his childhood,\nhe evidently learned to read and write, but his schooling appears to have been\nlimited to German.1 From very early on, or so his biographer Abraham von\nFranckenberg claimed, Boehme had several visionary experiences, leading\nup to the most defining ones during his adult life in 1600 and 1610. The latter\nfinally prompted him, a master craftsman and trader by that time, to take up\nthe pen and write down the revelations he had received. In the first half of\n1612, he produced a fair copy of his famous earliest work, the Morgen R\u00f6te\nim auffgang (Morning\u2019s Red Glow in the East), better known as Aurora, a\nwork he never completed.2 At this stage, the theosopher neither espoused\na doctrine of rebirth that went beyond Luther\u2019s Bible translation, nor was\nhe greatly familiar with alchemy. In fact, he emphatically distanced himself\nfrom being mistaken for an alchemist. He did, however, lay claims to alchemical knowledge based on his theosophical insights.\nAfter briefly delineating the place of alchemy in Aurora, this chapter\nfocuses on the spiritual alchemy of rebirth Boehme developed in works composed from 1619 to 1622. After 1612, he gradually became more familiar\nwith alchemy, and his encounter with pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy would\nhave taken place soon after the beginning of his later writing period. In his\nmature works, he developed an increasingly distinctive understanding of rebirth, firmly embedded into salvation history and described in overtly alchemical language. He completed the fullest presentations of his spiritual\nalchemy of rebirth in the first half of the year 1622. Concluded in February,\nhis famous Signatura rerum (The Signatures of Things) contained an extensive passage based on the three-\u200bway lapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy. Boehme\ndescribed the central event of salvation history\u2014\u200bChrist\u2019s Incarnation\u2014\u200bas\nan alchemical process, corresponding both to the philosophical work of the\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0004\n\nPages 64:\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n49\nlaboratory and to the spiritual rebirth of the believer. Around the same time,\nBoehme engaged with another religious dissenter, Esaias Stiefel, who competed for disciples with him. In his Apologia, Betreffend Die Vollkommenheit\ndes Menschen (Apology Concerning Human Perfection), the second treatise\nhe addressed to Stiefel, the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz outlined the spiritual alchemy of rebirth and its intricate connections to salvation history from the\nvery beginning until the end of time, from creation and the Fall to the Last\nJudgement.\nAlchemy in Boehme\u2019s Aurora\nBoehme\u2019s Aurora articulated a general stance regarding alchemy from which\nhe did not depart even in his later writings. The most pertinent passage is\nfound in c\u00ad hapter 22, in a section titled \u2018Concerning the metals in the earth.\u20193\nHere Boehme described the purification of gold in seven stages. Due to the\ngreat significance of the number seven, alchemists often structured their accounts of the opus in this manner.4 While this already shows a measure of\nfamiliarity with alchemy (or metallurgy, at least), Boehme\u2019s term \u2018Salitter\u2019\ncan be situated more precisely. This idiosyncrasy, which occurs many times\nthroughout Aurora, was Boehme\u2019s rendering of sal niter, which increasingly\nplayed a key role in alchemical theories around 1600. One of Paul Nagel\u2019s\ncorrespondents, the Polish alchemist Michael Sendivogius, contributed\nto this development through his Novum lumen chymicum (New Chymical\nLight) of 1604. Yet Boehme\u2019s appropriation had greater affinity to a work\nby the French Paracelsian Joseph du Chesne, also known as Quercetanus.5\nAlready at the outset of his career as a writer, Boehme was at least vaguely\nfamiliar with transmutational alchemy and current trends in its literature.\nNevertheless, at the end of this Aurora passage, Boehme emphatically\ndistanced himself from being mistaken for an alchemical practitioner: \u2018You\nshould not take me for an alchemist.\u2019 Professing ignorance and inexperience regarding laboratory alchemy, he indicated that he might still provide pointers for success in its great work. He argued that he could derive\nrelevant insights based on his privileged access to the divine realm through\nChrist who lived in him. In addition, he claimed that he could offer astrological pointers for choosing the most appropriate time of day for certain\noperations.6 He approached his subject\u2014\u200bthe mineral or metallic realm of\nnature\u2014\u200bon the basis of analogy and correspondence with the divine world.\n\nPages 65:\n50\nSpiritual Alchemy\nThe metals, particularly gold and silver, were \u2018loved by human beings above\nall else in this world\u2019 as reflections, albeit dark ones, of the ongoing heavenly\nbirth at its height: it was a distinctive element of Boehme\u2019s theosophy that\nhe viewed the godhead not as static but dynamic.7 He did not claim to have\npractised alchemy in the laboratory; rather, he asserted that he knew about\nthe art based on his theosophical insights.\nHowever, the theosopher did not yet make any connection between alchemy and rebirth in Aurora. In fact, at this stage he did not attach much\nimportance to rebirth and used the term mostly in ways derived from\nLuther\u2019s translation of the Bible. In keeping with Paul\u2019s Epistle to Titus, rebirth appears in Aurora as the traditional synonym for baptism.8 More frequently, in keeping with Christ\u2019s words in the Gospel of Matthew, rebirth in\nthe Aurora refers to the restoration of creation and the resurrection of the\ndead at the Last Judgement.9 It was precisely in this sense that Luther himself had viewed alchemy as confirming Christian revelation. \u2018Rebirth\u2019 thus\nreferred to cosmic renewal, and the term also applied to restoration in the\nongoing process of divine becoming, which involved God\u2019s seven source\nspirits. Derived from the Book of Revelation, they functioned as analogues\nof the seven planets and metals.10 Only with the benefit of hindsight can we\nperceive the subtle germs of Boehme\u2019s later individualised and interiorised\nunderstanding of spiritual rebirth.11\nThe theosopher\u2019s life and works came to be indelibly marked by the controversy that erupted surrounding his first work. Independent confirmation\nremains elusive, but Boehme later claimed that a nobleman obtained a manuscript version, copied it, and disseminated it against the author\u2019s will. The\nperson in question was probably Carl Ender von Sercha, Boehme\u2019s neighbour in G\u00f6rlitz. The theosopher had had other plans: \u2018For I intended to\nkeep it to myself, yet it was taken away without my consent and published\u2019\n(publiciret).12 The exact word Boehme used could also be translated differently: his manuscript was \u2018publicised\u2019 in the sense that it was copied and disseminated, and this in turn constitutes a case of involuntary, unauthorised\nscribal publication\u2014\u200bperhaps one of the most famous in early-\u200bmodern history.13 Despite his protestations of innocence, Boehme was in trouble: in July\n1613, Gregor Richter, the chief pastor of G\u00f6rlitz and Boehme\u2019s nemesis for\nmany years to come, denounced him from the pulpit. Boehme was briefly\nimprisoned, sternly admonished never to write again, and released only after\nhis manuscript had been confiscated. Condemned to silence, he did not write\nany treatises for several years and meanwhile believed his Aurora lost: \u2018I also\n\nPages 66:\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n51\ndid not see that same first book anymore, I supposed that it was dead and\ngone, until copies were sent to me by learned people.\u201914 Later on, Boehme\nreminisced that the whole affair had only served to make his work better\nknown in the area and beyond.15\nAs a corollary, the notoriety Boehme and his Aurora gained allowed\nhim access to increasingly larger networks, formed by Paracelsians,\nSchwenckfeldians, and Weigelians\u2014\u200breligious dissenters and alchemists\nof various persuasions. Fascinated by the insights of the humble cobbler,\nmany early readers across the region and its social classes began to send letters to Boehme.16 His correspondence intensified accordingly, and so did\nthe extent to which he was able to engage with the ideas and books circulating in his networks.17 Perhaps for this reason, he evaluated his later\nwritings very differently from his early ones: whereas to this day his fame\nchiefly rests upon Aurora, Boehme himself held a distinctly higher opinion\nof his mature works, \u2018which are much brighter, clearer, and more deeply\ngrounded.\u201918 These featured many learned terms he had picked up in the\ncourse of his reading, correspondence, and conversation, and those words\ntook on new and at times surprising meanings as he integrated them into\nhis works.\nThe Fall, Rebirth, and the Philosophers\u2019 Stone\nas the Holy Element and Christ\u2019s Body\nThroughout the theosopher\u2019s mature works that reflect increased exposure\nto heterodox and alchemical literature, he engaged more deeply with both\nalchemy and rebirth. In the process, spiritual alchemy ceased to be merely a\nplayful allegory and took on an independent reality within his theosophical\nunderstanding of the world. In so many words, Boehme even told his reader\nto take him literally when he spoke of the \u2018Process of Christ\u2019 and transmutation: \u2018we do not want to write anything parabolically but clear as day.\u201919 In\nfact, spiritual alchemy even became dominant, more real than laboratory alchemy, which was but a physical shadow of the divine alchemy of becoming\nand the spiritual alchemy of rebirth:\nAs the eternal birth [of the deity] is within itself, thus also is the process in\nthe restoration after the Fall and thus also is the process of the wise with\ntheir philosophers\u2019 stone: there is not a dot of difference between them, for\n\nPages 67:\n52\nSpiritual Alchemy\neverything originated in the eternal birth, and everything must have its restoration in the same manner.20\nThe model of divine becoming also explains why Boehme held that\nalchemists hoping for success in the laboratory needed to be reborn: they\nneeded to live through the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to become proficient\nin its reflection, the alchemy of the laboratory.\nThe theosopher first penned a comprehensive account of rebirth in\n\u00adchapter 22 of Description of the Three Principles of Divine Being, his second\nmajor work completed in 1619. The views Boehme expressed here owed\na lot to Valentin Weigel and Paracelsus.21 Yet Boehme also added his own\nemphases, particularly in how firmly he embedded rebirth into the entire arc\nof salvation history. At the same time, he integrated rebirth into his theosophical cosmology: after all, he was both a profoundly speculative thinker\nand a writer of popular devotional literature, two aspects much too often\nconsidered in isolation.22 Rebirth, particularly, provides a bridge between the\nspeculative and the devotional Boehme, as it situates the individual\u2019s journey\nto salvation in the dynamic and layered cosmology of theosophy.\nAccording to Boehme, the world consists of three principles, two of which\nare eternal: the first, the principle of fire and wrath; the second, the principle\nof light and love.23 These eternal principles are opposites existing apart from\none another, yet they mingle and struggle for dominance in the third, the\ntemporal principle of the visible world. In its primordial state, the physical\nworld was suffused with divine presence, and the second principle of light\nand love dominated. Similarly, Adam was originally created as God\u2019s image\nand likeness, with his will and imagination set on God and the second principle. Neither male nor female, Adam was originally intended to procreate\nasexually in this primordial state of perfection.\nYet soon the Fall changed this, taking place in two stages, as summarised\nin \u00adchapter 17 of the Description of the Three Principles.24 First, Adam longed\nfor a companion after the manner of beasts and fell asleep. Previously, he\nhad had no need for sleep, but now it reflected his weakening and prefigured\ndeath.25 As Adam slept for the first time, he was divided up into male and\nfemale, which Boehme, in his late Mysterium magnum (The Great Mystery),\nmemorably described as his \u2018shattering\u2019 (Zerbrechung): God\u2019s mirror was\nbroken.26 The second stage of the Fall took place when the serpent seduced\nEve to eat from the forbidden tree. Even as sexual beings, Adam and Eve had\n\nPages 68:\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n53\nstill retained some of their former glory, but they lost it as they ate of the forbidden fruit, found on the only tree consisting of the temporal, impure four\nelements, within a paradisiacal world.27 By partaking of the terrestrial fruit,\nAdam and Eve unwittingly turned the subtle matter of their bodies into the\ngross matter of the four elements. They lost \u2018the body of the pure element,\u2019\nwhich was eternal.28 For Boehme, the Fall was not so much divine punishment for transgressing a commandment but rather a natural consequence of\ncosmological givens.\nRebirth literally undid the Fall on an individual basis: by being born\nagain, believers could regain the subtle body Adam and Eve had lost.\nIt consisted of the pure or holy element, which Boehme described as\nfollows: \u2018It is the heavenly bodiliness, which is not only merely a spirit,\nin which the clear godhead dwells; it is not the pure godhead but born\nout of the essences of the holy Father.\u2019 The eternal Word was the divine\nlogos, incarnate in Jesus Christ. Boehme sought to carefully articulate\nthe status of the pure element in his emanative cosmogony: it was more\nthan a spirit in which God could dwell but less than God. The theosopher\nalso endeavoured to describe the pure element from another angle: \u2018If the\nFather always speaks the eternal Word, the Holy Spirit emanates from the\nspeaking, and that which has been spoken is Holy Wisdom, and it is a\nvirgin, and the pure element . . . is her body.\u2019 The pure element is thus the\nbody of Sophia, the divine virgin of wisdom; conversely, she is \u2018the spirit of\nthe pure element.\u201929\nBoehme expanded on biblical and traditional personifications of Wisdom\nand described Sophia in a perplexing variety of ways.30 She was \u2018God\u2019s companion\u2019 (gespielin) as well as \u2018God\u2019s likeness\u2019 and \u2018image\u2019 (like the prelapsarian\nhuman), but \u2018eternal, uncreated, and unborn\u2019; she was the \u2018mirror of God\u2019 in\nwhich he \u2018saw all things from eternity.\u201931 Yet Sophia was also closely associated with Christ: in a variation on traditional nuptial mysticism, she took on\nthe role of Christ and became \u2018a bride to our soul,\u2019 female to male believers,\nmale to female ones: like prelapsarian Adam and resurrected Christ, Sophia\nwas androgynous.32 Elsewhere, Boehme wrote that \u2018the beautiful and noble\nSophia will be given to your soul as spouse,\u2019 and she \u2018now stands before your\nsoul\u2019s door and calls out to you imploringly with her voice and knocks,\u2019\nwhich alluded to a passage regarding Christ in Revelation.33 Boehme then\nreturned to Sophia as the heavenly bodiliness and identified her as \u2018Christ\u2019s\nbody\u2019: \u2018Christ feeds the soul with the essence of Sophia, that is, with his\n\nPages 69:\n54\nSpiritual Alchemy\nbody and blood.\u201934 This statement firmly tied the heavenly bodiliness to the\nEucharist.\nIn another context, Boehme summarised this series of identifications in\nso many words: the \u2018pure element\u2019 is \u2018the essence of heavenly bodiliness.\nThe same essence or bodiliness . . . is Christ\u2019s heavenly flesh and blood.\u201935\nWithout acknowledging it, the theosopher was much indebted to the\nSilesian reformer Caspar Schwenckfeld in this regard. As a spiritualist\ntheologian, Schwenckfeld viewed rebirth as a continual partaking of the\nbody and blood of Christ and thus construed it in terms of the Eucharist.36\nSchwenckfeld still had many followers among the local nobility, and some\nof them became Boehme\u2019s patrons and protectors.37 Yet Boehme particularly emphasised that born-\u200bagain believers regained the body, made of the\nholy element, that they had lost in the Fall: \u2018So, my dear soul, when you\nare born again in Christ, you put on the body of Christ out of the holy element, and the same [body of Christ] gives your new body food and drink.\u2019\nIndeed, \u2018the holy element is Christ\u2019s heavenly body,\u2019 and Christ\u2019s disciples\nate of it at the Last Supper in the very same way as the born-\u200bagain faithful\nwould many centuries later.38 Here Boehme alluded to Luther\u2019s doctrine of\nthe ubiquity of Christ\u2019s body, a position the theosopher defended at various points throughout his writings.39 Through spiritual rebirth, believers\nliterally and physically partook of the holy, pure element that was Christ\u2019s\nbody and themselves received a new body consisting of the same subtle\nmatter.\nIn many ways, the holy element resembled cosmological and alchemical\nconceptions of the quintessence, the fifth kind of matter that was radically\ndifferent from the four elements of which the terrestrial world consisted.\nIndeed, Boehme viewed them as parallel, though with the important distinction that the holy element belonged to the second principle rather than\nthe third: the \u2018pure element\u2019 is \u2018the movement of the inner spiritual world,\nand during the creation of the world it emanated (Aus geflossen) into being\n(Wesen), and it is comprehended in the quintessence\u2019 (5ten Essentz).40 Yet, as\nso often with Boehme, these distinctions are so subtle that they sometimes\ngive way to indistinction, if not identity. It is tempting to think that they were\nintended to ensure plausible deniability when the theosopher ventured into\ntheologically dangerous territory. A similar shift towards the identity of two\nthings elsewhere described as distinct also takes place in our case: the pure\nelement is the quintessence. Through rebirth the believer was to return to\nthat inner spiritual world and inherit the \u2018kingdom of God\u2019 by allowing the\n\nPages 70:\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n55\nquintessence to dominate his four-\u200belementary body: \u2018For whatever desires to\ninherit the inner spiritual world must be born out of the same.\u2019 Paraphrasing\nPaul\u2019s First Epistle to the Corinthians, Boehme emphatically noted that \u2018the\nterrestrial flesh out of the four elements cannot inherit God\u2019s realm. . . But\nthe fifth essence, as the element out of which the four are born (that is, paradise), it must rule over the four elements in the same way as the light holds\ndarkness within itself, as if devoured.\u201941 The regenerate believer is born of\nthe quintessence, which is the inner spiritual world and the body of Christ\nat once.\nParticularly in On the Threefold Life of Man, Boehme went one step further and quite explicitly identified the holy element as the philosophers\u2019\nstone. As I have shown, the holy element was also the body of Christ, and\ngiving birth to Christus in nobis amounted to attaining the lapis. In a way,\nBoehme thus took very literally what had been a common religious metaphor in alchemical literature: now Christ was no longer analogous to the\nlapis philosophorum; he really was the \u2018noble and highly worthy corner-\u200b\nstone of the wise.\u201942 Alchemists looked for this subtle, pure matter in vain\nuntil they participated in Christ\u2019s body through rebirth. If only Adam \u2018had\nremained in the will of God\u2019 instead of falling from grace, \u2018the noble stone\nlapis philosophorum would have been as easy to find for him as a stone for a\nwall.\u201943 Through rebirth, the negative consequences of the Fall could be undone and the philosophers\u2019 stone attained:\nWhoever places his will out of himself into Christ . . . he will be born again\nin Christ; his soul regains the eternal flesh in which God became man, an\nimpalpable flesh of the eternal being. The old Adamic flesh of death does\nnot become heavenly flesh: no, it belongs in the earth, unto death. Instead,\nthe eternal flesh is hidden in the old, terrestrial man, and it shines in the old\nAdam like fire in a piece of iron or gold in a stone. This is the noble, precious\nstone lapis philosophorum, whom the magi find, which tinges nature and\nbirths a new son in the old: whoever finds it esteems it more highly than\nthis world.44\nTo Boehme, the philosophers\u2019 stone was the ubiquitous body of Christ that\nbelievers put on as they were tinged towards the new birth. For him all of this\nwas not to be understood in a purely religious or metaphorical way, disconnected from bodily realities. It was something that happened literally and\nphysically.\n\nPages 71:\n56\nSpiritual Alchemy\nThe Incarnation of Christ as an Alchemical Process\nThe prominence many scholars attach to Boehme\u2019s dynamic, constantly\nshifting, and ongoing theogony obscures the fact that his view of salvation history is thoroughly traditional. Even as he criticised the institutional\nchurch for teaching a merely historical, literal faith, he took for granted the\nIncarnation of Christ as a historical event that made all the difference: only\nafter God had truly become human could humans truly become god. To\nBoehme, the Incarnation was of profound mystical significance precisely because it had taken place in history, thus providing the precondition for the\nrestoration of all that had been lost in the Fall. In Von der Menschwerdung\nJesu Christi (On the Incarnation of Jesus Christ), composed in 1620, Boehme\nintroduced the Incarnation as defying reason; it could only be grasped based\non divine revelation. At the same time, it had a very clear purpose: \u2018It was\nall about the salvation of fallen man, that He [God] would bring him back\ninto Paradise.\u201945 As the second Adam, Christ had to undo the Fall caused by\nthe first. Christ was only able to do so by fully becoming human, that is, by\nacquiring not only a human body but also a human soul from his mother,\nMary: \u2018Christ received a soul out of Mary\u2019s essence, but without male seed.\u201946\nGod thus became something he had not been before\u2014\u200bhuman.\nOnly by fully becoming human was Christ able to undo the Fall and\nconquer its consequences. Boehme fully endorsed orthodox (Western)\nChristology as codified in the Athanasian Creed, composed in Latin\nduring the fifth or sixth century and re-\u200basserted in the Lutheran Formula\nof Concord.47 The position outlined in this creed represents the straight\nand narrow path between two kinds of Christological heresies, which deny\nChrist\u2019s humanity or his divinity, respectively. Indeed, Boehme defended this\ndelicate balance against other religious dissenters who strayed from it.48 The\ntheosopher particularly insisted on Christ having become fully human because \u2018Christ was the first from the dead,\u2019 preceding all believers who could\nsubsequently participate in him, become born again, and be raised to life.49\nConversely, if Christ had not become fully human, this participation would\nnot be possible. Hence, Christ\u2019s death would have been in vain: \u2018If Christ is\nnot in our flesh, he will not raise us up: what use are his wounds to me if they\nare in foreign flesh?\u201950 Boehme\u2019s understanding of the Incarnation as a historical event with real, physical consequences led him to emphasise the mystical identification with Christ through rebirth. This placed him at odds with\nthe forensic understanding of justification.\n\nPages 72:\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n57\nExplicitly mentioning the lapis philosophorum, Boehme alluded to the\nproto-\u200bevangelium, which promised that the woman\u2019s seed\u2014\u200binterpreted as\nChrist, born of the Virgin Mary\u2014\u200bwould vanquish the devilish serpent. He\nconstrued the Incarnation as an alchemical process through which Christ\nbecame the true philosophers\u2019 stone, able to transmute human beings.\nCrucially, this understanding implied that Christ could not truly cause spiritual rebirth until he had wholly completed his life on earth. The Incarnation\nhad to happen within the temporal, terrestrial world: \u2018Now in this lies the\nphilosophers\u2019 stone, how the woman\u2019s seed tramples the head of the serpent;\nthis happens in spirit and in being, temporally and eternally.\u201951 Through\nChrist\u2019s victory over sin and death, he became the philosophers\u2019 stone; once\nit had been fixed within time during the Incarnation, it became available for\neternity in the second principle of light as the ubiquitous body and blood\nof Christ. This was what made rebirth possible as the mystical incarnation\nof Christ within the believer, which entailed physical participation in the\nsaviour\u2019s bodiliness.\nEven as Boehme took the historical Incarnation for granted, this other\nkind of incarnation was of much greater concern to him.52 The believer had\nto mystically enter into the incarnation herself, giving birth to Christ within.\nBoehme thus saw Christus in nobis as the only path to salvation, and he began\na third of his extant letters with a phrase that summed this up succinctly: \u2018Our\nsalvation in the life of Jesus Christ within us!\u201953 Discussing Solomon, Boehme\nexplicitly clarified that Christus in nobis was the philosophers\u2019 stone:\nBehold Solomon in his great, marvellous wisdom, who knew the properties\nof all creatures as well as herbs, which he had not learned at an academy;\nonly through the noble stone, which he had in his heart, he recognised it. . . .\nThis stone is Christ, the living Son of God; this is borne out in all who seek\nand find him.54\nIn an important way, then, the three-\u200bway lapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy became a three-\u200bway identity, in which the mystical incarnation of Christ in the\nbeliever was the philosophers\u2019 stone. This deceptively simple transition led to\nspiritual alchemy in its purest form.\nLike the alchemical king, mentioned by Johann Siebmacher and illustrated\nin the first edition of Bonus\u2019 Pretiosa margarita novella, or the philosophers\u2019\nstone, portrayed as the risen Christ in the widely disseminated Rosarium\nphilosophorum, Christ had to undergo many trials and even death in order\n\nPages 73:\n58\nSpiritual Alchemy\nto acquire the power to tinge fallen humans.55 Boehme described this process in great detail in Signatura rerum. According to him, any aspiring adept\nwould therefore do well to study the Incarnation of Christ:\nThus it behoves the wise one, who intends to seek, to contemplate the entire process of Christ\u2019s humanity, from its beginning in the body of his\nmother Mary, until his resurrection and Ascension; in this way, he will\nfind Pentecost with the free spirit, whereby he may tinge, cure, and heal\nwhatever is broken. We say this founded upon truth, as we have sublimely\nrecognised.56\nThrough extended passages of Signatura rerum, Boehme repeated his variations on a single formula: \u2018Thus it also takes place in the philosophical\nwork.\u201957 This phrase served to both establish and assert the analogy of the\ngreat redemptive work of Christ\u2019s life and the noble alchemical work within\nthe furnace. The theosopher encouraged \u2018the laboratory worker who is an\nearnest seeker\u2019 to contemplate his writings, \u2018so he will find the noble stone of\nthe wise.\u201958\nThe Incarnation of Christ was central in this regard, and Boehme established many analogies between the \u2018process of Christ\u2019 and the \u2018philosophical\nwork\u2019 throughout Signatura rerum.59 Most of these parallels are difficult to\ntranslate into traditional schemes of transmutational alchemy, since Boehme\nextrapolated from the Gospels to the philosophical opus, rather than the\nother way around, as Siebmacher had done in the Wasserstein. Just as John\nhad baptised Christ in the river Jordan, \u2018the artist\u2019 had to \u2018baptise the mercury . . . with the philosophical baptism.\u2019 Then, to make sure that this mercury had successfully been baptised, it had to be tried and tested for forty\ndays, corresponding to Christ\u2019s temptation in the desert. If the mercury\n\u2018withstands throughout the temptation, the angels will appear to it after forty\ndays,\u2019 which also means that \u2018the artist is able to do his work.\u2019 Yet if the angels\nfail to appear, \u2018he had better leave it be and deem himself yet unworthy of\nit.\u201960 Laboratory alchemists also looked out for certain phenomena to confirm that they were on the right track; the stella antimonii, or star-\u200bshaped\nregulus of antimony, was a particularly impressive example that Lawrence\nM. Principe reproduced in recent years.61\nCompared to the later events of Christ\u2019s life, however, the appearance\nof angels was but a preparatory phenomenon. Christ\u2019s death on the cross\nheralded the beginning of nigredo, the black stage of the work associated with\n\nPages 74:\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n59\ndecay and putrefaction: \u2018From this comes the great darkness in the philosophical work so that the matter becomes as black as a raven, . . . as can also\nbe seen in Christ, that the sun lost its splendour and a great darkness fell,\nagainst the ordinary course of nature.\u201962 When Christ rose again after forty\nhours, this corresponded to both spiritual and laboratory alchemy as well,\n\u2018as this happens in the philosophical work, in which a new life rises up from\ndeath, just as God in Christ wakes us up within him, if we die to egoity and\nwholly enter into him.\u201963 The philosophers\u2019 stone was formed but the work\nnot yet completed.\nIf we were to put Boehme\u2019s alchemy of the Incarnation in more traditional alchemical terms, the resurrection of Christ would amount to the first\ncoagulatio or fixatio of the tincture.64 Yet to truly become the philosophers\u2019\nstone, the potency of the tincture had to be increased repeatedly through\nmultiplicatio, so that it would actually generate an increasing amount of gold.\nBoehme used this technical term of alchemy but did not exactly construe it\nin this specific sense.65 Only afterwards would the alchemist enact proiectio,\nthat is, apply the philosophers\u2019 stone to the baser substances that were to be\ntransmuted. According to Boehme, Christ\u2019s process culminated in Pentecost.\nAs the final stage of the redemptive process, the divine philosophers\u2019 stone\nwas projected onto the disciples, who immediately became transmuting\nagents themselves:\nUntil Pentecost he [Christ] goes around in a heavenly shape, sometimes\nalso in his own, . . . and then the Holy Spirit comes and goes out in his power\nout of the whole body consisting of body and soul. Then he tinges the dead\nand broken, as can be seen on the day of Pentecost, when Saint Peter with\nhis heavenly mercury tinged 3000 souls at once and released them from\ndeath.66\nBy the time we get to the last sentence, it is no longer clear whether \u2018he\u2019 refers\nto Christ or the Holy Spirit or whether they are conveniently conflated. More\nimportantly, Peter acted as a spiritual alchemist, whereas previously that role\nhad implicitly been reserved for God and Christ. In this specific instance, the\nact of tingeing coincided with baptism: Boehme was, after all, paraphrasing\nthe Acts of the Apostles, which states that \u2018those who received\u2019 Peter\u2019s sermon\n\u2018were baptised, and there were added that day about three thousand souls\u2019\nto the community of believers. The passage thus carries an intertextual hint\nof baptism, previously synonymous with rebirth, even as Boehme and his\n\nPages 75:\n60\nSpiritual Alchemy\ncontemporaries turned the latter into something distinct with recourse to alchemy. The theosopher\u2019s spiritual alchemy construed humans as base metals\nand the matter of the alchemical work that would become the transmuting\nagent, yet it also allowed for born-\u200bagain believers to become spiritual adepts\ntransmuting other, as yet unredeemed humans.\nPlaying on the double use of the philosophers\u2019 stone as a transmuting\nagent and medical cure for all ailments, Boehme continued: \u2018Dear seekers,\nin this lies the little pearl; if you had the universal, you would also be able to\ntinge like Saint Peter.\u201967 By that term Boehme meant a general medicine applicable to sick humans and lesser metals, but he also used the word to refer\nto that cure\u2019s effect:\nThe learned . . . ought to study the entire process of how God restored the\nuniversal within man; this is entirely clear and revealed in the person of\nChrist, from his entry into humanity, until his Ascension and the sending\nof the Holy Spirit. This eternal process he ought to pursue, so he may find\nthe universal, if he has been born again from God.68\nSoon afterwards, Boehme provided a helpful gloss: in working his first miracle at the wedding of Cana, Christ advanced \u2018the process of the universal,\ntowards the restoration of all that which Adam had lost.\u201969 On the scale of\nthe individual human, that medicine would therefore be the restoration\nof the prelapsarian state: in this sense, for Boehme the universal was spiritual rebirth. After attaining the medicine of Christus in nobis as the lapis\nphilosophorum, the believer would be a spiritual adept with the ability to heal\nthe sick and, perhaps more importantly, to tinge others who had not yet been\nreborn.\nEsaias Stiefel\u2019s Challenge and the Fall\nas Reverse Transmutation\nAround the same time that Boehme composed Signatura rerum, Esaias\nStiefel criticised the theosopher\u2019s alchemical understanding of rebirth as inappropriate. Hailing from Langensalza in Thuringia, Stiefel was considerably\nmore radical than the cobbler of G\u00f6rlitz.70 Initially, there had been a sense of\npotential alignment between them, since they both appealed to a very similar audience. Probably inspired by the hope of joining forces and relying on\n\nPages 76:\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n61\nBalthasar Walther as an intermediary, Stiefel\u2019s disciples in Erfurt submitted\none of his treatises to Boehme, requesting his assessment. Honoured by such\na request, the Teutonic philosopher showed himself charitably disposed\ntowards Stiefel and acknowledged him to be \u2018pious, born-\u200bagain, and holy in\nChrist through his new birth in the new man.\u201971 Nevertheless, Boehme noted\nthat he and Stiefel had markedly different conceptions of spiritual rebirth.\nHe finished his Bedencken \u00fcber Esai\u00e4 Stiefels, von Langensaltza, B\u00fcchlein\n(Assessment of the Booklet of Esaias Stiefel of Langensalza) on 8 April 1621.\nUnfortunately, the relationship quickly soured and turned into vicious rivalry. Writing early in 1622, Stiefel responded to Boehme in his Tract\u00e4tlein\nvon zweyen Spr\u00fcchen (Treatise on Two Proverbs). He aggressively denigrated\nBoehme\u2019s concept of rebirth while placing him in dubious company:\nNot tinged according to the kabbalistic, Paracelsian, Rosicrucian Brethren\nmanner and transmuted from the being of unbelief (unglauben\u00df wehsen)\ninto the believing one; but according to the testimony of Scripture, a new\nbirth, not out of the old, sinful being, but in the centre and the inward heart,\nin the love of the divine voice: a new beginning, a new heart, a new flesh and\nblood, new believing person in body and soul; a faith (glaube) not born out\nof unbelief (unglauben) but out of God.72\nSince he could not harness an array of learned terms as impressive as\nBoehme\u2019s, Stiefel specifically reserved contempt for his adversary\u2019s alchemical language.73 And with this attack on the theosopher\u2019s spiritual alchemy of\nrebirth, the antinomian of Langensalza inspired the most lucid treatment of\nspiritual alchemy that Boehme would ever pen.\nUsing the form of a point-\u200b\nby-\u200b\npoint refutation that included the\ntext of Stiefel\u2019s work, Boehme completed his Tr\u00f6stliche Ercl\u00e4rung Uber\netliche . . . spruche der H. G\u00f6ttlichen Schrifft (Consolatory Explanation of\nSeveral . . . Verses of the Holy Divine Scriptures) on 6 April 1622. As was\nquite common in polemical writings, Boehme only acknowledged his\nopponent\u2019s identity in a pun on his name, the German word for \u2018boot\u2019: according to Boehme, Stiefel \u2018has to put on other boots (stieffeln) if he intends\nto ride across death and hell with Christ\u2019s spirit.\u201974 According to Stiefel, the\ntrue, reborn believer was literally an entirely new creature in both body and\nflesh, having traded his or her human essence for Christ\u2019s. It was thus \u2018impossible that someone born again could sin,\u2019 and even their children will not be\ntainted by original sin but \u2018will be conceived entirely holily, without guilt,\u2019 as\n\nPages 77:\n62\nSpiritual Alchemy\nBoehme paraphrased Stiefel\u2019s doctrine prior to dismissing it.75 Stiefel\u2019s notion\nof Christificatio entailed that born-\u200bagain believers literally became Christs,\nunable to sin. It was therefore no coincidence that Stiefel often signed his\nletter as \u2018Esaias Christ.\u201976 Whether or not Stiefel was very familiar with alchemy, this doctrine made the transmutation of metals seem like a very inappropriate analogy for rebirth as Christificatio.\nFor his part, Boehme insisted that born-\u200bagain believers were human and\ndivine at once, just like Christ, with whom they mystically identified. For the\ntheosopher as well as for Nagel, the proper understanding of transmutation\nentailed the unification of opposites, specifically of deity and humanity. With\nregard to substances or principles, alchemical literature often described the\nunion of opposites as its goal, and Nagel in particular had construed spiritual\nalchemy as joining God and human together. Boehme very much thought\nalong the same lines. For him the process of the new birth would only be\ncomplete at the final resurrection of the dead. In the meantime, the spiritual body of the new birth was merely internal, still covered by the outward,\nmortal body. Stiefel and his followers rejected this decisive distinction and\ndenied the continued existence of the body of sin, skipping forward to the\nultimate state and arriving at antinomian conclusions by the same token.77\nIn claiming that they already were perfect, entirely new beings unaffected\nby sin, Stiefel skipped over important steps in a divinely ordained process\nof purification and transmutation, for which the life, death, and resurrection of Christ provided the blueprint.78 Stiefel cancelled out the human element; consequently, his understanding of rebirth was far more radical: true\nbelievers were turned into Christ entirely and stripped of their former humanity completely. For Stiefel, the sinner came to be replaced by Christ in\nbody and soul through rebirth.\nAccording to Boehme, however, Christ did not turn us into a wholly new\nbeing with entirely different matter and form. As Christ had truly taken on\na human soul so \u2018that Christ\u2019s soul is our brother,\u2019 Boehme insisted that \u2018no\nother soul is born in any man, but a new body is. The soul is only renewed\n\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 56 to page 77 out of a total of 337. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=44\nPages: 44\nBoehme too analysed that character in its constituent parts.82 It is thus highly\nlikely that the theosopher encountered Concerning the Dialogue on Death in\none of the three editions printed between 1614 and 1618.\nThis chapter has sketched how spiritual rebirth gradually came into its\nown and found itself closely associated with alchemy in pseudepigraphic\ntexts attributed to Valentin Weigel. Pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy presented\nan embryonic stage of spiritual alchemy. For all the prominence accorded\nto him throughout this study, Boehme was not entirely innovative when\nwriting about spiritual alchemy: he owed much to earlier writers such as\nParacelsus, Schwenckfeld, and Weigel, as well as to inauthentic texts that circulated under their names. Yet due to his many later readers, the cobbler,\ntrader, and heretic of G\u00f6rlitz became a towering figure in intellectual history\nand did more than anyone else to propagate the spiritual alchemy of rebirth.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=240\nPages: 240\nPfefferl, \u2018Weigel und Paracelsus.\u2019\n22. According to one study, Boehme was primarily read among Pietists as a devotional writer until his speculative dimension was rediscovered by the Romanticists;\nPaola Mayer, Jena Romanticism and Its Appropriation of Jakob B\u00f6hme: Theosophy,\nHagiography, Literature (Montreal: McGill-\u200bQueen\u2019s University Press, 1999), ch. 3.\n23. There are many accounts of Boehme\u2019s theosophy, ranging from brief summaries to\nweighty volumes. For a full-\u200blength study and a helpful primer in English, respectively, see e.g. Andrew Weeks, Boehme: An Intellectual Biography of the Seventeenth-\u200b\nCentury Philosopher and Mystic (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991);\nMayer, Jena Romanticism, ch. 2. There are also many studies in other languages, particularly French and German; e.g. Alexandre Koyr\u00e9, La philosophie de Jacob Boehme\n(Paris: Librarie philosophique J. Vrin, 1929); Pierre Deghaye, La naissance de Dieu ou]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=239\nPages: 239\nihre Alchemisierung,\u2019 in Grund und Ungrund: Der Kosmos des mystischen Philosophen\nJacob B\u00f6hme, ed. Claudia Brink and Lucinda Martin (Dresden: Sandstein, 2017),\n114\u2013\u200b29.\n9. Matthew 19:28; see e.g. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 352\u2013\u200b53, 622\u2013\u200b23, 664\u2013\u200b65 (A 12:50, 21:54,\n22:69).\n10. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 528\u2013\u200b29, 666\u2013\u200b67, 774\u2013\u200b75 (A 18:58, 22:80, 26:77). See Revelation 1:4.\n11. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 740\u2013\u200b41 (A 25:52).\n12. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 182 (ET 18:13). On the identification of the\nnobleman, see Hessayon, \u2018Boehme\u2019s Life and Times,\u2019 14.\n13. For a ground-\u200bbreaking study of this phenomenon, see Harold Love, The Culture\nand Commerce of Texts: Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-\u200bCentury England, 2nd ed.\n(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998).\n14. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 122 (ET 12:13).\n15. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 85 (ET 10:26).\n16. Leigh T. I. Penman, \u2018Boehme\u2019s Intellectual Networks and the Heterdox Milieu of His]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=310\nPages: 310,311\nIn Christliche Kabbala. Edited by Wilhelm Schmidt-\u200b\nBiggemann, 183\u2013\u200b\n97. Ostfil\u00ad\ndern: Thorbecke, 2003.\n296\nWorks Cited\nRusterholz, Sibylle. \u2018Jacob B\u00f6hme im Lichte seiner Gegner und Anh\u00e4nger: Die zentralen\nArgumente der Streitschriften von ihren Anf\u00e4ngen zu Lebzeiten B\u00f6hmes bis zum Ende\ndes 17. Jahrhunderts.\u2019 In K\u00fchlmann and Vollhardt, Offenbarung und Episteme, 7\u2013\u200b32.\nRusterholz, Sibylle. \u2018Jacob B\u00f6hme im Spiegel totalit\u00e4ren Denkens: Hans Alfred\nGrunskys nationalsozialistische Sicht des Philosophus teutonicus.\u2019 B\u00f6hme-\u200bStudien 3\n(2013): 91\u2013\u200b116.\nRusterholz, Sibylle. \u2018Jakob B\u00f6hme und Anh\u00e4nger.\u2019 In Die Philosophie des 17.\nJahrhunderts: Das Heilige R\u00f6mische Reich Deutscher Nation, Nord-\u200bund Ostmitteleuropa.\nEdited by Helmut Holzhey, Wilhelm Schmidt-\u200bBiggemann, and Vilem Mudroch, 61\u2013\u200b\n102. Basel: Schwabe, 2001.\nRusterholz, Sibylle. \u2018Zum Verh\u00e4ltnis von Liber Naturae und Liber Scripturae bei Jacob\nB\u00f6hme.\u2019 In Garewicz and Haas, Gott, Natur und Mensch, 129\u2013\u200b46.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=80\nPages: 80\nview of the soul itself and of God, . . . the final resurrection of the whole man,\nand the Last Judgment itself, follow instantaneously upon death.\u2019 Indeed,\nfor Luther the Christian believer already \u2018lived outside of time through\ngrace\u2019 but also still \u2018within time as a creature,\u2019 a dual existence that would\nconclude on the Last Day, \u2018the end of time in a fully literal sense.\u201990 This description equally applies to Boehme\u2019s views: for all his arcane language and\nits potentially heterodox implications, he saw himself as a pious Lutheran\nand defended doctrines of his confession against religious dissenters such as\nStiefel.\nBy April 1622, Boehme had come to think of rebirth in terms of spiritual\nalchemy to such an extent that even his understanding of the Fall had become alchemical. If rebirth amounted to transmutation and reversed the\nFall, Boehme conversely came to view the Fall and its consequences for the\nhuman body as a transmutation in the wrong direction. Adam and Eve had]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=161\nPages: 161\nThe peculiar Fundamenta mystica represent the most impressive fruit of\nFreher\u2019s long-\u200b\nstanding intellectual engagement with the theosopher of\nG\u00f6rlitz. In the only monograph on Freher so far, Charles A. Muses has hailed\nthe work as a most faithful exposition of Boehme\u2019s theosophy.25 Freher likely\nthought of his work in a similar way, although he modestly acknowledged\nhis limitations, \u2018saying plainly, that I do not Understand him [Boehme] any\nfurther, than According to the small Measure of my own Progress.\u201926 For an\nAnglophone audience, Freher played the important role of a cultural intermediary. In this capacity, he communicated his own understanding of\nBoehme to people who, by and large, read Boehme\u2019s works in English translation. In the process, Freher commented upon choices made by earlier\ntranslators and occasionally translated Boehme passages himself.27\nMoreover, Freher\u2019s writings often addressed specific interlocutors, though]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=78\nPages: 78\n63\nas in this manner he even claims blind and nonsensical (ungereimtt)\nthings.81\nStiefel held that the incarnated Christ was fundamentally unlike other\nhuman beings. Boehme argued that Stiefel\u2019s heretical Christology and his\nantinomian doctrine of Christificatio contradicted basic tenets of the faith\nand undermined crucial events throughout salvation history, particularly\nthe Incarnation. For Boehme, Christ\u2019s redeeming process was effective precisely because he had taken on human flesh and conquered death through\nresurrection. If his nature had been different, \u2018it would directly contradict\nthe doctrine of the resurrection of the dead,\u2019 Boehme claimed in his Apology\nConcerning Human Perfection.\nThe theosopher further emphasised the transformation of a being existing\ncontinuously. He used the language of alchemy to make this point:\nI do not have to speak of another human being, of another creature, but\nof a transmutation; the rough stone into gold, the unholy into holiness.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=240\nPages: 240,241\n25. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 204\u2013\u200b5 (A 6:12\u2013\u200b13); Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b255, ff. 81v\u2013\u200b82r\n(TP 10:6\u2013\u200b7); Jacob Boehme, Mysterium Magnum, Oder Erkl\u00e4rung \u00fcber das Erste Buch\nMosis, 2nd, corrected ed. (Amsterdam: Auff Kosten Henrici Betkii, und Consorten,\n1678), 121 (MM 19:4\u2013\u200b5).\n26. Boehme, Mysterium Magnum, 121 (MM 19:6).\n27. Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b255, ff. 194r and 186r/\u200bv (TP 17:58 and 21).\n28. Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b255, f. 288r (TP 22:33).\n29. Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b255, ff. 286v\u2013\u200b87r (TP 22:24\u2013\u200b26).\n30. See Proverbs 1:20\u2013\u200b33. For a recent summary with references to earlier literature, see\nLucinda Martin, \u2018Jakob B\u00f6hmes \u201cg\u00f6ttliche Sophia\u201d und Emanzipationsans\u00e4tze bei\npietistischen Autorinnen,\u2019 in K\u00fchlmann and Vollhardt, Offenbarung und Episteme,\n241\u2013\u200b57, on 242\u2013\u200b43. See also Ferdinand van Ingen, \u2018Die Jungfrau Sophia und die\nJungfrau Maria bei Jakob B\u00f6hme,\u2019 in Garewicz and Haas, Gott, Natur und Mensch,\n147\u2013\u200b63.\n226\nNotes]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=303\nPages: 303\nJacob Boehme.\u2019 Geschiedenis van de wijsbegeerte in Nederland 13 (2002): 119\u2013\u200b63.\nLatham, J. E. M. Search for a New Eden. James Pierrepont Greaves (1777\u2013\u200b1842): The Sacred\nSocialist and His Followers. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1999.\nLavoie, Jeffrey D. A Search for Meaning in Victorian Religion: The Spiritual Journey and\nEsoteric Teachings of Charles Carleton Massey. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University\nPress, 2014.\nLehmann-\u200bBrauns, Sicco. Weisheit in der Weltgeschichte: Philosophiegeschichte zwischen\nBarock und Aufkl\u00e4rung. T\u00fcbingen: Niemeyer, 2004.\nLemper, Ernst-\u200bHeinz. Jakob B\u00f6hme: Leben und Werk. Berlin: Union, 1976.\nL\u00e9vi, Eliphas. Dogme et rituel de la haute magie. 2nd, expanded ed. 2 vols. Paris: Germer\nBailli\u00e8re, 1861.\nLibavius, Andreas. Wolmeinendes Bedencken, Von der Fama unnd Confession der\nBr\u00fcderschafft de\u00df RosenCreutzes. Erfurt: Bey Johann R\u00f6hbock, 1616.\nLibavius, Andreas, and Jacob Michael. De millenariorum haereticorum secta. . . . Disputatio]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=291\nPages: 291,292\nBruckner, John. \u2018A Bibliography of Abraham von Franckenberg: Problems and\nPropositions.\u2019 German Life and Letters 36 (1983): 213\u2013\u200b18.\nBruns, Paul Jacob. Catalogus bibliothecae D. Antonii Julii von der Hardt Abbatis\nMichaelsteinensis. Helmstedt: Typis Vid. Schnorrianae acad. typ., 1786.\nBucklow, Spike. The Alchemy of Paint: Art, Science and Secrets from the Middle Ages.\nLondon: Marion Boyars, 2009.\nBuddecke, Werner, ed. Jacob B\u00f6hme: Die Urschriften. 2 vols. Stuttgart-\u200bBad Cannstatt:\nFrommann, 1963\u2013\u200b66.\nBuddecke, Werner. Die Jakob B\u00f6hme-\u200bAusgaben: Ein beschreibendes Verzeichnis. 2 vols.\nG\u00f6ttingen: Dr. Ludwig H\u00e4ntzschel, 1937\u2013\u200b57.\nBuddecke, Werner. Verzeichnis von Jakob B\u00f6hme-\u200bHandschriften. G\u00f6ttingen: Dr. Ludwig\nH\u00e4ntzschel, 1934.\nBuddecke, Werner, and Matthias Wenzel. Jacob B\u00f6hme: Verzeichnis der Handschriften und\nfr\u00fchen Abschriften. G\u00f6rlitz: Oberlausitzische Bibliothek der Wissenschaften, 2000.\nWorks Cited\n277\nBuddecke, Wolfram. \u2018Die Jakob-\u200b\nB\u00f6hme-\u200b]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=297\nPages: 297,298\nRenaissance Europe. Florence: Olschki, 2011.\nWorks Cited\n283\nGrant, Edward. Planets, Stars, Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos, 1200\u2013\u200b\n1687. 2 vols.\nCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.\nGreaves, James Pierrepont. New Theosophic Revelations: From the Ms. Journal.\nLondon: John Chapman, 1847.\nGregory, Alan. \u2018 \u201cNo New Truths of Religion\u201d: William Law\u2019s Appropriation of Jacob\nBoehme.\u2019 In Hessayon and Apetrei, An Introduction to Jacob Boehme, 142\u2013\u200b61.\nGrell, Ole Peter, ed. Paracelsus: The Man and His Reputation, His Ideas and Their\nTransformation. Leiden: Brill, 1998.\nGrunsky, Hans. Jacob B\u00f6hme. 2nd ed. Stuttgart-\u200bBad Cannstatt: Frommann-\u200bHolzboog,\n1984. First published 1956.\nGuhrauer, G. E. \u2018Beitr\u00e4ge zur Kenntniss des 17. u. 18. Jahrhunderts aus den\nhandschriftlichen Aufzeichnungen Gottlieb Stolle\u2019s.\u2019 Allgemeine Zeitschrift f\u00fcr\nGeschichte 7 (1847): 385\u2013\u200b436, 481\u2013\u200b531.\nG\u00fcldenfalk, Siegmund Heinrich. Sammlung von mehr als hundert wahrhaften]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=76\nPages: 76\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n61\nBalthasar Walther as an intermediary, Stiefel\u2019s disciples in Erfurt submitted\none of his treatises to Boehme, requesting his assessment. Honoured by such\na request, the Teutonic philosopher showed himself charitably disposed\ntowards Stiefel and acknowledged him to be \u2018pious, born-\u200bagain, and holy in\nChrist through his new birth in the new man.\u201971 Nevertheless, Boehme noted\nthat he and Stiefel had markedly different conceptions of spiritual rebirth.\nHe finished his Bedencken \u00fcber Esai\u00e4 Stiefels, von Langensaltza, B\u00fcchlein\n(Assessment of the Booklet of Esaias Stiefel of Langensalza) on 8 April 1621.\nUnfortunately, the relationship quickly soured and turned into vicious rivalry. Writing early in 1622, Stiefel responded to Boehme in his Tract\u00e4tlein\nvon zweyen Spr\u00fcchen (Treatise on Two Proverbs). He aggressively denigrated\nBoehme\u2019s concept of rebirth while placing him in dubious company:]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=290\nPages: 290\n(Gr\u00fcndlicher Bericht, Mysterium Pansophicum, 1620). Edited and translated by\nAndrew Weeks and G\u00fcnther Bonheim. Leiden: Brill, 2013.\nB\u00f6hme, Jacob. Werke: Morgenr\u00f6te. De signatura rerum. Edited by Ferdinand van Ingen.\nFrankfurt a.M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1997.\nBonheim, G\u00fcnther. \u2018Die \u201cgro\u00dfe Reinigung\u201d vom \u201cgemeinen Geiste\u201d: Zu den Umst\u00e4nden\nder Entstehung der dritten B\u00f6hme-\u200b\nGesamtausgabe 1730/\u200b\n31 und zu ihrem\nphilologischen Ertrag.\u2019 In K\u00fchlmann and Vollhardt, Offenbarung und Episteme,\n451\u2013\u200b62.\nBonheim, G\u00fcnther. \u2018 \u201cLernet von ehe unterscheiden\u201d: Jacob B\u00f6hmes Mystik der Naturen.\u2019\nIn Mystik und Natur: Zur Geschichte ihres Verh\u00e4ltnisses vom Altertum bis zur Gegenwart.\nEdited by Peter Dinzelbacher, 123\u2013\u200b39. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009.\nBonheim, G\u00fcnther. \u2018Zur Entstehung und Verbreitung der Aurora.\u2019 B\u00f6hme-\u200bStudien 4\n(2017): 17\u2013\u200b49.\nBonus, Petrus. Pretiosa margarita novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=246\nPages: 246\nFranckenberg, \u2018Kurtze Beschreibung,\u2019 f. ( 0 )5r.\n19. G\u00fcnther Bonheim, \u2018Zur Entstehung und Verbreitung der Aurora,\u2019 B\u00f6hme-\u200bStudien 4\n(2017): 17\u2013\u200b49. For remarks on Boehme\u2019s unusually clean autographs, see Buddecke,\nDie Urschriften, 2:438.\n20. Franckenberg, \u2018Kurtz-\u200b... und warhaffter Bericht,\u2019 f. B3r/\u200bv (para. 29).\n21. Tobias Kober, \u2018Umst\u00e4ndlicher Bericht ... von der Kranckheit, Absterben und\nBegr\u00e4bni\u00df des sel. Autoris Theosophi, an die Edlen Herren von Schweinichen,\u2019 in\nJacob Boehme, De vita et scriptis ([Leiden?], 1730), 40\u2013\u200b52, on 41, para. 1.\n22. Beyerland is the subject of various contributions in Harmsen, Jacob B\u00f6hmes Weg in\ndie Welt, 39\u2013\u200b54 (Gilly), 133\u2013\u200b67 (Lamoen), 213\u2013\u200b47 (Bouman and Lamoen).\n23. Boehme, Josephus Redivivus, 1\u2013\u200b261 (MM 64:15\u2013\u200b78:9); Jacob Boehme, \u2018Metapsychica\nde terrestri et coelesti mysterio, ex cognitione mysterii magni concepta, contemplatio,\u2019\nin Abraham von Franckenberg, Trias mystica: In qu\u00e2 1. Speculum apocalypticum: 2.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=199\nPages: 199\nand expressed but one minor criticism\u2014\u200bthe discussion of \u2018the Abraxas\nwhich were the foundation and resultants of the Idolatry that the Bible\nso strongly inveighs against.\u201951 Although De Steiger\u2019s book engaged with\nmany distinctively modern discussions, trends, and terms, the spiritual\nalchemy it articulated remained faithful to Atwood and her predecessors.\nBoehme was the dominant authority: the original theosopher appeared\nthroughout De Steiger\u2019s book, and its prologue largely consisted of\nquotations from Boehme\u2019s works, especially his Signatura rerum.52 After\nappealing to that same treatise yet again, De Steiger explained that the\n\u2018mystics fully believe . . . that the process by which regeneration is attained\nis portrayed in its various degrees in the different events in the life of\nChrist\u2019\u2014\u200bthe core idea of the process of Christ as Boehme described it in\nSignatura rerum.53 Indeed, that \u2018same interior process, or the history of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=240\nPages: 240,239\n16. Leigh T. I. Penman, \u2018Boehme\u2019s Intellectual Networks and the Heterdox Milieu of His\nTheosophy, 1600\u2013\u200b1624,\u2019 in Hessayon and Apetrei, An Introduction to Jacob Boehme,\n57\u2013\u200b76. Strictly speaking, the common characterisation of Boehme as a cobbler does\nnot do justice to his various business activities; for a detailed account, see Lemper,\nJakob B\u00f6hme, esp. pt. 1, ch. 2.\n17. The earliest letter included in Boehme\u2019s correspondence is dated 18 January 1618, yet\nBuddecke and other scholars before him have emended the year to 1619\u2014\u200beven so\nit remains the theosopher\u2019s oldest surviving epistle. For an edition of the autograph\nNotes\n225\nversion and comments on the date, see Buddecke, Die Urschriften, 2:333\u2013\u200b36 (ET,\nno. 1), 455.\n18. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 225 (ET 30:6).\n19. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 670, 672 (SR 11: title and 6).\n20. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 600 (SR 7:78).\n21. Schoeps, Vom himmlischen Fleisch Christi, 56\u2013\u200b62; Gantenbein, \u2018The New Adam\u2019;\nPfefferl, \u2018Weigel und Paracelsus.\u2019]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=76\nPages: 76,77\nUsing the form of a point-\u200b\nby-\u200b\npoint refutation that included the\ntext of Stiefel\u2019s work, Boehme completed his Tr\u00f6stliche Ercl\u00e4rung Uber\netliche . . . spruche der H. G\u00f6ttlichen Schrifft (Consolatory Explanation of\nSeveral . . . Verses of the Holy Divine Scriptures) on 6 April 1622. As was\nquite common in polemical writings, Boehme only acknowledged his\nopponent\u2019s identity in a pun on his name, the German word for \u2018boot\u2019: according to Boehme, Stiefel \u2018has to put on other boots (stieffeln) if he intends\nto ride across death and hell with Christ\u2019s spirit.\u201974 According to Stiefel, the\ntrue, reborn believer was literally an entirely new creature in both body and\nflesh, having traded his or her human essence for Christ\u2019s. It was thus \u2018impossible that someone born again could sin,\u2019 and even their children will not be\ntainted by original sin but \u2018will be conceived entirely holily, without guilt,\u2019 as\n62\nSpiritual Alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=283\nPages: 283\n116. Hans Lassen Martensen, Jacob Boehme: His Life and Teaching. Or Studies in\nTheosophy, trans. T. Rhys Evans (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1885), 31\n(emphases in the original). Compare Providence, BU\u2013\u200bJHL: A54785, no. 185, scans\n2\u2013\u200b4. On Martensen\u2019s Boehme monograph, see George Pattison, \u2018H. L. Martensen on\nJacob Boehme,\u2019 in Hessayon and Apetrei, An Introduction to Jacob Boehme, 244\u2013\u200b62.\n117. Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry, (59). Compare Martensen, Jacob Boehme, 32;\nProvidence, BU\u2013\u200bJHL: A54785, no. 185, scan 4.\n118. Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry, 573, no. 69.\n119. Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry, 562, no. 5.\n120. Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry, 571, no. 56.\n121. Providence, BU\u2013\u200bJHL: A54785, no. 598 (26 May 1908), scans 6\u2013\u200b7.\n122. Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry, 365. See 1 Corinthians 15:50.\n123. Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry, 564, no. 20.\n124. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. D, p. 264.\n125. Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry, 568, no. 34.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=289\nPages: 289,290\nBoehme, Jacob. De tribus principiis, oder Beschreibung der Drey Principien G\u00f6ttliches\nWesens (Of the Three Principles of Divine Being, 1619). Translated by Andrew Weeks.\nLeiden: Brill, 2019.\nBoehme, Jacob. Epistolae theosophicae, oder Theosophische Send-\u200bBriefe. [Leiden?], 1730.\nBoehme, Jacob. Erste Apologia wider Balthasar Tilken: Eine Verantwortung des Authoris.\nAmsterdam: Gedruckt bey Christoffel Cunradus, Vor Henricus Betkius, 1677.\nBoehme, Jacob. Josephus redivivus: Das ist Die Uberaus Lehr und Trostreiche Historia von\ndem Ertzvatter Joseph. Amsterdam: [Johann and Siegfried Saccus] zu finden bey Veit\nHeinrichs Boeckverkoper, 1631.\nBoehme, Jacob. \u2018Metapsychica de terrestri et coelesti mysterio, ex cognitione mysterii\nmagni concepta, contemplatio.\u2019 In Franckenberg, Trias mystica, 65\u2013\u200b98.\nWorks Cited\n275\nBoehme, Jacob. Mysterium magnum, Oder Erkl\u00e4rung \u00fcber das Erste Buch Mosis. 2nd,\ncorrected ed. Amsterdam: Auff Kosten Henrici Betkii, und Consorten, 1678.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=241\nPages: 241\n41. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 194 (ET 20:8\u2013\u200b9). See 1 Corinthians 15:50.\n42. Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b271, f. 74r (TV 7:13).\n43. Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b271, f. 119v (TV 11:24\u2013\u200b25).\n44. Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b271, f. 72r (TV 6:96\u2013\u200b98).\n45. Jacob Boehme, Von der Menschwerdung Jesu Christi (Amsterdam: Bey Henrico Betkio,\n1660), 8 (IV, pt. 1, 1:5). The work is also known by its Latin title De incarnatione verbi.\n46. Boehme, Von der Menschwerdung, 92 (IV, pt. 1, 8:5).\n47. Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss, eds., Creeds and Confessions of Faith in\nthe Christian Tradition, 4 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 1:675\u2013\u200b\n77; 2:168.\n48. E.g. Boehme, Erste Apologia wider Balthasar Tilken, 75\u2013\u200b106 (AT1, para. 279\u2013\u200b400).\n49. Boehme, Erste Apologia wider Balthasar Tilken, 82 (AT1, para. 310). See\nRevelation 1: 4.\n50. Boehme, Erste Apologia wider Balthasar Tilken, 91 (AT1, para. 348).\n51. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 581 (SR 7:25).]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=197\nPages: 197,198\nof union with the divine and \u2018regeneration\u2014\u200bthat New Birth for which also\nthe Alchemists worked.\u201941 Like others before him, he emphasised the parallelism of alchemy and spiritual rebirth: \u2018there is a close connection between the philosophical process . . . and our mystery of the New Birth, for\nthe property of alchemical putrefaction is to destroy the old, original nature\nof a thing, after which ensues the introduction of a new nature, and occasionally it is stated in the words of the Adepts themselves, that the process\nhas the same result as a second generation.\u201942 Waite also played on the mystical incarnation of Christ within the believer, for instance when he wrote\nthat the accomplishment of the \u2018work of Regeneration\u2019 coincided with the\nbirth of \u2018the Christ . . . into the soul.\u201943 Moreover, Waite even used expressions\nthat harked back to Christus in nobis when treating of \u2018The Evolution of\nthe Christ in Man\u2019 or \u2018the Christ abiding within us.\u201944 In easing spiritual\nMary Anne Atwood]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=170\nPages: 170\nencounter very strong statements on the soteriological potential of alchemy.\nFreher held that the shared objective of alchemy and rebirth was the restoration of an earlier, harmonious state of affairs that would lead the conflicted four elements back to the serenity of the one element. This hints at a\ncrucial shift: for Freher \u2018the Process of the Holy Spiritual Tincture\u2019 had implicitly become the model for \u2018Transmuting Metalls.\u201983 Put another way, if\nSiebmacher in his Wasserstein had construed sinful human beings as lesser\nmetals in need of transmutation, Freher now thought of lesser metals as\nsinful human beings in need of redemption. For him, who may never have\nstudied alchemical literature, much less set foot in a practitioner\u2019s laboratory, alchemy was, in effect, more abstract than spiritual rebirth. If Boehme\nused alchemy to make rebirth more tangible, Freher\u2019s knowledge of alchemy\nwas so limited that rebirth appeared to make alchemy more palpable. In]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=34\nPages: 34,35\nas God\u2019s creation. The story of the spiritual alchemy of rebirth thus begins\nwith two short and obscure works that were the first to systematically outline\ncorrelations between the great work of alchemy and the believer\u2019s mystical\nidentification with Christ as spiritual rebirth. The remainder of this chapter\ndiscusses both texts of pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy in turn.\nAzoth and Fire\nMost manuscripts of Azoth and Fire only run to a handful of leaves. Yet for\nall its brevity, the work establishes significant parallels between the heavenly\ncornerstone, Jesus Christ, and the terrestrial stone of the philosophers, as\nwell as between spiritual rebirth and alchemical transmutation.31 In the late\n20\nSpiritual Alchemy\nsixteenth and all throughout the seventeenth century, Azoth and Fire circulated in manuscript and found readers as well as copyists among alchemists,\nreligious dissenters, and some who qualified as both.32 Its pseudepigraphic]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=33\nPages: 33,34\nmissing. Instead of originating with Khunrath, spiritual alchemy began to\ntake shape in pseudepigraphic texts attributed to Valentin Weigel.\nPseudo-Weigelian Alchemy\n19\nPseudo-\u200bWeigelian Alchemy\nNeither Schwenckfeld nor Weigel\u2014\u200b\nwho both contributed to shaping\nBoehme\u2019s theosophy\u2014\u200bexplicitly described the new birth and its bodiliness\nin alchemical terms. Indeed, according to Andrew Weeks, the genuine\nWeigel was \u2018without interest in medicine or alchemy.\u201929 Yet pseudepigraphic\nadditions to his oeuvre, were quick to make up for this perceived shortcoming. Previously largely ignored, two pseudo-\u200bWeigelian texts established\na close connection between spiritual rebirth and alchemy. The first of these,\nAzoth et Ignis (Azoth and Fire), was composed between the mid-\u200b1580s and\n1599 but first printed only in 1701. An exceedingly cryptic text, Azoth and\nFire combined Weigelian spiritualism with alchemical terminology and\napocalyptic speculation. The strange term in Azoth and Fire was a mystifying]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=30\nPages: 30\nof alchemical terminology\u2019 is \u2018untypical for authentic Paracelsian theology,\u2019\nalthough on rare occasions Paracelsus did establish parallels between theology and transmutational alchemy.7 To put it another way, while many\ncomponents of the spiritual alchemy of rebirth were already in place in the\nwritings of Paracelsus, he did for the most part not yet construe them as\nalchemy. This is the reason why my account does not begin with the Swiss\nmedical reformer. The second major discrepancy between Paracelsus and\nBoehme is theological and concerns the changing relationship between baptism and rebirth. Originally and even in later orthodox Lutheran practice,\nthe terms were largely synonymous: sermons and obituaries habitually spoke\nof \u2018holy baptism and the bath of rebirth\u2019 (Widergeburt), effectively conflating\nthe two.8 By 1600, however, Anabaptism and spiritualism had brought about\n\u2018a dissociation of baptism and rebirth,\u2019 something I have described in more]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=24\nPages: 24,25\nHermetic Christianity\u2019 from which all other heresies flowed.49\nBearing in mind the layers of meaning accruing around \u2018spirit\u2019 in the early-\u200b\nmodern world, I define the spiritual alchemy investigated here as the practical\npursuit of inward but real bodily transmutation. This transmutation amounted\nto the reversal of the Fall and its consequences; furthermore, it prepared the\nfaithful for the resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgement. This spiritual\nalchemy is thus closely connected to the idea of spiritual rebirth, which it\nhelped shape and by which it was shaped in turn.50 Apart from the fact that,\n10\nSpiritual Alchemy\nfrom Jacob Boehme onward, all the figures studied here drew on his theosophy, there are three key elements of this alchemy. First, there is a three-\u200bway\nlapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy between the philosophers\u2019 stone, Christ incarnate, and the believer who mystically identifies with Christ. This element]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=50\nPages: 50,51\ntake, the pseudo-\u200bWeigelian statements lost their narrow focus on transmutational alchemy.\nWhen discussing laboratory alchemy, Siebmacher frequently employed\nphrases such as \u2018in the philosophical,\u2019 \u2018terrestrial,\u2019 or \u2018chymical work.\u201921\nThese are to be expected in alchemical literature, yet he tellingly also used\nthe analogous but considerably less common expression \u2018theological work\u2019\nfive times.22 In so doing, he created correspondences between the alchemical\nwork and what he described as the theological work. As his usage makes clear,\n36\nSpiritual Alchemy\nhis \u2018theological work\u2019 is tantamount to the spiritual alchemy of rebirth. One\npassage is particularly noteworthy for its clarity: \u2018Just like\u2019 the purification of\ngold through antimony while preparing the lapis, which, \u2018I say, happens and\nmust happen in the chymical work, so it also has to be well-\u200bobserved here in\nour theological work of the spiritual renewal and heavenly rebirth of man.\u201923]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=44\nPages: 44\nBoehme too analysed that character in its constituent parts.82 It is thus highly\nlikely that the theosopher encountered Concerning the Dialogue on Death in\none of the three editions printed between 1614 and 1618.\nThis chapter has sketched how spiritual rebirth gradually came into its\nown and found itself closely associated with alchemy in pseudepigraphic\ntexts attributed to Valentin Weigel. Pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy presented\nan embryonic stage of spiritual alchemy. For all the prominence accorded\nto him throughout this study, Boehme was not entirely innovative when\nwriting about spiritual alchemy: he owed much to earlier writers such as\nParacelsus, Schwenckfeld, and Weigel, as well as to inauthentic texts that circulated under their names. Yet due to his many later readers, the cobbler,\ntrader, and heretic of G\u00f6rlitz became a towering figure in intellectual history\nand did more than anyone else to propagate the spiritual alchemy of rebirth.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=51\nPages: 51\nour theological work of the spiritual renewal and heavenly rebirth of man.\u201923\nIn this way, Siebmacher instituted the analogy between alchemical transmutation and spiritual rebirth.\nYet, particularly when he first used it, the Nuremberg chymist employed the\nterm \u2018theological work\u2019 to explicitly refer to the Incarnation of Christ as a historical event that also corresponded to the \u2018philosophical work.\u2019 Specifically,\nSiebmacher wrote that the prima materia required \u2018another metallic body\u2019\nif it was to become \u2018a tincture to perfect the other base metals.\u2019 In the same\nway, \u2018in the theological work of the divine nature of God\u2019s Son,\u2019 Christ had\nto take on \u2018another likewise metallic and terrestrial body, that is, flesh and\nblood, humanity or human nature\u2019 in order to become an effective tincture of\nsouls.24 Just as the rebis (two-\u200bthing), or hermaphrodite, united sulphur and\nmercury, male and female in alchemy, Christ united the opposites of deity]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=50\nPages: 50\nradicalism. As the idea that spiritual rebirth is a necessary precondition\nfor alchemical success appears in both Azoth and Fire and A Conversation\non Death, it is hardly surprising that the Wasserstein also contains similar\nstatements. But rather than specifically discussing rebirth as a requirement for the successful completion of the philosophers\u2019 stone, Siebmacher\nheld that one had to be born again in order to achieve an appropriate understanding of nature generally: \u2018If you want to understand [the quality and\nproperty of nature], you have to be like unto nature, that is, truly humble,\npatient, and constant, yes, God-\u200bfearing and harmless to your neighbour;\nin sum, be a born-\u200bagain and new man.\u201920 An unimpeded understanding of\nnature and, by implication only, success in laboratory alchemy therefore required the believer-\u200bpractitioner to have been born again. In Siebmacher\u2019s\ntake, the pseudo-\u200bWeigelian statements lost their narrow focus on transmutational alchemy.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=174\nPages: 174,175\nFundamenta mystica primarily served the purpose of interpreting and\nexplaining Boehme\u2019s theosophy to an Anglophone audience. In the course\nof this grand project, Freher also employed several alchemical terms, derived from Boehme, rather than any independent encounter with alchemical literature, and related them to the overarching concern he shared with\nthe theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz: spiritual rebirth. Particularly in \u2018The Process in\nthe Philosophical Work,\u2019 Freher detailed the three-\u200bway analogy between alchemy, Christ\u2019s Incarnation, and the regeneration of individual believers. As\na rare exception among his mostly unprinted work, a drastically shortened\nversion of Freher\u2019s \u2018Process\u2019 found its way into The Lives of Alchemystical\nPhilosophers, likely compiled by an English Behmenist. \u2018The Process in the\nPhilosophical Work\u2019 guarantees the continuity of spiritual alchemy from\nBoehme to Atwood.\n9\nMesmerists and Alchemists\nin Victorian London]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=51\nPages: 51,52\nGerman manuscript work on alchemy, known as Liber Trinitatis, posits\nextensive parallels between the alchemical work and the life of Christ.26\nThe Rosarium philosophorum also portrays the philosophers\u2019 stone as the\nrisen Christ.27 Yet there is an important difference between these earlier\ncontributions to alchemical literature and what we encounter from around\n1600 onwards. In the early seventeenth century, there was a new insistence\non the spiritual rebirth of the believer that cannot be expected in a late medieval work such as the Liber Trinitatis. This crucial element is needed to\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n37\ncomplete the three-\u200bway analogy between laboratory alchemy, the spiritual\nalchemy of rebirth, and the redemptive work accomplished through Christ\u2019s\nincarnation, death, and resurrection. This is one of the hallmarks of spiritual\nalchemy that also occurs in Siebmacher\u2019s Wasserstein.\nThe Nuremberg chymist also expanded more explicitly upon the analogy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=168\nPages: 168,167\nonly Transmuting Tincture of our Souls.\u201962 As for the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz,\nthe spiritual alchemy of rebirth depended on the Incarnation as the crucial\nevent of salvation history.\n\u2018The Process in the Philosophical Work\u2019\nbetween Boehme and Atwood\nBuilding on Boehme\u2019s Signatura rerum, Freher went on to describe this alchemical process of redemption at length in volume G of the Fundamenta\nDionysius Andreas Freher\n153\nmystica. As the title for the resultant treatise, he chose \u2018The Process in the\nPhilosophical Work, Considerd as thoroughly Analogical with that in Man\u2019s\nRedemption through Jesus Christ.\u2019 Throughout, Freher presented a close\nreading of part of Boehme\u2019s Signatura rerum, of which he owned the 1682\nedition.63 It dwelt at length on Boehme\u2019s analogy between the Incarnation,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=78\nPages: 78,79\nfor the ultimate transmutation of the mortal body that was to occur only on\nthe Last Day.\nIn keeping with the early-\u200bmodern understanding of spirit as a very subtle\nmatter, the spiritual rebirth and physical resurrection of the believer were\nclosely connected in Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy. Reminiscent of the Pauline\ndiscussion of the resurrection body, the tincture planted the seed for the new,\nsubtly material or rather spiritual body that was to flower only at the Last\nDay.83 This corresponded to the manner in which Boehme described the effect of rebirth in On the Threefold Life of Man: \u2018This new body, which contains\n64\nSpiritual Alchemy\nthe reborn soul, is stuck in the old, corrupted flesh; it is impalpable and immortal. But the old Adam, conceived by the spirit of this world, must decay\nin the earth: he goes back to his mother, who will have to show and present\nhim on the Last Day.\u201984 Boehme playfully described Mother Earth\u2019s releasing]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=66\nPages: 66,67\nunderstanding of the world. In so many words, Boehme even told his reader\nto take him literally when he spoke of the \u2018Process of Christ\u2019 and transmutation: \u2018we do not want to write anything parabolically but clear as day.\u201919 In\nfact, spiritual alchemy even became dominant, more real than laboratory alchemy, which was but a physical shadow of the divine alchemy of becoming\nand the spiritual alchemy of rebirth:\nAs the eternal birth [of the deity] is within itself, thus also is the process in\nthe restoration after the Fall and thus also is the process of the wise with\ntheir philosophers\u2019 stone: there is not a dot of difference between them, for\n52\nSpiritual Alchemy\neverything originated in the eternal birth, and everything must have its restoration in the same manner.20\nThe model of divine becoming also explains why Boehme held that\nalchemists hoping for success in the laboratory needed to be reborn: they\nneeded to live through the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to become proficient]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=64\nPages: 64,63\nhave taken place soon after the beginning of his later writing period. In his\nmature works, he developed an increasingly distinctive understanding of rebirth, firmly embedded into salvation history and described in overtly alchemical language. He completed the fullest presentations of his spiritual\nalchemy of rebirth in the first half of the year 1622. Concluded in February,\nhis famous Signatura rerum (The Signatures of Things) contained an extensive passage based on the three-\u200bway lapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy. Boehme\ndescribed the central event of salvation history\u2014\u200bChrist\u2019s Incarnation\u2014\u200bas\nan alchemical process, corresponding both to the philosophical work of the\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0004\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n49\nlaboratory and to the spiritual rebirth of the believer. Around the same time,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=168\nPages: 168\nedition.63 It dwelt at length on Boehme\u2019s analogy between the Incarnation,\npassion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the spiritual rebirth of the individual believer. Unlike the bulk of Freher\u2019s writings, which remains unpublished to this day, a shortened version of \u2018The Process in the Philosophical\nWork\u2019 found inclusion in The Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers, a popular\nwork on alchemy first published under a different title in 1814 and reissued\nin 1815. As such this was the first ever fragment of Freher\u2019s mature works that\nappeared in print with proper attribution to its author.64 Freher\u2019s \u2018Process\u2019\ntangibly links early-\u200bmodern spiritual alchemy to its modern descendant.\nIndeed, perhaps more than any other work discussed in this study, this one\nepitomises the claim for continuity from Boehme to Atwood.65 If Freher\u2019s\n\u2018Process\u2019 was thus primarily encountered in isolation, the following account\npresents it within the context of Freher\u2019s Fundamenta mystica, while drawing]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=83\nPages: 83,84\n68\nSpiritual Alchemy\nintricately connected not only to the daily experience of the believer, but\nalso to salvation history from the first week of creation to the resurrection\nof the dead at the Last Judgement. The Incarnation of Christ played a central role in this drama, and Boehme described Christ\u2019s entire life as an alchemical process that allowed the Messiah to truly become the tincture of\nsouls in a very real, even physical sense. Only at Pentecost was that process\ntruly completed: as the Holy Spirit entered the disciples, they themselves became spiritual alchemists able to work miracles and transmute the souls of\nunbelievers by virtue of Christus in nobis, the true philosophers\u2019 stone. The\nremainder of this book is devoted to how Boehme\u2019s readers\u2014\u200bfrom Abraham\nvon Franckenberg to Mary Anne Atwood two centuries later\u2014\u200brediscovered,\nadapted, and transmitted spiritual alchemy.\n4\nAbraham von Franckenberg and\nthe Ancient Wisdom of Rebirth]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=210\nPages: 210\nthe sinfulness of this life.118\nThrough regeneration, deification took place in an inseparable mystical\nunion: human was to become god, just as God had become human in the\nIncarnation. The \u2018beautitude,\u2019 rather than mere beatitude, could be taken to\nimply the restoration of the prelapsarian state, whereas the mind\u2019s revelling\nin God would amount to its awakening to the second principle of love and\nlight, to use Boehme\u2019s terms. Mysticism and theosophy (in the pre-\u200bmodern\nsense) are thus inextricably linked in Atwood\u2019s spiritual alchemy of rebirth.\nWhile theology occupies a large share of her papers, Atwood\u2019s continued\nengagement with alchemy shines through frequently as she restated her\nviews on the subject. The appendix compiled by Wilmshurst contains several attempts at definition. \u2018Alchemy,\u2019 she stipulated, \u2018is an universal art of\nvital chemistry, which by fermenting the human spirit, purifies, and, finally\ndissolving it, opens the elementary germ into new life and consciousness.\u2019119]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=42\nPages: 42\nby embedding it into a providential and eschatological frame of reference.\nFor pseudo-\u200bWeigel, however, alchemy became the model for spiritual rebirth\nand helped articulate Christian beliefs in alchemical terms.\nThis tendency is even more apparent in the manuscript version. The corresponding passage emphasises rebirth and describes alchemy as divine,\nconflating it with both the apocalyptic woman clad with the sun and the\neternal virgin of wisdom. Pseudo-\u200bWeigel thus presented divine alchemy as\nthe mother of born-\u200bagain believers who subsequently dwelled with them,\nmaking them wise like King Solomon:\nBut divine alchemy, which is a chaste and eternal virgin, I esteem highly,\nfor she shall be my mother (Revelation 12). She is clad with the sun and\nsteps on the moon, and on her head she carries a crown of twelve stars. To\nwhomever she gives that same crown, he will be her son. She is a gift of the\nMost High; she is called Wisdom, for she has been with God from eternity;]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=75\nPages: 75,76\nthe individual human, that medicine would therefore be the restoration\nof the prelapsarian state: in this sense, for Boehme the universal was spiritual rebirth. After attaining the medicine of Christus in nobis as the lapis\nphilosophorum, the believer would be a spiritual adept with the ability to heal\nthe sick and, perhaps more importantly, to tinge others who had not yet been\nreborn.\nEsaias Stiefel\u2019s Challenge and the Fall\nas Reverse Transmutation\nAround the same time that Boehme composed Signatura rerum, Esaias\nStiefel criticised the theosopher\u2019s alchemical understanding of rebirth as inappropriate. Hailing from Langensalza in Thuringia, Stiefel was considerably\nmore radical than the cobbler of G\u00f6rlitz.70 Initially, there had been a sense of\npotential alignment between them, since they both appealed to a very similar audience. Probably inspired by the hope of joining forces and relying on\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n61]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82\nto lead. This degradation could not be reversed until the divine mercury\u2014\u200b\nChrist, God\u2019s Word, message and messenger at once\u2014\u200bbecame incarnate in\nthe lead of human flesh.\nThat was, of course, the very subject Boehme had expounded more fully\nin Signatura rerum, the more substantial treatise he had completed just\ntwo months earlier. Through the process of Christ\u2019s life, culminating in the\nPassion, an alchemical transmutation was enacted that provided the basis for\nthe restoration of humanity\u2019s prelapsarian state. As the second Adam, Christ\nreversed the effects of the Fall, uniting deity and humanity, which the first\nAdam had sundered: \u2018Since we know that our life, which we are now leading,\nmust go through a transmutation, if it wants to be called God\u2019s child; it has to\nput God on again, of whom it has stripped itself through Adam.\u201998 According\nto Boehme, spiritual rebirth reversed the effects of the Fall: it reversed the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=201\nPages: 201\nJesus Christ, who was \u2018sanctified and transmuted at His mystical re-\u200bbirth,\u2019\nthe \u2018God-\u200bman\u2019 who became \u2018Himself the Elixir Vit\u00e6 and the Philosopher\u2019s\nStone,\u2019 just as Freher had summarised it following Boehme.66 Christ had thus\nlaid the groundwork for reversing the Fall: \u2018as in Adam all men fell, so in\nAdam can all men rise.\u201967 De Steiger described regenerate humanity as \u2018the\nnew Adamic race, the first-\u200bfruits of which was Jesus Christ, the perfect Man.\u201968\nIt was \u2018the hope of this immortality\u2019 that prompted \u2018the alchemists . . . so earnestly to find out what this stone was,\u2019 to regain \u2018that sound and pure matter\u2019\nout of which \u2018originally man had been created.\u201969\nThroughout her Gold Basis, De Steiger criticised the Darwinian theory of\nevolution and stressed its incompatibility with the biblical narrative of the\nFall that undergirded the spiritual alchemy of rebirth. In this regard, her\nspiritual alchemy differed sharply from Waite\u2019s, which embraced evolution.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=283\nPages: 283,284\n124. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. D, p. 264.\n125. Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry, 568, no. 34.\n126. Providence, BU\u2013\u200bJHL: A54785, nos. 590, scan 10; 578, scan 6.\n127. Providence, BU\u2013\u200bJHL: A54785, no. 595, scan 4 (emphases are underlined in the\noriginal). The parenthetical remark unfortunately skips over some words that likely\nwould have addressed the reversal of the Fall.\n128. Providence, BU\u2013\u200bJHL: A54785, no. 594, scan 6.\n129. Providence, BU\u2013\u200bJHL: A54785, no. 609, scan 4.\nNotes\n269\nEpilogue\n1. E.g. Lawrence M. Principe, Alchemy and Chemistry: Breaking Up and Making Up\n(Again and Again). Dibner Library Lecture, December 11, 2014 (Washington,\nD.C.: Smithsonian Libraries, 2017).\n2. Zuber, \u2018Jacob B\u00f6hme and Alchemy,\u2019 esp. 279\u2013\u200b84.\n3. Hitchcock, Remarks upon Alchymists, 11; see also 30.\n4. Waite, Azoth, 60.\n5. E.g. Newman, Newton the Alchemist, 216. The phrase is also used in other fields of\nlearning; sometimes it appears with qualifiers such as \u2018almost\u2019 (paene) or \u2018nearly\u2019\n(fere).]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=24\nPages: 24,25\nHermetic Christianity\u2019 from which all other heresies flowed.49\nBearing in mind the layers of meaning accruing around \u2018spirit\u2019 in the early-\u200b\nmodern world, I define the spiritual alchemy investigated here as the practical\npursuit of inward but real bodily transmutation. This transmutation amounted\nto the reversal of the Fall and its consequences; furthermore, it prepared the\nfaithful for the resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgement. This spiritual\nalchemy is thus closely connected to the idea of spiritual rebirth, which it\nhelped shape and by which it was shaped in turn.50 Apart from the fact that,\n10\nSpiritual Alchemy\nfrom Jacob Boehme onward, all the figures studied here drew on his theosophy, there are three key elements of this alchemy. First, there is a three-\u200bway\nlapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy between the philosophers\u2019 stone, Christ incarnate, and the believer who mystically identifies with Christ. This element]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=211\nPages: 211\nin other words, leading on to regeneration\u2014\u200bto do so, \u2018a voluntary return of the\ncreature reversing the Fall,\u2019 with \u2018the promise of immortality\u2019 being \u2018conditional\nby conversion to our Principle in Christ Jesus.\u2019126\nIf there can still be any lingering doubt as to the spiritual alchemy opaquely\nexpounded in the Suggestive Inquiry, one of Atwood\u2019s late letters put it in so\nmany words. As plainly as she could manage, she explained it to De Steiger\non 2 April 1908: \u2018the Alchemists understood and taught that regeneration\n(by which the fall which to them was made apparent) was the only way of real\nrecovery\u2014\u200ba corrupt root could not bring forth good fruit\u2014\u200b\u201cYe must be born\nagain\u201d\u2014\u200bby ablation of this sensorial life and by the fermentation thereof by\nits Principle finding a new Foundation and building up anew in coordination with its Archetypal Mandate, a resurrection body.\u2019127 Just a week earlier,\non 24 March, Atwood could not have been clearer either: \u2018 \u201cYe must be born]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=81\nPages: 81\nBoehme described a kind of transmutation not in the least desirable for any\nalchemist.93 Yet he quickly proceeded to point out that the adept would be\nable to reverse it again by reducing lead to its prime matter. This was the undifferentiated metallic substance that could readily be transmuted.\nThe theosopher then explained that this reverse transmutation was analogous to the Fall. In Signatura rerum, Boehme described \u2018the paradise man\u2019\nas \u2018bright, like a transparent glass . . . in which the divine sun shines through\nand through, just like gold is pure through and through, without blemish.\u201994\nIf the primordial, prelapsarian body could be compared to gold, the fallen\nhuman body was like lead:\nSimilarly, spoken in a parable, the beautiful, golden body of Adam and Eve\nin divine power and being was turned into obscure, dark lead: the golden\nmercury woke up in the vanity of poison, thus the gold faded in disgust\nlike the holy body. Then it became entirely terrestrial and had to return to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=201\nPages: 201\nspiritual alchemy differed sharply from Waite\u2019s, which embraced evolution.\nFor De Steiger, humans were not the apex of evolution but instead creatures\nafflicted with postlapsarian degradation: \u2018mystic writers oppose the doctrine\nof evolution by theirs\u2014\u200bthat man has fallen from his original high estate.\u201970\nConversely, \u2018the fall of man\u2019 was \u2018a hateful phrase to modern evolutionists.\u201971\nDe Steiger did not shrink back from the polemical: \u2018the present doctrine of\nevolution . . . is a lie that masquerades gaily as a modern truth.\u201972 Instead, the\n\u2018mystic holds that mankind never evolved from the Simian kingdom, but that\nthe ape world is degraded, ruined humanity, never to be restored as before\nuntil a future calamity and a re-\u200bcreated nature after a Crisis would end the\n\u201ccurse,\u201d and \u201cthis middle-\u200bape realm\u201d would be no more.\u201973\nJust as \u2018the Fall of Man\u2019 and \u2018the Fall of the Planet\u2019 (or Curse) had occurred\nin tandem, so their restorations were equally linked. Due to the prayerful]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=66\nPages: 66\nwritings very differently from his early ones: whereas to this day his fame\nchiefly rests upon Aurora, Boehme himself held a distinctly higher opinion\nof his mature works, \u2018which are much brighter, clearer, and more deeply\ngrounded.\u201918 These featured many learned terms he had picked up in the\ncourse of his reading, correspondence, and conversation, and those words\ntook on new and at times surprising meanings as he integrated them into\nhis works.\nThe Fall, Rebirth, and the Philosophers\u2019 Stone\nas the Holy Element and Christ\u2019s Body\nThroughout the theosopher\u2019s mature works that reflect increased exposure\nto heterodox and alchemical literature, he engaged more deeply with both\nalchemy and rebirth. In the process, spiritual alchemy ceased to be merely a\nplayful allegory and took on an independent reality within his theosophical\nunderstanding of the world. In so many words, Boehme even told his reader]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=93\nPages: 93\ndiffered on the preconditions of this restoration, for instance. Whereas\nthe theosopher\u2019s lead of fallen humanity would appear wholly passive,\nFranckenberg argued that all human beings still carried within themselves\nsome of the paradisiacal earth from which they were first created, prior\nto the Fall. The Silesian mystic described this seed of light as \u2018ash (\u02beepher),\nthe powder of lead, the ash of sixty colours according to the Arabs, the\ngolden sand and purple grain of Ophir.\u201948 This guaranteed the possibility\nof restoration; in alchemical terms, it was the material potential for gold\nwithin fallen humanity that made transmutation possible. Drawing on\nhis knowledge of the sacred language, Franckenberg later developed his\nnotion of an uncorrupted substance with recourse to the highly similar\nHebrew words for dust and ash. In so doing, he followed in the footsteps\nof his namesake patriarch: Abraham had eloquently described himself]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=197\nPages: 197\n182\nSpiritual Alchemy\n\u2018the mystery of our physical evolution.\u201936 Waite went so far as to recommend\nvegetarianism as part of the \u2018suitable regimen\u2019 that would allow for the production of \u2018a perfect body.\u201937 On his view humanity strove towards greater\nphysical beauty, whereas all the other exponents of spiritual alchemy I have\ndiscussed saw the mortal body as beyond redemption.\nSince Waite imposed such a new, evolutionary narrative, he simultaneously relegated the biblical account of the Fall to a minor role. While admitting that there were lessons to be learnt from it, he adopted an agnostic or\nindifferent position towards this older narrative: \u2018did ever this fabled time\nhave a place in fact is a barren enquiry. It at least has a place in the future; we\nmust either work up to it or back to it; the desire of all the world spurs us on\nto achieve perfection.\u201938 Hints of the distinction between humanity\u2019s prelapsarian and postlapsarian states remain throughout Azoth, yet Waite\u2019s focus]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=119\nPages: 119\nthe Fall not only affected the body but, perhaps more importantly, also the\nspirit and the soul.79 Only the heavenly cornerstone could cure the spiritual\nmalaise of fallen humankind and allow it to commune with the divine.\nFranckenberg\u2019s Kabbalistic Regimen was thus the description of a process\nof, or a recipe for, spiritual alchemy. This tied in with the way he associated\nkabbalah with the cure for the spirit throughout Raphael.80 At the very end of\nthe Kabbalistic Regimen, a table detailed its threefold aim:81\nAim\nTrue G is to be Known\nthe Blessing\nof the ONE\nB\nThe Good O is to be Loved\nthe Knowledge of the TRUTHFUL\nY\nOne D is to be Blessed\nthe Enactment of the GOOD.\nIn a similar vein, a short text in two columns, titled In Schola \u2609rientali (In\nthe \u2609riental School), listed a number of spiritual adepts, commonly known\nas patriarchs, prophets, and apostles throughout the Bible, and provided a]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=171\nPages: 171\narticulated a vision of the alchemist as concerned with the salvation of the\nmaterial world that continues to hold great intuitive appeal even among specialist scholars.84 It should be noted that it is one thing to say that alchemy\nprovides a glimpse of the ultimate restoration of nature and quite another\nto claim that the alchemist is actively working towards it: there are certainly\nearly-\u200bmodern examples of the former, weaker claim, but almost none of its\nstronger, more emphatic version.85 Apart from Heinrich Khunrath, whose\nanalogy of the lapis as the \u2018son of the macrocosm\u2019 with the Son of Man (or microcosm) could be taken to imply as much, but no more than that, the salient\nexceptions to this rule are Boehme and Freher.86\nIn his Signatura rerum, Boehme emphasised that the Fall affected humanity and all of creation equally, claiming that \u2018mankind and the earth, with\nits secrets, lie sealed under the same curse and death and require one and the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82,83\nto Boehme, spiritual rebirth reversed the effects of the Fall: it reversed the\nreverse transmutation, as it were. Although this process would only be completed on the Last Day, it was held to begin here and now, during the believer\u2019s\nlife on earth.\nWhile it is a challenge to grasp Boehme\u2019s shifting theosophy, he did tend\ntowards identifying the body of Christ with the holy element of Paradise\nand the second principle of love and light, as well as with the quintessence.\nAll of these\u2014\u200bChrist\u2019s body, holy element, and quintessence\u2014\u200bBoehme designated lapis philosophorum. For the theosopher, the spiritual body of the\nnew birth was Christ and the philosophers\u2019 stone at once\u2014\u200bnot figuratively\nand by way of analogy but literally and in reality. Going far beyond pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian alchemy in its ambitious scope, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy was\n68\nSpiritual Alchemy\nintricately connected not only to the daily experience of the believer, but]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=226\nPages: 226\nof a fallen human being to the prelapsarian state is very similar to that of Boehme.\n3. For an English full-\u200blength study on the most influential medieval German mystic,\nMeister Eckhart, see e.g. Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister\nEckhart: The Man from Whom God Hid Nothing (New York: Crossroad, 2001).\nGerman scholars have proposed the term Alchemoparacelsismus, which I translate\nhere; e.g. Wilhelm K\u00fchlmann and Joachim Telle, Der Fr\u00fchparacelsismus (Corpus\nParacelsisticum), 3 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001\u2013\u200b13), 1:16, 26. An exemplary\nsurvey may be found in Julian Paulus, \u2018Alchemie und Paracelsismus um 1600: Siebzig\nPortr\u00e4ts,\u2019 in Analecta Paracelsica: Studien zum Nachleben Theophrast von Hohenheims\nim deutschen Kulturgebiet der fr\u00fchen Neuzeit, ed. Joachim Telle (Stuttgart: Steiner,\n1994), 335\u2013\u200b406. In Anglophone scholarship, the futility of separating purer from\nless pure forms of Paracelsianism has been noted by Stephen Pumfrey, \u2018The Spagyric]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=166\nPages: 166\nSoul.\u201957 Consequently, Freher\u2019s chief concern was the transmutation taking\nplace within Eternal Nature, always with a view to spiritual rebirth but hardly\never to alchemical chrysopoeia. This had fundamental implications for\nFreher\u2019s understanding of alchemy: in the layered cosmology he espoused,\nthe material plane was a mere outgrowth of the spiritual plane. Just as it had\nbeen for Boehme, the visible world and its laboratory alchemy were but lesser\nreflections of the divine realm and spiritual alchemy. Due to Freher\u2019s almost\ncomplete lack of familiarity with alchemical literature and laboratory practice, this tendency was heightened further.\nWhen Adam fell into transgression, he also fell \u2018under the Dominion of\nthe 3. first Forms of Eternal Nature, divorced from their Eternal Light and\nLove.\u2019 Consequently, to restore Adam\u2019s prelapsarian state, God\u2014\u200bas a mastermind alchemist\u2014\u200b\u2018must then . . . bring forth such a Renovation and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=320\nPages: 320\nFigures are indicated by f following the page number\nActs of the Apostles, 59\u2013\u200b60\nAdam 52\u2013\u200b53\nas name, meaning of, 77\nprelapsarian or crystalline body of,\n75\u2013\u200b76, 149\u2013\u200b50\nSee also Curse; Fall; Eve\nAd dialogum de morte (A Conversation on\nDeath), 25\u2013\u200b27\non antimony in alchemy, 27\u2013\u200b29\nBoehme and, 28\u2013\u200b29\ncirculation of, 30\nconnection of spiritual rebirth and\nalchemy in, 19\ncopies and editions of, 25\u2013\u200b26\ninfluences on, 25\u2013\u200b26\non justification, 26\nand Nagel, 43\nas pseudepigraphical addition to\nWeigel\u2019s Dialogus de\nChristianismo, 25\u2013\u200b26\non spiritual alchemy, 26\u2013\u200b27\nalbedo (whiteness), 37, 104\nAlchemical Society, 187\u2013\u200b88\nalchemy\nas concept spanning science and\nreligion, 5\u2013\u200b6\ndefinition of, 1\u2013\u200b2, 197\nmarginalisation after early eighteenth\ncentury, 2, 160, 199\u2013\u200b200\nand mining, 14\u2013\u200b15\nspiritual interpretation of, 2\u2013\u200b3, 5, 160\nspread in British occultist circles, 178\nthree common views of, 1, 2\u2013\u200b6\ncombining with German mysticism,\n14, 16\u2013\u200b17\nalchemy, as religion and psychology, 1, 2\u2013\u200b4]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=170\nPages: 170\n155\nin the believer dovetailed with Christus in nobis: \u2018he that hath Christ in him\nIncarnated, or he that is Regenerated, in that most proper Sense, . . . needs\nnot to be told what Christ is in him\u2019\u2014\u200bhe intimately knows it already.79 The\nlapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy was thus not isolated or an end unto itself;\nrather, it was firmly embedded into the drama of the Fall and redemption, as\nit unfolded on the cosmic plane and within the life of the individual believer.\nAlthough Freher\u2019s \u2018Process\u2019 is clearly evocative in its own right, many\nimplications only become clearer in view of his understanding of alchemy\nand its terms. Already the first paragraph, for instance, alludes to the alchemical work as the redemption of matter: \u2018for if Man understandeth not his own\nCorrupted Nature, and that Curse which he himself now lyeth under, . . . upon\nwhat Ground can he presume to deliver such or such a Particular thing from]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=66\nPages: 66,67\nunderstanding of the world. In so many words, Boehme even told his reader\nto take him literally when he spoke of the \u2018Process of Christ\u2019 and transmutation: \u2018we do not want to write anything parabolically but clear as day.\u201919 In\nfact, spiritual alchemy even became dominant, more real than laboratory alchemy, which was but a physical shadow of the divine alchemy of becoming\nand the spiritual alchemy of rebirth:\nAs the eternal birth [of the deity] is within itself, thus also is the process in\nthe restoration after the Fall and thus also is the process of the wise with\ntheir philosophers\u2019 stone: there is not a dot of difference between them, for\n52\nSpiritual Alchemy\neverything originated in the eternal birth, and everything must have its restoration in the same manner.20\nThe model of divine becoming also explains why Boehme held that\nalchemists hoping for success in the laboratory needed to be reborn: they\nneeded to live through the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to become proficient]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=118\nPages: 118\nMARRIAGE (of the sun and moon), . . . of THINGS divine and human,\nspiritual and corporeal, celestial and terrestrial.\u201973 This suggested that the alchemical marriage of gold and silver was analogous to the unification of God\nand man, just as in Paul Nagel and Jacob Boehme.\nIndeed, beyond alchemy, the ultimate exemplar for the union of opposites\nwas Jesus Christ, the \u2018God-\u200bman\u2019 (\u0398\u03b5\u03ac\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2) uniting within himself deity\nand humanity.74 As already observed with regard to Johann Siebmacher, alchemical hermaphrodites could be viewed as reflecting this in the laboratory.\nUltimately, it was Christ\u2019s example that believers had to emulate and re-\u200benact.\nAlready in the Theophrastia Valentiniana, Franckenberg had expressed this\nnotion in unmistakably alchemical terms: \u2018this yoke, this syzygy is thus a\ngreat work, in which\u2014\u200bby descent or distillation\u2014\u200bthe superior [things] flow\ninto the inferior ones and\u2014\u200bby ascent or sublimation\u2014\u200bthe inferior [things]]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 77 to page 98 out of a total of 337:\nPages 77:\n62\nSpiritual Alchemy\nBoehme paraphrased Stiefel\u2019s doctrine prior to dismissing it.75 Stiefel\u2019s notion\nof Christificatio entailed that born-\u200bagain believers literally became Christs,\nunable to sin. It was therefore no coincidence that Stiefel often signed his\nletter as \u2018Esaias Christ.\u201976 Whether or not Stiefel was very familiar with alchemy, this doctrine made the transmutation of metals seem like a very inappropriate analogy for rebirth as Christificatio.\nFor his part, Boehme insisted that born-\u200bagain believers were human and\ndivine at once, just like Christ, with whom they mystically identified. For the\ntheosopher as well as for Nagel, the proper understanding of transmutation\nentailed the unification of opposites, specifically of deity and humanity. With\nregard to substances or principles, alchemical literature often described the\nunion of opposites as its goal, and Nagel in particular had construed spiritual\nalchemy as joining God and human together. Boehme very much thought\nalong the same lines. For him the process of the new birth would only be\ncomplete at the final resurrection of the dead. In the meantime, the spiritual body of the new birth was merely internal, still covered by the outward,\nmortal body. Stiefel and his followers rejected this decisive distinction and\ndenied the continued existence of the body of sin, skipping forward to the\nultimate state and arriving at antinomian conclusions by the same token.77\nIn claiming that they already were perfect, entirely new beings unaffected\nby sin, Stiefel skipped over important steps in a divinely ordained process\nof purification and transmutation, for which the life, death, and resurrection of Christ provided the blueprint.78 Stiefel cancelled out the human element; consequently, his understanding of rebirth was far more radical: true\nbelievers were turned into Christ entirely and stripped of their former humanity completely. For Stiefel, the sinner came to be replaced by Christ in\nbody and soul through rebirth.\nAccording to Boehme, however, Christ did not turn us into a wholly new\nbeing with entirely different matter and form. As Christ had truly taken on\na human soul so \u2018that Christ\u2019s soul is our brother,\u2019 Boehme insisted that \u2018no\nother soul is born in any man, but a new body is. The soul is only renewed\nthrough the pure godhead.\u201979 In other words, \u2018Christ\u2019s body is our body in the\nnew man.\u201980 He deemed Stiefel\u2019s denial of the processes of spiritual alchemy\nall but incoherent:\nBut what kind of fancies this author has when he refuses to concede the divine tincturation (G\u00f6ttliche Tingirung) and transmutation through the new\nbirth, despising and dismissing the same, cannot be sufficiently fathomed,\n\nPages 78:\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n63\nas in this manner he even claims blind and nonsensical (ungereimtt)\nthings.81\nStiefel held that the incarnated Christ was fundamentally unlike other\nhuman beings. Boehme argued that Stiefel\u2019s heretical Christology and his\nantinomian doctrine of Christificatio contradicted basic tenets of the faith\nand undermined crucial events throughout salvation history, particularly\nthe Incarnation. For Boehme, Christ\u2019s redeeming process was effective precisely because he had taken on human flesh and conquered death through\nresurrection. If his nature had been different, \u2018it would directly contradict\nthe doctrine of the resurrection of the dead,\u2019 Boehme claimed in his Apology\nConcerning Human Perfection.\nThe theosopher further emphasised the transformation of a being existing\ncontinuously. He used the language of alchemy to make this point:\nI do not have to speak of another human being, of another creature, but\nof a transmutation; the rough stone into gold, the unholy into holiness.\nNow if this is to take place, the true alchemist (K\u00fcnstler) has to enter me,\nthat is, the Holy Spirit with the divine tincture, which is Christ\u2019s blood, by\nwhich he shattered the vanity of our humanity and guided our true life out\nthrough death. I have to be tinged, otherwise I cannot be transmuted. If\nChrist does not tinge me with his blood, my holy paradise life will remain\nfaded in death; but if he tinges me, the Holy Spirit will move within me, who\ncan transmute me into Christ\u2019s flesh and blood, according to the inner paradise man.82\nBoehme argued that rebirth meant being tinged but that the actual transmutation would only take place later. In his terms, the tingeing of the soul\u2014\u200b\neffected by Christ and wrought out by the Holy Spirit\u2014\u200bwas the precondition\nfor the ultimate transmutation of the mortal body that was to occur only on\nthe Last Day.\nIn keeping with the early-\u200bmodern understanding of spirit as a very subtle\nmatter, the spiritual rebirth and physical resurrection of the believer were\nclosely connected in Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy. Reminiscent of the Pauline\ndiscussion of the resurrection body, the tincture planted the seed for the new,\nsubtly material or rather spiritual body that was to flower only at the Last\nDay.83 This corresponded to the manner in which Boehme described the effect of rebirth in On the Threefold Life of Man: \u2018This new body, which contains\n\nPages 79:\n64\nSpiritual Alchemy\nthe reborn soul, is stuck in the old, corrupted flesh; it is impalpable and immortal. But the old Adam, conceived by the spirit of this world, must decay\nin the earth: he goes back to his mother, who will have to show and present\nhim on the Last Day.\u201984 Boehme playfully described Mother Earth\u2019s releasing\nof the risen dead as another new birth. For him, being spiritually born again\nwas not a merely spiritual process: the reborn soul was tied to a new body\nthat provided the basis for physical resurrection. Consequently, the tincture had different effects on the new birth and on the old body: \u2018My own essence of the inner man is tinged and transmuted in this temporality, and my\noutward, mortal man is tinged with Christ\u2019s death to die.\u2019 In contrast to this\nspiritual body, \u2018the outward man\u2019s mystery, that is, the quintessence (f\u00fcnffte\nessentz) . . . will be tinged at the final deliverance and resurrection of the\ndead, which transmutation will take place on the Last Day.\u201985 Whereas many\nalchemists prided themselves on the instant results their tinctures could furnish, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy assumed a maximally delayed transmutation: it would only take place at the very end of time.\nEqually with recourse to alchemical terminology, Boehme further\nexplained this delay in Signatura rerum. To be fit for transmutation, the body\nhad to die just like Christ\u2019s: \u2018But during this time, although the spirit is transmuted in divine power and baptised with the virginal baptism, putting on\nthe image of Christ within, . . . the Adam of the same is not able to do so until\nhe also enters into the transmutation of Christ, which happens in dying.\u201986\nCorresponding to the time during which Christ died and entered \u2018into putrefaction, . . . that is, in the tomb,\u2019 until his resurrection, the stage of putrefaction immediately preceded transmutation in the process of man\u2019s rebirth and\nresurrection:87\nMeanwhile, we poor children of Eve are not entirely transmuted instantly,\naccording to the outer man, but we also have to enter death and putrefaction, so that the fierceness in the flesh would putrefy and the spirit rest\nin Christ\u2019s death, until the general resurrection and transmutation of the\noutward man, by which the earth of man is transmuted into heaven (in\nHimmel).88\nIn other words, humans had to be changed both inwardly and outwardly.\nThrough rebirth, the inward human could be transmuted through mystical identification with Christ in death and resurrection, by which the soul\nwas renewed (not replaced) and a new, inward, spiritual body received. In\n\nPages 80:\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n65\ncontrast, the outward human, the gross, carnal body, could only be affected\nthrough its actual physical death. Only with one\u2019s last breath did one physically relive Christ\u2019s death. And in death, the outward, physical body was\nforced to release the inward, spiritual body of the new birth.\nIn this regard, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy of rebirth and resurrection corresponds to Christ\u2019s process but departs from traditional alchemy. Not only\nwas the effect upon the body significantly delayed, Boehme also undermined\nthe distinction between the transmuting agent and its subject: both the\nphilosophers\u2019 stone (Christ) and the metals (fallen humans) had to undergo\nan arduous process. In transmutational alchemy, however, only the stone was\nheld to go through this ordeal: once it had acquired the power of the tincture, that power was simply applied to other metallic substances in a process\nknown as projection, upon which transmutation followed immediately. The\nmost likely explanation for this departure from alchemical precedent is theological. Like Luther and a number of religious dissenters, Boehme endorsed\nthe doctrine of soul sleep, albeit in a mild form.89 In a valuable summary of\nLuther\u2019s views on soul sleep, historian Robin B. Barnes notes that the temporal lapse disappears from the perspective of eternity: \u2018From the point of\nview of the soul itself and of God, . . . the final resurrection of the whole man,\nand the Last Judgment itself, follow instantaneously upon death.\u2019 Indeed,\nfor Luther the Christian believer already \u2018lived outside of time through\ngrace\u2019 but also still \u2018within time as a creature,\u2019 a dual existence that would\nconclude on the Last Day, \u2018the end of time in a fully literal sense.\u201990 This description equally applies to Boehme\u2019s views: for all his arcane language and\nits potentially heterodox implications, he saw himself as a pious Lutheran\nand defended doctrines of his confession against religious dissenters such as\nStiefel.\nBy April 1622, Boehme had come to think of rebirth in terms of spiritual\nalchemy to such an extent that even his understanding of the Fall had become alchemical. If rebirth amounted to transmutation and reversed the\nFall, Boehme conversely came to view the Fall and its consequences for the\nhuman body as a transmutation in the wrong direction. Adam and Eve had\noriginally had bodies like gold, yet they were corrupted and turned into\nlead.91 Boehme began by describing an alchemical thought experiment:\nThis is not to be understood in any other way than when I consider\nlead which had previously been gold and had then, through mercury\n(Marcurium), been turned into lead, in which the poisonous mercury\n\nPages 81:\n66\nSpiritual Alchemy\nwould be revealed, which had previously stood in great beauty and perfection in the gold. And there would still be the potential for gold within the\nlead, but it would not be revealed in the mercury. The mercury would not\nbe able to turn itself into gold, unless the artist broke down the lead entirely\nand turned it into the first matter, from which it was created. Like this, the\nsame matter could become beautiful gold again, as it had been originally.92\nBoehme described a kind of transmutation not in the least desirable for any\nalchemist.93 Yet he quickly proceeded to point out that the adept would be\nable to reverse it again by reducing lead to its prime matter. This was the undifferentiated metallic substance that could readily be transmuted.\nThe theosopher then explained that this reverse transmutation was analogous to the Fall. In Signatura rerum, Boehme described \u2018the paradise man\u2019\nas \u2018bright, like a transparent glass . . . in which the divine sun shines through\nand through, just like gold is pure through and through, without blemish.\u201994\nIf the primordial, prelapsarian body could be compared to gold, the fallen\nhuman body was like lead:\nSimilarly, spoken in a parable, the beautiful, golden body of Adam and Eve\nin divine power and being was turned into obscure, dark lead: the golden\nmercury woke up in the vanity of poison, thus the gold faded in disgust\nlike the holy body. Then it became entirely terrestrial and had to return to\nearth. Yet the voice of God, which called them again, was conjoined with\nthe prophecy of the snake-\u200bcrusher in the womb of Venus.95\nIn a related passage in Signatura rerum, Boehme also alluded to the proto-\u200b\nevangelium to express that Christus in nobis had to crush the poisonous mercury in order to effect the transmutation of rebirth.96 Just like Nagel, who\nheld that the lion of Judah needed to crush the serpent in each and every believer, Boehme also stressed this aspect but portrayed it in considerably more\nalchemical terms\u2014\u200band with emphatic reference to the saviour promised in\nGenesis.\nReturning to the Apology Concerning Human Perfection, there is more\nto be said about the passage just quoted. Since the golden mercury became\npoisoned due to the transgression of Adam and Eve, their bodies deteriorated accordingly. The spark of the original golden or prelapsarian state\nstill remained in the human body, though it was obscured in the resulting\n\nPages 82:\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n67\nmixture of gold and lead. \u2018But (when the desire of the soul went out of it),\u2019 as\nBoehme went on to explain, it was\nfaded in itself, so gold and lead were mixed in this marriage within the lead.\nYet the gold was not revealed until God\u2019s mercury revealed itself in the word\nof the prophecy, in the lead, that is, in the flesh, so the lead was turned back\ninto gold in Christ\u2019s humanity, and the process was conducted in the same\nmanner as the transmutation of metals, which are turned into gold, takes\nplace, as it is written very extensively and comprehensively in our book on\nthe signature [Signatura rerum].97\nAs their desire turned outward, Adam and Eve\u2019s inward purity suffered contamination: the subtle, spiritual body became gross and carnal; gold turned\nto lead. This degradation could not be reversed until the divine mercury\u2014\u200b\nChrist, God\u2019s Word, message and messenger at once\u2014\u200bbecame incarnate in\nthe lead of human flesh.\nThat was, of course, the very subject Boehme had expounded more fully\nin Signatura rerum, the more substantial treatise he had completed just\ntwo months earlier. Through the process of Christ\u2019s life, culminating in the\nPassion, an alchemical transmutation was enacted that provided the basis for\nthe restoration of humanity\u2019s prelapsarian state. As the second Adam, Christ\nreversed the effects of the Fall, uniting deity and humanity, which the first\nAdam had sundered: \u2018Since we know that our life, which we are now leading,\nmust go through a transmutation, if it wants to be called God\u2019s child; it has to\nput God on again, of whom it has stripped itself through Adam.\u201998 According\nto Boehme, spiritual rebirth reversed the effects of the Fall: it reversed the\nreverse transmutation, as it were. Although this process would only be completed on the Last Day, it was held to begin here and now, during the believer\u2019s\nlife on earth.\nWhile it is a challenge to grasp Boehme\u2019s shifting theosophy, he did tend\ntowards identifying the body of Christ with the holy element of Paradise\nand the second principle of love and light, as well as with the quintessence.\nAll of these\u2014\u200bChrist\u2019s body, holy element, and quintessence\u2014\u200bBoehme designated lapis philosophorum. For the theosopher, the spiritual body of the\nnew birth was Christ and the philosophers\u2019 stone at once\u2014\u200bnot figuratively\nand by way of analogy but literally and in reality. Going far beyond pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian alchemy in its ambitious scope, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy was\n\nPages 83:\n68\nSpiritual Alchemy\nintricately connected not only to the daily experience of the believer, but\nalso to salvation history from the first week of creation to the resurrection\nof the dead at the Last Judgement. The Incarnation of Christ played a central role in this drama, and Boehme described Christ\u2019s entire life as an alchemical process that allowed the Messiah to truly become the tincture of\nsouls in a very real, even physical sense. Only at Pentecost was that process\ntruly completed: as the Holy Spirit entered the disciples, they themselves became spiritual alchemists able to work miracles and transmute the souls of\nunbelievers by virtue of Christus in nobis, the true philosophers\u2019 stone. The\nremainder of this book is devoted to how Boehme\u2019s readers\u2014\u200bfrom Abraham\nvon Franckenberg to Mary Anne Atwood two centuries later\u2014\u200brediscovered,\nadapted, and transmitted spiritual alchemy.\n\nPages 84:\n4\nAbraham von Franckenberg and\nthe Ancient Wisdom of Rebirth\nOne of Boehme\u2019s acquaintances and earliest readers was the Silesian nobleman Abraham von Franckenberg. Scholars have alternatively cast him as\na mystical poet, Boehme imitator, Rosicrucian, or Christian kabbalist.1 To\nthe literary scholar, his chief claim to fame lies in his connections to various\nmore famous poets, such as Georg Philipp Harsd\u00f6rffer, Daniel Czepko, and\nJohann Scheffler, who is better known as Angelus Silesius.2 To the historian\nof the book, the rarity of most of his works remains an enduring challenge.3\nFranckenberg reached his widest audience through his biography of Boehme,\nwhich painted a memorable, hagiographic picture of the theosopher\u2019s life.4\nTraditionally, he was included among Boehme\u2019s correspondents, yet Joachim\nTelle has thoroughly called into doubt the identification of Franckenberg as\nthe addressee of Boehme\u2019s epistle dated 20 February 1623.5 Franckenberg\ndid, however, meet Boehme in person repeatedly in 1623 and 1624, the final\nyears of the theosopher\u2019s life.\nBy 1625, as documented in his Conclusiones de fundamento sapientiae\n(Conclusions on the Foundation of Wisdom), the Silesian nobleman had\nstudied no fewer than eight works by the theosopher, most of them in\nthe intimate medium of manuscript. In 1627, he wrote his first extended\nepistolary treatise for the benefit of his G\u00f6rlitz-\u200bbased friend Ehrenfried\nHegenicht: Theophrastia Valentiniana, ostensibly a discussion of the second-\u200b\ncentury gnostic Valentinus and his teachings.6 This early work contains the\nmost comprehensive treatment of Franckenberg\u2019s spiritual alchemy of rebirth. Although Franckenberg\u2019s later works do not dwell on spiritual alchemy,\nthey continue to rely on it. This is especially true of what is arguably his most\nfamous work, Raphael (The Healing Angel), composed in 1638 but not\npublished until 1676.7 In other writings, Franckenberg for the most part only\nalluded to his spiritual alchemy through isolated terms and references: after\nits early expression, it provided a significant but mostly implicit backdrop,\nappearing only in sublimated form, that is, as subtle references transparent\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0005\n\nPages 85:\n70\nSpiritual Alchemy\nonly to those deeply familiar with his spiritual alchemy. In Franckenberg\u2019s\nhands, spiritual alchemy became inextricably tied to the wisdom of the\nancients. By recasting spiritual alchemy in terms of prisca sapientia, ancient gnosticism, and kabbalah, Franckenberg considerably heightened\nits appeal among the learned of the early-\u200bmodern age, sharing it with his\ncorrespondents as well as disciples in this new guise. In the broader story of\nspiritual alchemy, Franckenberg thus brought about an important shift.\nAwakening\nFor much of what can be said about Franckenberg\u2019s early years, we are forced\nto rely on his own testimony. Two events are of paramount importance: the\nyoung Silesian nobleman\u2019s religious awakening and his encounter with Jacob\nBoehme. In 1617, having returned to Silesia from his academic tour, which\nhad brought him as far as Strasbourg and Basel, Franckenberg found himself\nstruggling with a crisis of faith. The deep doctrinal divisions among the rival\nconfessions of Christianity troubled him.8 While other Lutherans were celebrating the centennial of the Reformation, he despaired and \u2018fell into great\ndisconsolation of the heart, could also hardly eat or sleep.\u2019 Soothed by his\nreading of the Theologia Germanica (German Theology) and other mystical\nand spiritualist texts, this crisis finally ended when he experienced a vision\nand was \u2018drawn into a calm sabbath\u2019 that ended his inner turmoil.9\nMany years later, in 1649, Franckenberg described this as his illumination\nand tearfully related its details to Georg Lorenz Seidenbecher, his disciple.\nThe vision, as Franckenberg related it, combined biblical imagery and kabbalistic speculation, emphasised love but also expressed longing for complete\nknowledge \u2018embroidered with gold,\u2019 such as the life to come would bestow\nupon the faithful.10 The passage oscillates between an ecstatic vision of life\nin heaven on the one hand and bookishness on the other. In the same way,\nFranckenberg\u2019s illumination prompted him to become an avid consumer\nof the heterodox literature published from 1617 onwards. He documented\nhis reading in his Conclusiones, composed in 1625 but not published until\n1646: inspired by the genre of the academic disputation, he formulated\ntwenty-\u200bfive theses and supported them with references to the devotional literature he had perused. The Conclusiones thus contained Franckenberg\u2019s formative reading list, and he revisited these same works for the remainder of\nhis life.\n\nPages 86:\nAbraham von Franckenberg\n71\nThanks to this Silesian mystic\u2019s foible for bibliographical detail, the majority of the titles quoted can be identified with precision. Authors such as\nValentin Weigel, Johann Arndt, and Johann Tauler were represented with\nmore than three titles each. Albeit anonymously, Johann Siebmacher\u2019s\nIntroductio hominis also appeared in Franckenberg\u2019s Conclusiones. It must\nhave been a memorable reading experience: the Silesian nobleman still\nalluded to the alchemical, pseudo-\u200bWeigelian, and Lautensackian 999/\u200b666\npassage as late as 1638.11 However, it was Boehme, whom Franckenberg\npersonally met in 1623, whose works were most frequently cited in the\nConclusiones\u2014\u200bno fewer than ten times. In addition to the three treatises of\nBoehme\u2019s Weg zu Christo, printed in 1624, these included references to manuscript versions of the theosopher\u2019s Aurora, Signatura rerum, and Mysterium\nmagnum, among others. Franckenberg\u2019s reading and his close acquaintance\nwith Boehme as documented here set the stage for the development of his\nown spiritual alchemy.\nThough poorly supported by external evidence, it is well known that\nBoehme and Franckenberg met repeatedly in the last two years and even\nthe last few weeks of the theosopher\u2019s life. In the 1630s, Franckenberg would\nrefer to the \u2018illuminated Jacob Boehme of Alt-\u200bSeidenburg, our dear friend\nand brother in the Lord.\u201912 Most of what we know about the relationship between the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz and the young Silesian nobleman can be\ngleaned from successive revisions of Franckenberg\u2019s biography of Boehme.\nIn the final redaction, concluded on 13/\u200b23 September 1651, Franckenberg\nbegan by noting that he had recorded \u2018as much as my memory has retained\nuntil now from the personal conversations with the blessed late [Boehme]\nduring 1623 and 1624.\u201913 Sprinkling his biography with intimate anecdotes,\nFranckenberg described Boehme\u2019s ability to pick up foreign loanwords from\nhis interlocutors and provided a personal example: the theosopher \u2018particularly delighted in the short Greek word IDEA [used] by myself.\u2019 Also in\nFranckenberg\u2019s presence, Boehme expressed regret at never having learned\nLatin, \u2018as I heard him say frequently.\u201914 According to a much earlier, shorter\nversion, Franckenberg related Boehme\u2019s visionary experience of 1600 \u2018as I had\nheard [it] from his very own mouth.\u201915 While scholars have often criticised\nFranckenberg for presenting the theosopher in the hagiographic manner he\nadopted, it is conceivable that this harked back to Boehme\u2019s conversational\nself-\u200bfashioning or, at the very least, his effect on an impressionable acolyte.\nEven if we can no longer count Franckenberg among the recipients of\nBoehme\u2019s extant letters, he did belong to a group of admiring acquaintances\n\nPages 87:\n72\nSpiritual Alchemy\nand first readers. The theosopher even composed additional writings for the\nbenefit of this inner circle. In the final version of the biography, Franckenberg\u2019s\nmemory merged two separate visits Boehme made to Schweinhaus, the residential castle of the Schweinichen family. The first of these took place in the\nwinter, the second in the autumn of 1624. During the first visit in February,\nFranckenberg and his friend Johann Siegmund von Schweinichen the\nyounger successfully requested aids for understanding Boehme\u2019s writings.\nIn response, the theosopher wrote a Clavis (Key) to his earlier treatises, as\nwell as the Tabula principiorum (Table of the Principles), for their benefit.16\nFranckenberg noted that Boehme had personally \u2018commanded him to keep\n[the Tabula] secret.\u201917 On this occasion, Franckenberg may actually have\nwitnessed Boehme\u2019s writing process, which he later described as one of divine dictation: \u2018when writing he hardly changed or crossed out a word; instead, as the Spirit of God gave it into his mind, so he wrote it out cleanly and\nwithout copying.\u201918 With the notable exception of a polemical treatise against\nthe G\u00f6rlitz minister Georg Richter, featuring copious corrections, Boehme\u2019s\nextant manuscripts largely succeed in not undermining this portrayal. If we\ntake seriously G\u00fcnther Bonheim\u2019s recent argument that there were two successive drafts of Aurora, perhaps the theosopher carefully sought to correspond to expectations surrounding divinely inspired writing.19\nBoehme died on Sunday, 7/\u200b17 November, shortly after his second sojourn\nin Silesia that same year. Franckenberg\u2019s account emphasised how soon\nafter their final encounter the theosopher succumbed to dropsy.20 If we take\ninto consideration another account, written on 21 November (New Style),\nshortly after Boehme\u2019s burial, it would seem that there was some intervening\ntime: according to Tobias Kober, the Paracelsian physician who attended\nBoehme during his last illness, the theosopher had returned to G\u00f6rlitz \u2018from\nSchweinhaus fourteen days ago, on Thursday, 7 November, very sick and\nweak, greatly swollen and exhausted.\u201921 Allowing for a couple of days to travel\nfrom Schweinhaus to G\u00f6rlitz and taking into account Franckenberg\u2019s even\nearlier departure, their last farewell would have taken place about three weeks\nearlier, towards the end of October or at the very beginning of November.\nSubsequently, Franckenberg became more than Boehme\u2019s biographer. His\nexceptional knowledge of the theosopher\u2019s manuscript works allowed him to\nplay a crucial role in promoting their wider dissemination and eventual publication: Franckenberg found himself at the centre of a circle of friends, mostly\nbased in Silesia and Saxony, who treasured and copied Boehme\u2019s works in\nmanuscript and then gradually passed them on to Abraham Willemsz\n\nPages 88:\nAbraham von Franckenberg\n73\nvan Beyerland.22 This Amsterdam merchant published a great portion of\nBoehme\u2019s works in German or in Dutch translation. With the generous assistance of Franckenberg and others, such as the G\u00f6rlitz alchemist Johann\nRothe and the Boehmiana collector Heinrich Prunius, Beyerland amassed\nthe largest and most important library of Boehme manuscripts. In contrast\nto the Dutchman\u2019s tireless efforts as editor and translator, Franckenberg himself only saw a minute fraction of Boehme\u2019s oeuvre through to print: several\nchapters of the Mysterium magnum as Josephus redivivus, published in 1631,\nand a Latin translation of Ein gr\u00fcndlicher Bericht (A Fundamental Report),\ncompleted on 1 March 1639 and eventually included as part of Trias mystica\n(Mystical Triad) in 1651.23\nHowever, unlike Franckenberg, Beyerland lacked familiarity with\nBoehme\u2019s autographs and other copies. As a consequence, Beyerland repeatedly had to realise that he had based his editions on questionable\nmanuscripts. The most egregious instances concerned Boehme\u2019s key\nworks Aurora in 1634 and Mysterium magnum in 1640.24 Franckenberg\nwas particularly shocked by Beyerland\u2019s botched edition of the latter work.\nFranckenberg had access to several reliable witnesses and had already listed\nthe Mysterium magnum as \u2018Commentary on Genesis\u2019 in his Conclusiones.25 In\nan early version of his biography that emphasised the high opinion Boehme\nhimself had of this late work, Franckenberg used the same formulation: it \u2018is\na commentary on Genesis, which [Boehme] always held to be his final confession, and regarding the Aurora, it appeared to him that he had written the\nsame only at first sight and thus imperfectly.\u201926 Though this aspect is often\neclipsed by his reputation as a hagiographer, Franckenberg was not only one\nof Boehme\u2019s earliest and most eager readers, as the Conclusiones document.\nBy 1640 he had also become a leading expert on Boehme\u2019s literary remains in\nmanuscript.27\nSpiritual Alchemy\nIn 1703 the controversial church historian Gottfried Arnold published\nan anonymous epistolary treatise. Titled Theophrastia Valentiniana, it has\ncome to attract the attention of Franckenberg scholars: both Carlos Gilly\nand Sibylle Rusterholz have emphasised the significance of this work in various contexts.28 Gilly has highlighted Franckenberg\u2019s sympathetic treatment\nof the gnostic heretic Valentinus, prompting Wouter J. Hanegraaff to hail\n\nPages 89:\n74\nSpiritual Alchemy\nthe Theophrastia Valentiniana as \u2018the first known apology of Gnosticism.\u201929\nAs the title suggests, Franckenberg sought to communicate the \u2018divine eloquence\u2019 of Valentinus and thus to compensate for the fact that none of his\nwritings had been preserved: earlier church historians had reduced his entire literary remains to heretical snippets. In his disregard for such polemical labels, Franckenberg prefigured Arnold, whose sympathetic treatment\nof heretics in the monumental Unparteyische Kirchen-\u200bund Ketzer-\u200bHistorie\n(Impartial History of the Church and Heretics) sparked outrage at the turn\nof the eighteenth century. Instead, Rusterholz notes that the treatise can be\nread as a subtle defence of the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz. She also draws attention to the way Franckenberg recast Boehme\u2019s theosophy in terms of ancient\nwisdom (prisca sapientia) and how he outlined his views on spiritual rebirth\nthroughout the Theophrastia Valentiniana.30 Indeed, to a significant extent,\nFranckenberg\u2019s Theophrastia Valentiniana reads like a study or paraphrase\nof Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy. The treatise is important for the manner in\nwhich its spiritual alchemy united ancient wisdom and Boehme\u2019s theosophy\nwhile linking individual rebirth to the restoration of all creation at the end\nof time.\nIn a radical departure from earlier accounts that inevitably described\nValentinus as a heretic, Franckenberg styled him as the prototypical born-\u200b\nagain believer. According to Franckenberg\u2019s treatment, rebirth was central to \u2018the philotheosophy of Valentinus\u2019 as well as to the story of his life.\nHe construed the lack of understanding the gnostic Valentinus encountered in others, presumably especially those endowed with ecclesiastical\nauthority, as the gnostic\u2019s main trial. In this he shared the fate of \u2018all born-\u200b\nagain [believers] in this blind world,\u2019 Franckenberg noted. According to\nhis account, Valentinus had initially been a \u2018Platonic philosopher, . . . like\nZoroaster, Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato, etc.\u2019 who was then transmuted into a\nborn-\u200bagain Christian:\nIn sum, what was previously dark, shattered, and unholy, that is now illuminated, healed, and sanctified within him to be a LIGHT, SALVATION,\nand SANCTUARY in the LORD. He retains his former body but [it is] clarified in the mystery, [retains] his former spirit but [it is] fixed and lit by\na holy, pure flame of fire from the altar of the Lord. He is and remains a\nPHILOSOPHER, yet REBORN by THEOLOGY, that is, a Christian and\nscholar of the LORD, yes, under the lights of born-\u200bagain nature and the rebirthing grace [he is] tinged, taught, and regenerated by the ray of glory.31\n\nPages 90:\nAbraham von Franckenberg\n75\nInspired by Boehme, Franckenberg relied on alchemy to describe Valentinus\u2019\nrebirth. The transformation was complete. Even the gnostic\u2019s body was affected by this process of rebirth: it mysteriously became subtler. And if\nValentinus was a model for born-\u200bagain believers and Franckenberg counted\nhimself among them, it stands to reason that the foregoing description could\nequally apply to Franckenberg himself.\nAdding alchemical symbols in the margin to accompany his text,\nFranckenberg described Valentinus\u2019 rebirth as a process of tincturation and\nfixation. The former implied that an impure metal was transmuted into gold.\nAlchemists often included the latter among the final stages of progess towards\naccomplishing the philosophers\u2019 stone.32 Furthermore, Franckenberg insinuated that Valentinus was able to tinge others in turn: he had become a transmuting agent himself.33 The remainder of Franckenberg\u2019s treatise\u2014\u200bostensibly\ndevoted to the doctrine of Valentinus\u2014\u200bdescribed how the different stages of\ntransmutation, augmentation, and projection in Valentinus\u2019 life prefigured\nthe life of every true believer. Mystical identification with Christ inaugurated\nan individual process of rebirth, through which a restored, spiritualised or\ncrystalline body would ultimately be attained.\nFor both Boehme and Franckenberg, the Incarnation of Christ represented\nthe pivotal event in salvation history that made spiritual alchemy possible.\nHence, it should come as no surprise that Franckenberg used alchemical\nterms to discuss the Incarnation. He likened the \u2018genealogy of CHRIST\u2019 to\na straight line of deified patriarchs; in conjunction with the divine overshadowing leading the virgin to conceive, it had the effect of a \u2018flash,\u2019 descending\n\u2018to the depth of humanity, to the bright centre MarIAH, the favoured and\nblessed chosen birthing one.\u2019 Alluding to the ineffable Hebrew name of God,\nFranckenberg often highlighted the syllable \u2018IAH,\u2019 representing the first half\nof the divine tetragrammaton. The downward flash \u2018tinges as well as ignites\nthe seed of light (as a ray of fire [kindles] saltpetre or grains of gun powder),\nfrom which the ray of triumph rises up to the sky, and exudes a bright, fiery\nglow, [and] also draws up all the other grains that are of its essence by touching\nthem, according to the power of sameness.\u201934 The triumphant ray alludes to\nChrist\u2019s Ascension; having previously tinged his followers and transmuted\nthem into his likeness, he is able to lift them up and welcome them into his\nheavenly realm. The Incarnation of Christ thus had cosmic effects described\nin terms of Boehme\u2019s theosophy, complete with its recourse to alchemy.\nFranckenberg\u2019s spiritual alchemy was based on a seed of light, which\nhe elsewhere described as \u2018the spiritual essence\u2019 hidden \u2018in the terrestrial,\n\nPages 91:\n76\nSpiritual Alchemy\ncorporeal matter of Adamic earth . . . like light in darkness.\u2019 However, contrary to what might be expected in a gnostic framework, this did not refer to\nan immaterial component of humanity trapped within matter. It was material but more subtle, spiritual, and fit for heaven, harking back to the prelapsarian bodiliness of Adam and Eve: \u2018For the paradisiacal earth, out of which\nman was made prior to the Fall and Curse of the earth, lies in the centre and\ncentral point, that is, in the inmost, purest element of virginal earth in each\nand every creature.\u201935 As such, this virginal earth provided the material basis\nfor the heavenly body of the new birth. In a way, Franckenberg thus outlined\nan intriguingly physical variation on the notion of the divine spark that tied\nin with the topic of Valentinian gnosticism.36\nRather than from the tainted mixture of matter produced through intercourse, Christ was born from this primordial matter, or the virgin Mary\u2019s\npure blood: \u2018CHRIST\u2019s body never saw decay, for he was [born] without male\nsemen, out of the pure blood of the virgin, embalmed with the tincture of\nGOD\u2019s Holy Spirit.\u201937 Since every creature carried some of its primordial, uncorrupted matter within itself, Mary was potentially anything but unique.\n\u2018HE was conceived from the Holy Spirit through overshadowing, . . . out of\nthe spiritual bodiliness, which is crystalline and the true humanity after our\nresurrection: the essential body and flesh of CHRIST out of the principle of\nlight, and yet hidden in Adam.\u201938 Yet it would seem that only those who experienced spiritual rebirth were actually able to benefit from this uncorrupted\nmatter. In Theophrastia Valentiniana, Franckenberg spoke of the activation\nthis spiritual essence required in terms of alchemical transmutation.\nIn his later Raphael, an extended, copiously annotated meditation on illness and health in spirit, body, and mind, Franckenberg gave the seed of light\na more iatrochemical slant. He described this prelapsarian human matter\nas the \u2018holy, chaste, virginal, crystalline, translucent, blessed EARTH, or\nthe true, rich, balm-\u200blike quintessential MUMIAH, paradisiacal ELeMent.\u201939\nOriginally, the Paracelsian term mumia referred to the healing powers in the\nbodies of violently killed people; their lingering vital force could be harnessed\nin cures.40 By linking the term to the prelapsarian humanbody, Franckenberg\nreinterpreted it positively, yet he did not stop there: this was also the matter\nof which Christ\u2019s flesh had consisted. Through his violent death on the cross,\nChrist literally became God\u2019s salvific mumIAH, which would bring eternal\nlife to humankind. Drawing \u2018a sharp distinction between Christ\u2019s flesh and\nordinary flesh,\u2019 Franckenberg\u2019s marginalia even enlisted none other than\nMartin Luther to support his own speculations and to defend Valentinus.41\n\nPages 92:\nAbraham von Franckenberg\n77\nChrist\u2019s biography, especially his passion, death, and resurrection, enacted a\nprocess that had to be repeated in believers\u2019 lives in order for them to be born\nagain and ultimately attain Christ-\u200blike flesh. Whereas Boehme had seen the\n\u2018Process of Christ\u2019 as primarily transmutational, Franckenberg also viewed it\nas iatrochemical.\nDespite the more medical perspective in later years, Franckenberg\u2019s most\nsignificant debt was to Boehme. Although the theosopher understood the\nnew birth more as a newly implanted seed rather than a pre-\u200bexisting component of man unaffected by the Fall, he and his acolyte both agreed that\npostlapsarian humanity had brought a deplorable state upon itself. In a later\nLatin work, Franckenberg described the consequences of the Fall in terms\nreminiscent of Boehme\u2019s reverse transmutation, due to which humans had\nbeen \u2018transmuted out of the image of God into the image of a beast.\u201942 In his\n1634 Klage-\u200bSchreiben uber und wider den Greuwel der Verw\u00fcstung (Epistolar\nLament on and against the Abomination of Desolation), Franckenberg\nnoted a change in Hebrew vocabulary to this effect. Initially, the Book of\nGenesis referred to man as \u02beadam, yet subsequently as \u02beanush. According to\nFranckenberg, this change was profoundly meaningful. The original word\ndescribed the prelapsarian state: \u2018So that man would recognise why the\nHebrews originally called him \u02beadam, that is, a red, tinged earth from the\norient, the power and vivid essence of which out of \u02beor, \u03b1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c1, AOUR, light or\nfire; dam, blood or red wine; and mayim, the upper and lower waters.\u201943 As a\nChristian kabbalist, Franckenberg interpreted each of the three letters that\nform the Hebrew word \u02beadam as the initial of another word. The \u02bealeph stood\nfor \u2018light\u2019 (\u02beor), the daled for \u2018blood\u2019 (dam), and the mem for \u2018water\u2019 (mayim).\nThe prelapsarian human thus consisted of light, blood, and the etherial substance of the heavens. This would traditionally have been identified with the\nmysterious waters above the firmament mentioned in the biblical creation\naccount, a passage that gave rise to profound speculations throughout the\nearly-\u200bmodern period.44 By virtue of this, the prelapsarian human was tinged\nand able to tinge others, just like Christ\u2019s disciples after Pentecost, according\nto Boehme\u2019s description in Signatura rerum.\nAs an unredeemed, fallen creature, the human being had lost the benefits\nof that former state and the ability to tinge: \u2018yet later on (after the Fall) [he\nwas called] \u02beenosh, a sick, malevolent, despaired mAn . . . not without hidden\nmeaning.\u2019 He did not similarly analyse this word, but the marginal annotation drew attention to a cognate: \u2018\u039d\u03cc\u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 sick; noshim women.\u201945 Due to\nthe loss of prelapsarian androgyny, the Fall had left humans incomplete.\n\nPages 93:\n78\nSpiritual Alchemy\nFranckenberg here alluded to several instances throughout Genesis in which\nprotagonists received new names that reflected their providential destinies.46\nConversely, in a negative sense, Franckenberg held that the change of terms\nused to refer to the human being hinted at the far-\u200breaching consequences of\nthe Fall. The Silesian mystic conveyed basically the same message as the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz, who had described this as a reverse transmutation from\ngold to lead. But Franckenberg further supported this argument with philological mystifications and kabbalistic interpretations. After discussing the\nterms used for humanity in Hebrew and other languages, Franckenberg concluded that they could serve as potent reminders of humankind\u2019s lost glory\nand spur a longing for seeing it restored. Considering these words carefully\nallowed believers to envision the prelapsarian state and to contemplate its\nrecovery, and thus to actually repeat it, through mystical identification with\nChrist: \u2018Based on these diverse names,\u2019 the primordial, God-\u200bgiven \u2018virtue\nand nobility\u2019 of humanity could be \u2018remembered by recalling the First State\nand the Former Love,\u2019 and this act of contemplation could be \u2018complemented\nand restored by recapitulating\u2019 or repeating the restoration of that state \u2018in\nChrist.\u201947\nDespite this broad agreement, there were important differences between Franckenberg\u2019s spiritual alchemy and that of Boehme. They\ndiffered on the preconditions of this restoration, for instance. Whereas\nthe theosopher\u2019s lead of fallen humanity would appear wholly passive,\nFranckenberg argued that all human beings still carried within themselves\nsome of the paradisiacal earth from which they were first created, prior\nto the Fall. The Silesian mystic described this seed of light as \u2018ash (\u02beepher),\nthe powder of lead, the ash of sixty colours according to the Arabs, the\ngolden sand and purple grain of Ophir.\u201948 This guaranteed the possibility\nof restoration; in alchemical terms, it was the material potential for gold\nwithin fallen humanity that made transmutation possible. Drawing on\nhis knowledge of the sacred language, Franckenberg later developed his\nnotion of an uncorrupted substance with recourse to the highly similar\nHebrew words for dust and ash. In so doing, he followed in the footsteps\nof his namesake patriarch: Abraham had eloquently described himself\nas \u2018dust and ashes\u2019 (\u02bfaphar va-\u200b\u02beepher), and the Silesian nobleman quoted\nthis passage in his later work Notae mysticae et mnemonicae (Mystical and\nMnemnonic Notes), composed in 1650. Due to the similarity of these two\nHebrew roots, they were closely linked in Franckenberg\u2019s understanding\nand strongly associated with alchemy.\n\nPages 94:\nAbraham von Franckenberg\n79\nIn the same Notae mysticae passage, the Silesian mystic explained \u2018to my\ndust\u2019 (la-\u200b\u02bfaphroti) as a return \u2018to the primordial chaos.\u201949 This was a term used\nby alchemists to refer to undifferentiated metallic matter or mercury, attained\nby stripping a metal of its sulphur principle, thus preparing it for becoming,\nor at least receiving, the tincture. Elsewhere in Notae mysticae, Franckenberg\nalso discussed \u2018within ash [of] Ophir\u2019 (ba-\u200b\u02beepher \u02beOphir). This phrase does\nnot occur in the Bible, but it is derived from another one that does: \u2018from gold\nof Ophir\u2019 (mi-\u200bzehav \u02beOphir). Franckenberg glossed this phrase with a reference to \u2018the Hermetics\u2019 tincture of gold,\u2019 thereby associating this substance\nwith the transmuting agent of the alchemists.50 In view of early-\u200bmodern accounts that described the tincture as a red powder ultimately derived from\ngold through various processes, this association is apposite.\nThe interpretation Franckenberg outlined for the Hebrew word for dust\ninteracted with its earliest occurrences in Genesis: God had initially created\nAdam with \u2018dust from the earth\u2019 and then cursed him to \u2018return to dust.\u201951 In\nRaphael, Franckenberg paraphrased the passage on Adam\u2019s creation: \u2018Such\ndust,\u2019 out of which Adam was formed, \u2018is called \u02bfaphar va-\u200b\u02beepher, dust and\nash, . . . which also become gold.\u201952 Franckenberg firmly integrated the death\nof the old body into the work of spiritual alchemy that would give rise to\nthe new. In a marginal annotation, Franckenberg explained \u02bfaphar as \u2018dust of\nlead, ash of gold: the quintessence (Q. E.) of all bodies, the SMALLEST beginning of things.\u201953 The Silesian nobleman interpreted the Curse that followed\nthe Fall of Adam and Eve as a confirmation and a promise: humans\u2019 primordial matter was never lost, and eventually humanity would be restored to\nit, purified of dross. Through his spiritual alchemy, Franckenberg found a\nglimmer of hope even in the words of God\u2019s Curse.\nOnce tinged by the Holy Spirit or through identification with Christ, the\nnew birth remained hidden within the old body but unaffected by it, \u2018pure\nand holy and without any stain of sin . . . like gold in dung or dross.\u2019 In a variation on the mystical identification with Mary, the believer was pregnant\nwith Christus in nobis also in a very physical sense.54 It is therefore no coincidence that Franckenberg spoke of himself in the same terms as of Mary,\n\u2018as a channel or tube, through which the water was led and flowed,\u2019 as he put\nit in a letter dated 18 September 1639.55 This could be taken as a denial that\nChrist had become fully human through the Incarnation, and it was precisely\none of the statements of Valentinus that his critics had deemed heretical. Yet\nit is more likely that Franckenberg, rather than denying Christ\u2019s humanity,\nwanted to emphasise the mystical identification of Mary and the believer, as\n\nPages 95:\n80\nSpiritual Alchemy\nwell as the believer\u2019s passivity in the process of salvation, in keeping with the\nLutheran insistence that it takes place \u2018by faith alone\u2019 (sola fide).\nReflecting the contrast between Adam\u2019s states before and after the Fall,\nthe fundamental difference between Christ\u2019s flesh and human flesh posed\na problem that had to be overcome. Unlike Boehme, who repeatedly spoke\nof the \u2018process of Christ,\u2019 especially in his Signatura rerum, Franckenberg\ndid not emphasise as strongly that Christ\u2019s biography culminated in his\ntranscending the mortal body. Consequently, Franckenberg portrayal could\nseem more static at times. Yet the basic contrast remained: if the human body\ncould be described as reddish sand, dust, or ash, Christ\u2019s body resembled a\nprecious gem. However, this gem-\u200blike body of Christ was hidden in terrestrial human matter. In order to fully assume the subtle body temporarily seen\nin his Transfiguration, Christ had to die and rise again, after which he was\nable to pass through closed doors.56 Consequently, Franckenberg contrasted\nthe baseness of the unrefined red earth with the purified substance of Christ\u2019s\nresurrection body: \u2018That man is terrestrial and made of earth is obvious. . . [in\ncontrast,] Christ is of the heavenly loveliness [recte: bodiliness] of the ruby\nor carbuncle stone: which adumbrate noble, purified earth.\u201957 By implication,\nthe believer had to undergo a process of purification through which her body\nwould be made crystalline like Christ\u2019s.58\nPerhaps bearing in mind pseudo-\u200bWeigel\u2019s reborn human as the city of\nGod, Franckenberg drew a connection to the \u2018heavenly Jerusalem made of\ntransparent, bright jasper, transparent gold, pearls, emerald, and many other\nprecious stones.\u2019 He argued that humans\u2019 \u2018celestial bodiliness\u2019 had to conform\nto this future habitat:\nWe must admit that before the Fall Adam was very different from what he\nis now, and he also has to become very different, if he wants to enter the\nkingdom of heaven; \u2018flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.\u2019\nWe shall be like angels, yes, like him and be where HE, CHRIST, is, and see\nhim in us and us in him.59\nFranckenberg here quoted Paul\u2019s First Epistle to the Corinthians to emphasise the need for bodily transmutation.60 The human body had to be restored\nto its prelapsarian state; it had to become transparent gold in order to join\nChrist in the new Jerusalem.\nThis could only be accomplished through identification with Christ, which\nentailed participation in his death and resurrection. Franckenberg explicitly\n\nPages 96:\nAbraham von Franckenberg\n81\nmade his case by arguing from the analogy this process had in the natural\nworld, as scrutinised by alchemy:\nWe also see through chymical analysis (Anatomia Chymica) how the crystalline body lies hidden in the dark mass but becomes visible, comprehensible, and tangible when purified through the fire of calcination, separatory,\nor purgatory. Should there not also be found within man such a principle\nof heavenly relics\u2014\u200bout of the uncorrupted body of the saints, out of the\nbody and life of JESUS, the saviour of his own body\u2014\u200balbeit hidden under\nthe bark, ash, chaff, shell, cloud, etc. of the outward, dark body? Far be it! It\nwould be something absurd in the light of grace and nature [if this were not\nthe case].61\nFranckenberg borrowed the term \u2018relics\u2019 in this connection from the Libellus\ntheosophiae (Booklet of Theosophy), a short work he had already listed in\nhis Conclusiones.62 The potential for a crystalline body was a given, and it\ncould only unfold if the depraved outer crust was removed. The analogy established with alchemical processes not merely served to aid the imagination; more importantly, it provided Franckenberg with physical proof, drawn\nfrom the Book of Nature, of what the Book of Scripture described in some of\nits more mysterious passages.\nAccording to Franckenberg, the transition from a terrestrial to a crystalline body required a \u2018TheophiloSophical death, from which comes new\nlife,\u2019 which was \u2018the goal of his\u2014\u200bValentinus\u2019\u2014\u200bdoctrine,\u2019 as well as the aim to\nwhich all other true believers aspired. Just like pseudo-\u200bWeigel, Franckenberg\nstressed that new birth had to be preceded by death: \u2018That the new birth\u2014\u200b\nthrough the holy death, . . . out of Christ, the new Adam, out of the Holy\nSpirit and the celestial upper waters\u2014\u200btinges man towards a new birth,\ntowards a pure, untainted body, towards a heavenly, crystalline earth.\u201963 Thus,\nspiritual rebirth ultimately had a physical goal. In fact, there is every reason\nto believe that Franckenberg held it to inaugurate a physical process, or at\nthe very least one that called into question the modern distinction between\nbody and spirit. It is worth recalling that spirit in the early-\u200bmodern sense was\nnot yet simply the antonym of body or matter.64 In a letter dated 2 January\n1640, Franckenberg spoke of the reborn believer as being \u2018(according to the\nspirit and the inner body of sanctification) a new creature.\u201965 Challenging the\ndichotomy between spirit/\u200binteriority and body/\u200bexteriority, the body of this\nnew birth remained interior and invisible for the time being, yet it was a body\n\nPages 97:\n82\nSpiritual Alchemy\nnonetheless. Back in the Theophrastia Valentiniana, the death that had to\nprecede the new birth pointed in the same direction: it \u2018is a melting away\nin the spirit, but concealed from the world.\u2019 The marginal remarks explicitly established a parallel with transmutational alchemy: \u2018Putrefaction is the\nkey of the philosophers. While I putrefy, I am reinvigorated.\u201966 Nigredo, the\nblack stage of the philosophical work often associated with putrefaction, was\na central accomplishment, after which the remainder of the path towards the\nphilosophers\u2019 stone was held to be comparatively easy.67 In this sense, putrefaction can indeed be seen as key to the opus, yet Franckenberg turned the\nbeliever into the alchemical matter.\nAlluding to the persecution born-\u200bagain believers would face just like\nValentinus, Franckenberg gave a detailed description that featured alchemical terms. The challenges the faithful encountered served as repeated\ncalcinations, through which God as the divine alchemist and Christus in nobis\nas the archaeus (a Paracelsian term that referred to humans\u2019 inner alchemist,\nresponsible for digestion, among other things) were purifying them:68\nThey [the born-\u200bagain believers] are on trial, in purification, the closer and\nmore they approach the centre of the archaeus, the internal smelter and rebirther in the spiritual, holy Vesta, GOD\u2019s holy fire, where they also will\nhave to be attracted, protracted, extracted, and clarified, refined like glass\nand gold and seven times like silver; the more often the glass goes through\nthe fire, the more beautiful, the subtler, purer, and brighter it becomes.69\nAs the mention of glass indicated, this process did not involve transmutation;\nin a sense, it had already taken place and thus given way to purification.\nCorrespondingly, Franckenberg also viewed the believer\u2019s mystical death\nand rebirth as a daily occurrence. In this regard, it would be misguided to\nposit too stark a contrast between the paradigms of transmutation and purification: rather than being mutually exclusive, Franckenberg saw them as complementary. The tribulations that believers had to overcome consequently\ncorresponded to those encountered by Christ during his passion: \u2018For this\nreason, it is said that we have to enter in through much cross and tribulation,\nthrough many deaths in the Lord: Paul dies daily.\u201970 The initial experience of\nrebirth can be seen as a transmutation; as Christ\u2019s biography is subsequently\nrelived on a daily basis, this amounts to repeated cycles of purification. In\na letter dated 1 August 1641, Franckenberg explained this distinction in\nthe following terms: \u2018Though at first man has to be born out of Christ, yet\n\nPages 98:\nAbraham von Franckenberg\n83\nafterwards Christ has to be born out of man\u2014\u200bthrough true, indwelling faith\n(as can be seen in MarIAH)\u2014\u200band God revealed in man, just as man was revealed in Christ before God, according to rebirth.\u201971 Once reborn of, or transmuted through, Christ, the believer gives birth to Christ daily, re-\u200benacting\nhis life repeatedly and becoming purer and purer in the process.\nLike Boehme, Franckenberg viewed spiritual rebirth as an ongoing process that started inwardly in the here and now but also had eternal and physical implications. Rebirth was virtually a \u2018first resurrection\u2019 of the spirit that\nprefigured the final, bodily one:\nIt happens here, according to time, as we fall and move in the flesh; yet according to the soul, it reaches into the principle of the spirit or the light\nof faith in CHRIST, from which originates\u2014\u200bin the daily enactment of\npenitence\u2014\u200ba foretaste and part of the tinctURe of the future, eternal life of\njoy, and it brings good fruit, both in this world and the next.72\nFor the time being, the effects of that divine transmuting agent could therefore only be felt to a limited extent. They did cause anticipatory \u2018delight in the\nresurrection of our bodies\u2019 among born-\u200bagain believers and foreshadowed\nwhat was to take place at the final resurrection of the dead. The Silesian\nmystic described this in the following terms:\nAs the mystery of the resurrection (of the paradisiacal life in the spirit, of\nthe holy sabbath, of celestial bodiliness, of the spiritual ZION and holy\nJerusalem, etc.) lights up beautifully every now and again in everyone, so\nborn-\u200bagain man is wonderfully refreshed and sees in this principle [the visible world], like in a mirror, the recapitulation and reminder of the effect\u2014\u200b\npartly completed, partly yet to unfold . . .\u2014\u200bof the divine will and Holy Spirit,\nfeeling them with a foretaste.73\nFranckenberg held that the lives of believers were punctuated by visionary\nexperiences, during which they glimpsed what their l\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 77 to page 98 out of a total of 337. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=80\nPages: 80,81\nhuman body as a transmutation in the wrong direction. Adam and Eve had\noriginally had bodies like gold, yet they were corrupted and turned into\nlead.91 Boehme began by describing an alchemical thought experiment:\nThis is not to be understood in any other way than when I consider\nlead which had previously been gold and had then, through mercury\n(Marcurium), been turned into lead, in which the poisonous mercury\n66\nSpiritual Alchemy\nwould be revealed, which had previously stood in great beauty and perfection in the gold. And there would still be the potential for gold within the\nlead, but it would not be revealed in the mercury. The mercury would not\nbe able to turn itself into gold, unless the artist broke down the lead entirely\nand turned it into the first matter, from which it was created. Like this, the\nsame matter could become beautiful gold again, as it had been originally.92\nBoehme described a kind of transmutation not in the least desirable for any]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=81\nPages: 81\nBoehme described a kind of transmutation not in the least desirable for any\nalchemist.93 Yet he quickly proceeded to point out that the adept would be\nable to reverse it again by reducing lead to its prime matter. This was the undifferentiated metallic substance that could readily be transmuted.\nThe theosopher then explained that this reverse transmutation was analogous to the Fall. In Signatura rerum, Boehme described \u2018the paradise man\u2019\nas \u2018bright, like a transparent glass . . . in which the divine sun shines through\nand through, just like gold is pure through and through, without blemish.\u201994\nIf the primordial, prelapsarian body could be compared to gold, the fallen\nhuman body was like lead:\nSimilarly, spoken in a parable, the beautiful, golden body of Adam and Eve\nin divine power and being was turned into obscure, dark lead: the golden\nmercury woke up in the vanity of poison, thus the gold faded in disgust\nlike the holy body. Then it became entirely terrestrial and had to return to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=311\nPages: 311\nB\u00f6hme.\u2019 In Garewicz and Haas, Gott, Natur und Mensch, 129\u2013\u200b46.\nSalvadori, Stefania. \u2018The Restitution of \u201cAdam\u2019s Angelical and Paradisiacal Body\u201d: Jane\nLead\u2019s Metaphor of Rebirth and Mystical Marriage.\u2019 In Hessayon, Jane Lead, 143\u2013\u200b65.\nSalzberg, Rosa. \u2018In the Mouth of Charlatans: Street Performers and the Dissemination of\nPamphlets in Renaissance Italy.\u2019 Renaissance Studies 24 (2010): 638\u2013\u200b53.\nSamuel, Geoffrey, and Jay Johnston, eds. Religion and the Subtle Body in Asia and the\nWest: Between Mind and Body. London: Routledge, 2013.\nSaxby, T. J. The Quest for the New Jerusalem: Jean de Labadie and the Labadists, 1610\u2013\u200b1744.\nDordrecht: Nijhoff, 1987.\nSchlechter, Armin, and Gerhard Stamm. Die kleinen Provenienzen. Wiesbaden:\nHarrassowitz, 2000.\nSchmauch, Hans. \u2018Neue Funde zum Lebenslauf des Coppernicus.\u2019 Zeitschrift f\u00fcr die\nGeschichte und Altertumskunde Ermlands 28 (1943): 54\u2013\u200b99.\nSchmidt, Martin. \u2018Christian Hoburg and Seventeenth-\u200bCentury Mysticism.\u2019 Journal of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=81\nPages: 81,82\nstill remained in the human body, though it was obscured in the resulting\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n67\nmixture of gold and lead. \u2018But (when the desire of the soul went out of it),\u2019 as\nBoehme went on to explain, it was\nfaded in itself, so gold and lead were mixed in this marriage within the lead.\nYet the gold was not revealed until God\u2019s mercury revealed itself in the word\nof the prophecy, in the lead, that is, in the flesh, so the lead was turned back\ninto gold in Christ\u2019s humanity, and the process was conducted in the same\nmanner as the transmutation of metals, which are turned into gold, takes\nplace, as it is written very extensively and comprehensively in our book on\nthe signature [Signatura rerum].97\nAs their desire turned outward, Adam and Eve\u2019s inward purity suffered contamination: the subtle, spiritual body became gross and carnal; gold turned\nto lead. This degradation could not be reversed until the divine mercury\u2014\u200b]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82\nto lead. This degradation could not be reversed until the divine mercury\u2014\u200b\nChrist, God\u2019s Word, message and messenger at once\u2014\u200bbecame incarnate in\nthe lead of human flesh.\nThat was, of course, the very subject Boehme had expounded more fully\nin Signatura rerum, the more substantial treatise he had completed just\ntwo months earlier. Through the process of Christ\u2019s life, culminating in the\nPassion, an alchemical transmutation was enacted that provided the basis for\nthe restoration of humanity\u2019s prelapsarian state. As the second Adam, Christ\nreversed the effects of the Fall, uniting deity and humanity, which the first\nAdam had sundered: \u2018Since we know that our life, which we are now leading,\nmust go through a transmutation, if it wants to be called God\u2019s child; it has to\nput God on again, of whom it has stripped itself through Adam.\u201998 According\nto Boehme, spiritual rebirth reversed the effects of the Fall: it reversed the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=94\nPages: 94\nof the old body into the work of spiritual alchemy that would give rise to\nthe new. In a marginal annotation, Franckenberg explained \u02bfaphar as \u2018dust of\nlead, ash of gold: the quintessence (Q. E.) of all bodies, the SMALLEST beginning of things.\u201953 The Silesian nobleman interpreted the Curse that followed\nthe Fall of Adam and Eve as a confirmation and a promise: humans\u2019 primordial matter was never lost, and eventually humanity would be restored to\nit, purified of dross. Through his spiritual alchemy, Franckenberg found a\nglimmer of hope even in the words of God\u2019s Curse.\nOnce tinged by the Holy Spirit or through identification with Christ, the\nnew birth remained hidden within the old body but unaffected by it, \u2018pure\nand holy and without any stain of sin . . . like gold in dung or dross.\u2019 In a variation on the mystical identification with Mary, the believer was pregnant]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=325\nPages: 325,326\nbody, 79\u2013\u200b80\nand seed of light (spiritual essence)\nof prelapsarian humanity, 75\u2013\u200b77,\n78, 79\u2013\u200b80\nas spiritual resurrection prefiguring\nbodily resurrection, 83\nin Valentinus, 74\u2013\u200b75\nFranklin, J. Jeffrey, 167\nFreher, Dionysius Andreas\non alchemy, 150\nand Amsterdam group editing Sclei\u2019s\nworks, 142\nAtwood on, 172\u2013\u200b73\nbackground of, 143\nand Boehme, 142\u2013\u200b43\ncareer of, 146\u2013\u200b47\nHieroglyphica sacra, 142\u2013\u200b43\nin Holland, 143\u2013\u200b46\nimages by, popularity of, 142\u2013\u200b43\ninfluence of works, 160\u2013\u200b61\nas interpreter of spiritual alchemy for\nEnglish audiencs, 158\u2013\u200b59\non three principles (theosophy), 150\u2013\u200b51\nLeade and, 144\u2013\u200b46\nand London, 142\u2013\u200b43, 144\u2013\u200b46\nin Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers,\n152\u2013\u200b53, 160\nmentors of, 147\u2013\u200b48\nParadoxa, emblemata, aenigmata,\nhieroglyphica de uno, toto, puncto,\ncentro, 142\u2013\u200b43\nand Philadelphian Society, 145\u2013\u200b46\nIndex\nand Quaker congregation of Bow\nLane, 145\u2013\u200b46\non rebirth, as requirement for successful\npractice of alchemy, 150\non restoration of nature through\nalchemy, 156\u2013\u200b57]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=188\nPages: 188,189\non the common insistence throughout alchemical literature that the adepts\nwere not handling common substances, South became convinced that they\nwere occupied with manipulating the ether itself, that subtle substance\nwhich pervaded the whole world and condensed to form the new bodies\nof reborn believers. (As the later notes included in the \u2018Appendix\u2019 of subsequent editions indicate, Mrs Atwood was aware of the identity of ether and\nquintessence.)85 When alchemists wrote of the lead of the philosophers or\ntheir water, this is what they really meant: \u2018this water they speak of is not the\nfluid with which in this life we are conversant, either as dew, or of clouds, or\nair condensed in caverns of the earth, or artifically distilled in a receiver out\n174\nSpiritual Alchemy\nof sea fountains, either of pits, or rivers, as the empirical chemists formerly\nimagined; but it is the ethereal body of life and light which they profess to have]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=258\nPages: 258\nthe Labadists, 1610\u2013\u200b1744 (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1987).\n40. Gichtel, Theosophia Practica, 7:188. For a rare moment of humility, see Gichtel,\nTheosophia Practica, 3:194.\n41. Gichtel, Theosophia Practica, 7:188.\n42. Gichtel, Theosophia Practica, 1:115.\n43. Zaepernick, \u2018Gichtels und seiner Nachfolger Briefwechsel,\u2019 82\u2013\u200b84, 86, 88\u2013\u200b90, 92\u2013\u200b\n93, 112.\n44. Lucinda Martin, \u2018 \u201cGod\u2019s Strange Providence\u201d: Jane Lead in the Correspondence of\nJohann Georg Gichtel,\u2019 in Jane Lead and Her Transnational Legacy, ed. Ariel Hessayon\n(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 187\u2013\u200b212, on 195, 205. On Leade (also Lead),\nher life and works, see e.g. Ariel Hessayon, \u2018Lead\u2019s Life and Times\u2019 (pts. 1\u2013\u200b3), in\nHessayon, Jane Lead, 13\u2013\u200b90; Julie Hirst, Jane Leade: Biography of a Seventeenth-\u200b\nCentury Mystic (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005); Nils Thune, The Behmenists and the\nPhiladelphians: A Contribution to the Study of English Mysticism in the Seventeenth]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=25\nPages: 25\namenable to Lutheran orthodoxy. The reformer Martin Luther himself\nhad praised alchemy as a visible demonstration of this article of faith, and\na court alchemist\u2019s obituary explicitly called it \u2018spiritual alchemy\u2019 (geistliche\nAlchymia) around 1660.52 Yet there are two important differences that concern timing and agency. In contrast to the delayed bodily transmutation at\nthe end of time, Boehme and his followers held that it began in the here and\nnow, albeit imperceptibly and in ways that cannot be measured with the tools\nof science. Furthermore, the orthodox understanding reserves agency solely\nfor God, in keeping with Luther\u2019s principle of sola gratia (by grace alone): on\nthis view, believers are passive matter in God\u2019s hands rather than spiritual\nadepts who participate actively in the cultivation of their resurrection bodies.\nThe issue of agency leads on directly to the third aspect, which is the practical pursuit of that process of spiritual rebirth and its bodiliness through]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=211\nPages: 211\nlinked spirit\u2014\u200bthe divine spark\u2014\u200band body, and it had to be released from its\ncorporeality. Beneath the husk of the body, the new birth of spiritual alchemy\nwould be nourished.\nCuriously, Freher wrote of regeneration in strikingly similar terms: \u2018a Person\nmay be still surrounded Outwardly, or may have Cleaving unto him as a Shell\nor Huske from without, a 4. Elementary Body and may yet have attained within\nto that Perfection, which is in the one Elementary Body, hid under this outward.\u2019124 Eventually, the one-\u200belementary body would be folded out and subdue\nthe four-\u200belementary one. As if with Boehme and Freher\u2019s views in mind,\nAtwood wrote: \u2018our present state is one of inversion,\u2019 implying that it needed\nto be reversed so the original state would be restored.125 In letters to De Steiger,\nAtwood explicitly stated that it took a conscious act of the will\u2014\u200ba conversion,\nin other words, leading on to regeneration\u2014\u200bto do so, \u2018a voluntary return of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=110\nPages: 110,111\nparadisiacal body already has this within itself,\u2019 Franckenberg wrote, \u2018in and\nout of Jesus Christ, God with us (ha-\u200b\u02bfImanu\u02beel); through faith, love, and hope;\nby predestination. With moderate fasting, orderly waking and watching,\nas well as passionate praying (the true masterful regimen of the spiritual,\n96\nSpiritual Alchemy\nphilosophical fire), it only has to be nourished, augmented, and continually kept in the fire, until its proper time and perfection.\u201941 The practices of\nspiritual alchemy Franckenberg described\u2014\u200bfasting, waking, praying\u2014\u200bwere\nsimilar to those of Paul Nagel\u2019s \u2018Our Azoth Turned to Gold.\u2019 In the second extant letter to K\u00f6nig, dated 18/\u200b28 August 1649, Franckenberg doubled down\non the interiority of this spiritual alchemy when contrasted against laboratory activity: \u2018One does not need any other fire, vessel, or oven beyond a pure,\nfaithful heart and a new, certain spirit, in which God and the Word dwell]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=24\nPages: 24\nbetween soul and body, the spirit could thus become the noblest component\nof the human being. This represented a notable departure from the dichotomous anthropology espoused by Aristotelian philosophy and orthodox\nLutheran theology. From the perspective of the latter, the crux was that this\nthird part of humans was not only immortal but divine: it was, quite literally, a part of God and would return to God after death.47 This view had\nfar-\u200breaching heterodox implications: sometimes the third component was\neffectively tied to an internalised Christus in nobis or participation in Christ\u2019s\nheavenly, ubiquitous body, doing away with the need for the outward rituals of baptism and the Eucharist.48 Indeed, in the late seventeenth century,\nLutheran heresy hunter Ehregott Daniel Colberg described \u2018the delusion\nof the three substantial parts of man\u2019 as the foundational error of \u2018Platonic-\u200b\nHermetic Christianity\u2019 from which all other heresies flowed.49]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=210\nPages: 210,211\nand expressing my thoughts imperfectly.\u2019121 That may be true, yet it is sufficiently clear that the underlying notion was that of Christ\u2019s mystical incarnation within the believer.\nThe vital spirit tied the soul to the body, yet the problem was, in the words\nof the Apostle Paul as quoted in the Suggestive Inquiry: \u2018flesh and blood\ncannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.\u2019122 Therefore, this bond needed to\nbe severed, so that a reborn spirit and spiritual body fit for heaven could arise.\nA further definition spells out the consequence for the former body: \u2018we\nmust remember that Alchemy is Divine Chemistry, and the transmutation\n196\nSpiritual Alchemy\nof Life; and therefore that which is the medium between soul and body is\nchanged, and the soul freed from the chains of corporeity, and the body is left\nas a mere husk. These people put on their bodies as mere coats.\u2019123 The soul\nlinked spirit\u2014\u200bthe divine spark\u2014\u200band body, and it had to be released from its]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=96\nPages: 96,97\nbody and spirit. It is worth recalling that spirit in the early-\u200bmodern sense was\nnot yet simply the antonym of body or matter.64 In a letter dated 2 January\n1640, Franckenberg spoke of the reborn believer as being \u2018(according to the\nspirit and the inner body of sanctification) a new creature.\u201965 Challenging the\ndichotomy between spirit/\u200binteriority and body/\u200bexteriority, the body of this\nnew birth remained interior and invisible for the time being, yet it was a body\n82\nSpiritual Alchemy\nnonetheless. Back in the Theophrastia Valentiniana, the death that had to\nprecede the new birth pointed in the same direction: it \u2018is a melting away\nin the spirit, but concealed from the world.\u2019 The marginal remarks explicitly established a parallel with transmutational alchemy: \u2018Putrefaction is the\nkey of the philosophers. While I putrefy, I am reinvigorated.\u201966 Nigredo, the\nblack stage of the philosophical work often associated with putrefaction, was]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=93\nPages: 93\ndiffered on the preconditions of this restoration, for instance. Whereas\nthe theosopher\u2019s lead of fallen humanity would appear wholly passive,\nFranckenberg argued that all human beings still carried within themselves\nsome of the paradisiacal earth from which they were first created, prior\nto the Fall. The Silesian mystic described this seed of light as \u2018ash (\u02beepher),\nthe powder of lead, the ash of sixty colours according to the Arabs, the\ngolden sand and purple grain of Ophir.\u201948 This guaranteed the possibility\nof restoration; in alchemical terms, it was the material potential for gold\nwithin fallen humanity that made transmutation possible. Drawing on\nhis knowledge of the sacred language, Franckenberg later developed his\nnotion of an uncorrupted substance with recourse to the highly similar\nHebrew words for dust and ash. In so doing, he followed in the footsteps\nof his namesake patriarch: Abraham had eloquently described himself]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=213\nPages: 213\nof the Victorian vogue for Mesmerism.\nAlthough it is very difficult for us to fathom this in the twenty-\u200bfirst century, it is my contention that, from Boehme at the latest, the representatives\nof spiritual alchemy discussed throughout this book were convinced that\ntheir spiritual rebirth implanted within them a new body consisting of a\nsubtle, imperceptible, and unquantifiable matter. Writing in a Lutheran context, the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz went as far as identifying this subtle matter\nwith the ubiquitous body of Christ that suffused all of creation. Through\nmystical identification with Christ and physical participation in his ubiquitous body, as well as a regimen of spiritual alchemy (watching and waking,\nfasting, prayer, introspection, and anticipation of the life to come), believers\nactively nourished this new birth and its heavenly bodiliness. In so doing,\nthey believed they were preparing themselves for the resurrection of the dead]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82,83\nto Boehme, spiritual rebirth reversed the effects of the Fall: it reversed the\nreverse transmutation, as it were. Although this process would only be completed on the Last Day, it was held to begin here and now, during the believer\u2019s\nlife on earth.\nWhile it is a challenge to grasp Boehme\u2019s shifting theosophy, he did tend\ntowards identifying the body of Christ with the holy element of Paradise\nand the second principle of love and light, as well as with the quintessence.\nAll of these\u2014\u200bChrist\u2019s body, holy element, and quintessence\u2014\u200bBoehme designated lapis philosophorum. For the theosopher, the spiritual body of the\nnew birth was Christ and the philosophers\u2019 stone at once\u2014\u200bnot figuratively\nand by way of analogy but literally and in reality. Going far beyond pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian alchemy in its ambitious scope, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy was\n68\nSpiritual Alchemy\nintricately connected not only to the daily experience of the believer, but]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=152\nPages: 152\nbody of his clarity, according to the effect by which he is able to conquer all\nthings.\u201d Philippians 3.\u201961 According to the New Testament, then, the human\nbody would be transmuted into a heavenly one, akin to Christ\u2019s resurrection body. In addition, under the lemma \u2018mystical process towards rebirth,\u2019\nthe Sclei volume\u2019s index guides readers to this passage: \u2018afterwards, Sodom\nand Gomorrah and all terrestrial being in us must be devoured by fire from\nheaven and wholly ground to powder, before the young phoenix with his\ncrystalline body can appear from the charred ashes. . . . For our God is a consuming Fire. Hebrews 12.\u201962 The anticipated resurrection of the body necessitated its prior calcination and purified reconstitution in a highly subtle,\nspiritual matter.\nThe fact that this aspect does not occur in Breckling\u2019s 1682 treatises\nor the preface to the second part of Sclei\u2019s Theosophische-\u200bSchrifften raises\nan important question: was it too obvious or too esoteric for inclusion in]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=77\nPages: 77\nalchemy as joining God and human together. Boehme very much thought\nalong the same lines. For him the process of the new birth would only be\ncomplete at the final resurrection of the dead. In the meantime, the spiritual body of the new birth was merely internal, still covered by the outward,\nmortal body. Stiefel and his followers rejected this decisive distinction and\ndenied the continued existence of the body of sin, skipping forward to the\nultimate state and arriving at antinomian conclusions by the same token.77\nIn claiming that they already were perfect, entirely new beings unaffected\nby sin, Stiefel skipped over important steps in a divinely ordained process\nof purification and transmutation, for which the life, death, and resurrection of Christ provided the blueprint.78 Stiefel cancelled out the human element; consequently, his understanding of rebirth was far more radical: true]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=80\nPages: 80,79\nin Christ\u2019s death, until the general resurrection and transmutation of the\noutward man, by which the earth of man is transmuted into heaven (in\nHimmel).88\nIn other words, humans had to be changed both inwardly and outwardly.\nThrough rebirth, the inward human could be transmuted through mystical identification with Christ in death and resurrection, by which the soul\nwas renewed (not replaced) and a new, inward, spiritual body received. In\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n65\ncontrast, the outward human, the gross, carnal body, could only be affected\nthrough its actual physical death. Only with one\u2019s last breath did one physically relive Christ\u2019s death. And in death, the outward, physical body was\nforced to release the inward, spiritual body of the new birth.\nIn this regard, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy of rebirth and resurrection corresponds to Christ\u2019s process but departs from traditional alchemy. Not only\nwas the effect upon the body significantly delayed, Boehme also undermined]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=79\nPages: 79\nhim on the Last Day.\u201984 Boehme playfully described Mother Earth\u2019s releasing\nof the risen dead as another new birth. For him, being spiritually born again\nwas not a merely spiritual process: the reborn soul was tied to a new body\nthat provided the basis for physical resurrection. Consequently, the tincture had different effects on the new birth and on the old body: \u2018My own essence of the inner man is tinged and transmuted in this temporality, and my\noutward, mortal man is tinged with Christ\u2019s death to die.\u2019 In contrast to this\nspiritual body, \u2018the outward man\u2019s mystery, that is, the quintessence (f\u00fcnffte\nessentz) . . . will be tinged at the final deliverance and resurrection of the\ndead, which transmutation will take place on the Last Day.\u201985 Whereas many\nalchemists prided themselves on the instant results their tinctures could furnish, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy assumed a maximally delayed transmutation: it would only take place at the very end of time.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=213\nPages: 213,214\nspiritual, exoteric/\u200besoteric, and outer/\u200binner alchemy, or indeed chemistry/\u200b\nalchemy. Laboratory alchemy and spiritual alchemy were anything but mutually exclusive: although it would have led too far afield to study this aspect\nin detail, all protagonists from pseudo-\u200bWeigel and Paul Nagel to Friedrich\nBreckling (with the minor exception of Georg Lorenz Seidenbecher) actively engaged with the literature and practice of laboratory alchemy. I have\nexplored this matter in more detail elsewhere concerning Jacob Boehme.2\nIn this book, I have briefly sketched how Abraham von Franckenberg was\nstill tracking down alchemical texts just before his death and how Friedrich\nBreckling\u2014\u200b\nin his seventies\u2014\u200b\nenthusiastically followed the gold-\u200b\nmaking\nexperiments of some acquaintances, hoping that they would be able to\nfund charitable activities with their gains. In tendency, the subjects of this\nbook found spiritual alchemy more accessible to begin with and used it as\nEpilogue\n199]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=154\nPages: 154,155\nstand the light of truth and be found in it, as the author of the Wasserstein\nder Weysen and others, many divine magi and kabbalists . . . assert [in\nclassic collections of alchemical texts]. However, in his books and profound writings, especially the Aurora, Mysterium magnum, and Signatura\nrerum, Jacob Boehme specifically wrote most sublimely and deeply of the\nanalogy between the inner, spiritual and the outer, visible world and [the\nanalogy] of these two with God, their proper origin and root, as well as\n[the analogy] of the philosophers\u2019 stone with Christ, for the benefit of the\nchildren of light.70\nAs Boehme averred particularly in Signatura rerum, the alchemical process\nof the great work corresponded to Christ\u2019s life on earth. What alchemical\n140\nSpiritual Alchemy\nwriters could but dimly apprehend, the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz presented with\ngreat depth of insight.\nAfter the publication of Gottfried Arnold\u2019s Impartial History at the turn of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=77\nPages: 77\nalchemy as joining God and human together. Boehme very much thought\nalong the same lines. For him the process of the new birth would only be\ncomplete at the final resurrection of the dead. In the meantime, the spiritual body of the new birth was merely internal, still covered by the outward,\nmortal body. Stiefel and his followers rejected this decisive distinction and\ndenied the continued existence of the body of sin, skipping forward to the\nultimate state and arriving at antinomian conclusions by the same token.77\nIn claiming that they already were perfect, entirely new beings unaffected\nby sin, Stiefel skipped over important steps in a divinely ordained process\nof purification and transmutation, for which the life, death, and resurrection of Christ provided the blueprint.78 Stiefel cancelled out the human element; consequently, his understanding of rebirth was far more radical: true]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=104\nPages: 104,105\nTerrae Adamicae Mai crocosmicae). In other words, one had to inspect not\nonly the outside world but also the inner world of the microcosm. This injunction \u2018towards life\u2019 ([ad] V.I.T.A.M.) was followed by \u2018there a Christian\nought to be reborn\u2019 (ibi Christianum Oportet Renasci), with the three capital\nletters forming the Latin word for \u2018heart.\u201912 Put another way, it was within the\nheart of a body made of dust, ash, and earth that rebirth towards eternal life\ntook place.\nIn correspondence throughout the early 1640s, Franckenberg emerged\nas a witness of alchemical experiments and asserted the superiority of older\nauthorities over \u2018today\u2019s experience\u2019 on 5 January 1643.13 He also exchanged\nletters with the mysterious Floretus \u00e0 Bethabor, the likely author of an alchemical allegory. On 24 June 1644, Bethabor wrote that \u2018chymical matters\n90\nSpiritual Alchemy\n(Chymische Sachen) . . . are very difficult, arduous, and more irksome than]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=81\nPages: 81,82\nstill remained in the human body, though it was obscured in the resulting\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n67\nmixture of gold and lead. \u2018But (when the desire of the soul went out of it),\u2019 as\nBoehme went on to explain, it was\nfaded in itself, so gold and lead were mixed in this marriage within the lead.\nYet the gold was not revealed until God\u2019s mercury revealed itself in the word\nof the prophecy, in the lead, that is, in the flesh, so the lead was turned back\ninto gold in Christ\u2019s humanity, and the process was conducted in the same\nmanner as the transmutation of metals, which are turned into gold, takes\nplace, as it is written very extensively and comprehensively in our book on\nthe signature [Signatura rerum].97\nAs their desire turned outward, Adam and Eve\u2019s inward purity suffered contamination: the subtle, spiritual body became gross and carnal; gold turned\nto lead. This degradation could not be reversed until the divine mercury\u2014\u200b]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=211\nPages: 211\nlinked spirit\u2014\u200bthe divine spark\u2014\u200band body, and it had to be released from its\ncorporeality. Beneath the husk of the body, the new birth of spiritual alchemy\nwould be nourished.\nCuriously, Freher wrote of regeneration in strikingly similar terms: \u2018a Person\nmay be still surrounded Outwardly, or may have Cleaving unto him as a Shell\nor Huske from without, a 4. Elementary Body and may yet have attained within\nto that Perfection, which is in the one Elementary Body, hid under this outward.\u2019124 Eventually, the one-\u200belementary body would be folded out and subdue\nthe four-\u200belementary one. As if with Boehme and Freher\u2019s views in mind,\nAtwood wrote: \u2018our present state is one of inversion,\u2019 implying that it needed\nto be reversed so the original state would be restored.125 In letters to De Steiger,\nAtwood explicitly stated that it took a conscious act of the will\u2014\u200ba conversion,\nin other words, leading on to regeneration\u2014\u200bto do so, \u2018a voluntary return of the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=137\nPages: 137\nonly rightfully be reached through introspection and mystical identification\nwith Christ: \u2018they learn and buy many false processes out of books or from\nalchemists and pass over the process of Christ through cross, fire, and death.\nThey want to recognise and think through nature and its hidden secrets,\ncentres, and treasures outside of themselves, before they investigate themselves. . . . For this reason, they stray from the hidden wisdom and indwelling\nof Christ within us (Einwohnung Christi in uns) entirely.\u201983 Alchemists who\nfocused their entire attention on the outward world and the laboratory\ntended to neglect introspection, rebirth, and the cultivation of Christus in\nnobis. Rather than harming others, they mainly hindered their own spiritual\nprogress.\nIn contrast, the false spiritual alchemists seemed much more dangerous to\nBreckling. They were the more villainous antagonists as they endangered not\nonly the purses of the credulous but also their immortal souls. For Breckling,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=24\nPages: 24\nbetween soul and body, the spirit could thus become the noblest component\nof the human being. This represented a notable departure from the dichotomous anthropology espoused by Aristotelian philosophy and orthodox\nLutheran theology. From the perspective of the latter, the crux was that this\nthird part of humans was not only immortal but divine: it was, quite literally, a part of God and would return to God after death.47 This view had\nfar-\u200breaching heterodox implications: sometimes the third component was\neffectively tied to an internalised Christus in nobis or participation in Christ\u2019s\nheavenly, ubiquitous body, doing away with the need for the outward rituals of baptism and the Eucharist.48 Indeed, in the late seventeenth century,\nLutheran heresy hunter Ehregott Daniel Colberg described \u2018the delusion\nof the three substantial parts of man\u2019 as the foundational error of \u2018Platonic-\u200b\nHermetic Christianity\u2019 from which all other heresies flowed.49]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=96\nPages: 96\nor purgatory. Should there not also be found within man such a principle\nof heavenly relics\u2014\u200bout of the uncorrupted body of the saints, out of the\nbody and life of JESUS, the saviour of his own body\u2014\u200balbeit hidden under\nthe bark, ash, chaff, shell, cloud, etc. of the outward, dark body? Far be it! It\nwould be something absurd in the light of grace and nature [if this were not\nthe case].61\nFranckenberg borrowed the term \u2018relics\u2019 in this connection from the Libellus\ntheosophiae (Booklet of Theosophy), a short work he had already listed in\nhis Conclusiones.62 The potential for a crystalline body was a given, and it\ncould only unfold if the depraved outer crust was removed. The analogy established with alchemical processes not merely served to aid the imagination; more importantly, it provided Franckenberg with physical proof, drawn\nfrom the Book of Nature, of what the Book of Scripture described in some of\nits more mysterious passages.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=136\nPages: 136,137\nteachers, prophets, priests, theologians, lawyers, physicians, magi, kabbalists,\nalchemists, soothsayers, interpreters of omens, astrologers, philosophers,\nand seducers.\u2019 Instead of dying to themselves in Christ, alchemists as the less\nharmful of the two groups \u2018live for themselves . . . and seek themselves and\ngold more than God, or they become pious and seek God for the sake of gold,\nso that they might find the lapis. They read the writings of the philosophers\nmore than God\u2019s word and want to steal God\u2019s secrets with Lucifer in this\n122\nSpiritual Alchemy\nmanner.\u2019 Instead of focusing on spiritual alchemy, their aims were limited to\nthose of chrysopoeia and iatrochemistry: \u2018They rather want to cure and tinge\nmetals and the stinking maggot-\u200bbag,\u2019 that is, the human body, \u2018than their\neternal soul.\u2019 By looking outward, they sought shortcuts to goals that could\nonly rightfully be reached through introspection and mystical identification]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=96\nPages: 96,97\nbody and spirit. It is worth recalling that spirit in the early-\u200bmodern sense was\nnot yet simply the antonym of body or matter.64 In a letter dated 2 January\n1640, Franckenberg spoke of the reborn believer as being \u2018(according to the\nspirit and the inner body of sanctification) a new creature.\u201965 Challenging the\ndichotomy between spirit/\u200binteriority and body/\u200bexteriority, the body of this\nnew birth remained interior and invisible for the time being, yet it was a body\n82\nSpiritual Alchemy\nnonetheless. Back in the Theophrastia Valentiniana, the death that had to\nprecede the new birth pointed in the same direction: it \u2018is a melting away\nin the spirit, but concealed from the world.\u2019 The marginal remarks explicitly established a parallel with transmutational alchemy: \u2018Putrefaction is the\nkey of the philosophers. While I putrefy, I am reinvigorated.\u201966 Nigredo, the\nblack stage of the philosophical work often associated with putrefaction, was]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=59\nPages: 59,60\nbeginning and end, the first and the last, God and man\u2014\u200bthat is, Christ: he\nmust be revealed. Without and outside of him, man remains damned, and\nA Nuremberg Chymist and a Torgau Astrologer\n45\nimputative justice from the outside cannot save him. O ye humans, let\nus look for this surpassing treasure, our azoth, in which our blessed state\nconsists, and it is the great mystery: Christ within us.66\nThrough the mystical identification of Christ and the believer in death and\nresurrection, Christus in nobis became all in all within the born-\u200bagain person.\nChrist within was the transmuting agent of Nagel\u2019s spiritual alchemy.\nNagel likened various stages of this process to alchemical activities\nthroughout \u2018Our Azoth Turned to Gold.\u2019 He also did so in his correspondence, in which spiritual alchemy surfaced as well. In a 1620 letter to Kerner,\nthe millenarian mentioned \u2018the angelic stone which rejuvenates through the\nnew birth.\u2019 He further alluded to the spagyric art of separating the pure from]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=137\nPages: 137,138\nhistorical belief and performed outward rituals, offering \u2018false gold that\nreceives the greatest lustre, praise, and esteem among the people.\u2019 They related to the persecuted faithful as did the haughty pharisee to the repentant\ntax collector: Christ\u2019s assessment inverted the standard of the world.85 In\nBreckling\u2019s spiritual alchemy, false teaching became identified as false spiritual gold, for which churchgoers, by supporting their ministers financially,\nunfortunately paid in hard currency.\nBreckling exhorted his readers, the \u2018true children, magi, adepts, and\ntheosophers chosen by God,\u2019 to beware of the false spiritual alchemists\nas well as their worthless merchandise. Instead, rather than looking up to\nFriedrich Breckling\n123\nthe minister on his pulpit, they ought \u2018to keep themselves down to Christ\u2019s\nhumble and poor members sharing in his cross.\u2019 In other words, the true]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=70\nPages: 70\nPaul\u2019s First Epistle to the Corinthians, Boehme emphatically noted that \u2018the\nterrestrial flesh out of the four elements cannot inherit God\u2019s realm. . . But\nthe fifth essence, as the element out of which the four are born (that is, paradise), it must rule over the four elements in the same way as the light holds\ndarkness within itself, as if devoured.\u201941 The regenerate believer is born of\nthe quintessence, which is the inner spiritual world and the body of Christ\nat once.\nParticularly in On the Threefold Life of Man, Boehme went one step further and quite explicitly identified the holy element as the philosophers\u2019\nstone. As I have shown, the holy element was also the body of Christ, and\ngiving birth to Christus in nobis amounted to attaining the lapis. In a way,\nBoehme thus took very literally what had been a common religious metaphor in alchemical literature: now Christ was no longer analogous to the\nlapis philosophorum; he really was the \u2018noble and highly worthy corner-\u200b]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=69\nPages: 69,70\nand during the creation of the world it emanated (Aus geflossen) into being\n(Wesen), and it is comprehended in the quintessence\u2019 (5ten Essentz).40 Yet, as\nso often with Boehme, these distinctions are so subtle that they sometimes\ngive way to indistinction, if not identity. It is tempting to think that they were\nintended to ensure plausible deniability when the theosopher ventured into\ntheologically dangerous territory. A similar shift towards the identity of two\nthings elsewhere described as distinct also takes place in our case: the pure\nelement is the quintessence. Through rebirth the believer was to return to\nthat inner spiritual world and inherit the \u2018kingdom of God\u2019 by allowing the\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n55\nquintessence to dominate his four-\u200belementary body: \u2018For whatever desires to\ninherit the inner spiritual world must be born out of the same.\u2019 Paraphrasing\nPaul\u2019s First Epistle to the Corinthians, Boehme emphatically noted that \u2018the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=110\nPages: 110,111\nparadisiacal body already has this within itself,\u2019 Franckenberg wrote, \u2018in and\nout of Jesus Christ, God with us (ha-\u200b\u02bfImanu\u02beel); through faith, love, and hope;\nby predestination. With moderate fasting, orderly waking and watching,\nas well as passionate praying (the true masterful regimen of the spiritual,\n96\nSpiritual Alchemy\nphilosophical fire), it only has to be nourished, augmented, and continually kept in the fire, until its proper time and perfection.\u201941 The practices of\nspiritual alchemy Franckenberg described\u2014\u200bfasting, waking, praying\u2014\u200bwere\nsimilar to those of Paul Nagel\u2019s \u2018Our Azoth Turned to Gold.\u2019 In the second extant letter to K\u00f6nig, dated 18/\u200b28 August 1649, Franckenberg doubled down\non the interiority of this spiritual alchemy when contrasted against laboratory activity: \u2018One does not need any other fire, vessel, or oven beyond a pure,\nfaithful heart and a new, certain spirit, in which God and the Word dwell]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=137\nPages: 137\nonly the purses of the credulous but also their immortal souls. For Breckling,\nthe defining feature of true mystical adepts was saving faith, grounded\nin mystical identification with Christ. This contrasted with a faith that\nremained limited to words and assent to specific beliefs, which false spiritual\nalchemists sought to impress upon their audience. Consequently, they were\nministers and teachers who provided a prime example of the blind leading\nthe blind: \u2018such pseudo-\u200btheologians, sophists, alchemists, and builders of\nBabel must lead themselves and all who follow them astray on a thousand\nwrong tracks, thus deceiving and ruining the world and all the confessions\n(Secten) along with themselves.\u201984 Rather than the true, saving faith, \u2018worth\nmore than refined gold tried in the fire,\u2019 these false preachers taught merely\nhistorical belief and performed outward rituals, offering \u2018false gold that]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=116\nPages: 116\nnumber two was closely associated with separation from God and opposition\ngenerally: \u2018for whatever is split in two or divided . . . is an exit and departure\nfrom the ONE, as in divorce and opposition, through which discord is born\nin the reflection or counterpart.\u2019 Three, by contrast, was the number of the\ndivine Trinity, surpassed only by one: \u2018the ONE or number ONE is not normally in and of itself a NUMBER, for it belongs to GOD who is not contained\nby any number.\u2019 Regarding the number four, Franckenberg wrote that it was\n\u2018the first physical number of the outward, worldly regime or natural, bodily\nELement.\u201964 Only by overcoming contrariety and the physical world through\nthe Trinity would the believer be able to achieve the distinctly mystical goal\nof oneness with the divine.\nIn its use of challenging language and the ideas expressed through it, the\nKabbalistic Regimen resonated with Franckenberg\u2019s angelic treatises Sephiriel]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 98 to page 121 out of a total of 337:\nPages 98:\nAbraham von Franckenberg\n83\nafterwards Christ has to be born out of man\u2014\u200bthrough true, indwelling faith\n(as can be seen in MarIAH)\u2014\u200band God revealed in man, just as man was revealed in Christ before God, according to rebirth.\u201971 Once reborn of, or transmuted through, Christ, the believer gives birth to Christ daily, re-\u200benacting\nhis life repeatedly and becoming purer and purer in the process.\nLike Boehme, Franckenberg viewed spiritual rebirth as an ongoing process that started inwardly in the here and now but also had eternal and physical implications. Rebirth was virtually a \u2018first resurrection\u2019 of the spirit that\nprefigured the final, bodily one:\nIt happens here, according to time, as we fall and move in the flesh; yet according to the soul, it reaches into the principle of the spirit or the light\nof faith in CHRIST, from which originates\u2014\u200bin the daily enactment of\npenitence\u2014\u200ba foretaste and part of the tinctURe of the future, eternal life of\njoy, and it brings good fruit, both in this world and the next.72\nFor the time being, the effects of that divine transmuting agent could therefore only be felt to a limited extent. They did cause anticipatory \u2018delight in the\nresurrection of our bodies\u2019 among born-\u200bagain believers and foreshadowed\nwhat was to take place at the final resurrection of the dead. The Silesian\nmystic described this in the following terms:\nAs the mystery of the resurrection (of the paradisiacal life in the spirit, of\nthe holy sabbath, of celestial bodiliness, of the spiritual ZION and holy\nJerusalem, etc.) lights up beautifully every now and again in everyone, so\nborn-\u200bagain man is wonderfully refreshed and sees in this principle [the visible world], like in a mirror, the recapitulation and reminder of the effect\u2014\u200b\npartly completed, partly yet to unfold . . .\u2014\u200bof the divine will and Holy Spirit,\nfeeling them with a foretaste.73\nFranckenberg held that the lives of believers were punctuated by visionary\nexperiences, during which they glimpsed what their lives and bodies would\nbe like in the new Jerusalem, described towards the end of the Book of\nRevelation.\nIn passages already quoted here, Franckenberg repeatedly employed a key\nterm of transmutational alchemy, for which he frequently used an idiosyncratic spelling: \u2018tinctURe\u2019 (TinctUR).74 Simply put, a tincture was an extract\nfrom one substance that had the ability to communicate its essential attributes\n\nPages 99:\n84\nSpiritual Alchemy\nto another substance, thereby changing the nature of that substance to be\nlike unto the first. Early in the seventeenth century, Martin Ruland\u2019s Lexicon\nalchemiae provided the following two definitions:\nA tincture is called that which penetrates and suffuses a body through its\ncolour, just as saffron does to water; whatever penetrates and colours the\nbodies. A tincture is a specific secret which has, by means of the essence and\nthe formal qualities, also the colour of a thing, so that it can tinge into a nature similar unto itself.75\nOn the same page of Ruland\u2019s dictionary, \u2018to tinge and to transmute\u2019 are listed\nas synonyms.76 Transmutation of base metals into gold required a red tincture that was applied in a process known as projection. Usually, this was held\nto take effect in a very short time or even instantaneously, according to most\naccounts.77\nYet for Franckenberg and Boehme before him, the term \u2018tincture\u2019 acquired\nprofound theosophical significance that cannot entirely be explained with recourse to alchemy. Boehme used it many times in his Clavis, a work he reportedly composed for the benefit of Franckenberg and Schweinichen, as well as\nthe more private Clavis specialis (Special Key) composed for Schweinichen.\nThere, Boehme defined it as follows: \u2018TINCTURE is the speaking of the word\n(the word in action).\u201978 The term could thus refer to the very act of divine\ncreation or its being sustained continually. In other cases, though, Boehme\nmore obviously drew on the alchemical core meaning, describing the tincture \u2018as a penetrating being\u2019 that \u2018penetrates and sanctifies\u2019 others.79 As it was\nclosely associated with the deity, this divine tincture was a force that could\nrender other things more like God. According to Boehme, it used to permeate all of creation: \u2018The tincture penetrated the earth and all the elements,\ntingeing everything; then paradise was on earth and within man.\u2019 Due to the\nFall, \u2018the divine activity, [working] through the tincture, fled into its own\nprinciple, that is, into the inner ground of the light world\u2019: God\u2019s Curse, according to Boehme, was actually a withdrawal or flight, playing on the near-\u200b\nhomophony of the German words for \u2018flight\u2019 (Flucht) and \u2018curse\u2019 (Fluch).80\nConversely, the return of the divine tincture into the created world would\nbring about the restoration of its prelapsarian state.\nDrawing on his familiarity with Hebrew, Franckenberg interpreted the\nvery pronunciation and spelling of \u2018tinctURe\u2019 as indicating that it originated in the principle of light. He highlighted the letters UR because they\n\nPages 100:\nAbraham von Franckenberg\n85\ntransliterated the Hebrew word \u02beor (light), with the U representing the letter\nvav and the R standing for resh. Yet the very same letters could also be used\nto transliterate \u02beur (fire): the spellings of both Hebrew terms are virtually\nidentical and only differentiated by the position of the vav\u2019s vowel dot.81 The\nsacred language thus provided a striking confirmation of the intricate relationship Boehme had posited between the principles of fire/\u200bwrath and light/\u200b\nlove, associated with God the Father and God the Son, respectively. In his later\nworks, Franckenberg occasionally employed a more comprehensive transliteration of \u02beor that included the silent letter aleph and the potential of vav to be\nvocalised as either o or u: \u2018AOUR.\u201982 Only very rarely did Franckenberg draw\nattention to the distinction between \u02beor and \u02beur, for example when noting\nthat, on the Last Day, \u2018one part\u2019 of humanity \u2018would go towards OR,\u2019 the light\nor salvation, \u2018to the right, the other part towards UR,\u2019 the fire or damnation,\n\u2018to the left.\u201983 In most cases, Franckenberg simply highlighted both OR and\nUR in words such as \u2018\u2609Rient\u2019 and \u2018natURe,\u2019 though these could potentially be\nambiguous, as in Hebrew text without vowel marks.84\nHowever, various occurrences of \u2018tinctURe\u2019 in Franckenberg\u2019s works\ncreate the impression that he quite consistently associated the term with\nlight, paradise, and salvation, rather than fire, judgement, and damnation.\nIn Sephiriel (The Counting Angel), an unprinted work Franckenberg completed in 1631, he explicitly mentioned the \u2018tinctURe of light\u2019 and linked it\nto the Transfiguration of Christ.85 He used the German translation of the\nsame phrase in Raphael, where he wrote of \u2018the bodily being of the tinctURe\n(TinctURwesen) of the spirit.\u201986 For Franckenberg, then, the \u2018tinctURe\u2019 was\nquite literally reaching out of the divine world of love and light into the physical world, effecting a delayed transmutation in the believers it reached: like\nChrist on Mount Tabor, they experienced fleeting transfigurations and would\nat last permanently attain a body of transparent gold fit for heaven and corresponding to his resurrection body.\nSuch episodes would not have been wholly unlike Franckenberg\u2019s original\nillumination in 1617. After his religious awakening, he immersed himself in\nthe heterodox literature of his day and eventually became acquainted with\nBoehme in person. The theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz played a decisive role in shaping\nFranckenberg\u2019s views on spiritual alchemy. Beginning in 1623, Franckenberg\nvery quickly became one of Boehme\u2019s most avid readers and, in important\nways, not only Boehme\u2019s biographer but also the foremost scholarly expert\non his works. Only a few years after Boehme\u2019s death, in 1627, Franckenberg\npenned a sympathetic treatment of Valentinus, the gnostic church father\n\nPages 101:\n86\nSpiritual Alchemy\ndenounced as a heretic, for the benefit of another student of Boehme\u2019s works,\nEhrenfried Hegenicht of G\u00f6rlitz. In this context, Franckenberg presented his\nmost elaborate treatment of spiritual alchemy. Later works, even Raphael, did\nnot significantly add to this but referred back to notions already contained\nin the Theophrastia Valentiniana. In describing spiritual alchemy against the\nbackdrop of the ancient world and its philosophy, Franckenberg considerably\nimproved its credentials and appeal in ways that ultimately foreshadowed\nMary Anne Atwood\u2019s much more comprehensive portrayal of spiritual alchemy as ancient theurgy. The mystical identification of Christ and the believer is crucial to the spiritual alchemy pioneered by Boehme and refined by\nFranckenberg.\n\nPages 102:\n5\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher,\nFranckenberg\u2019s Spiritual and\nPhilosophical Son\nAlthough Franckenberg never penned a later treatise that could have superseded the spiritual alchemy outlined in the Theophrastia Valentiniana, frequent allusions in later works confirm that he did not abandon it. The Silesian\nnobleman increasingly engaged with the literature of laboratory alchemy in\nhis later life. Early in the 1640s, the Thirty Years\u2019 War forced Franckenberg\nto flee his family\u2019s estate at Ludwigsdorf and eventually Silesia altogether. By\n9 July 1642, he found himself in Danzig where he remained for more than\nseven years. During July and August 1649, just a few months before his return to Ludwigsdorf, Franckenberg met a young traveller by the name of\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher.1 In him the Silesian mystic found a spiritual\nson and intellectual heir, who went on to become the author of an important\ntreatise on millenarianism. In contrast to other discipleships Franckenberg\ncultivated throughout his life, his relation to Seidenbecher is particularly\nwell-\u200bdocumented because this pupil was investigated on charges of heresy\nin 1661. Around Christmas of that year, Seidenbecher was removed from his\noffice as pastor in the tiny hamlet of Unterneubrunn, then in the Duchy of\nSaxe-\u200bGotha.\nIn the course of proceedings against him, the ecclesiastical authorities\nconfiscated several manuscripts in Seidenbecher\u2019s possession. The original\nrecords of this investigation appear to be lost, but significant parts remain\navailable in print. At the turn of the eighteenth century, Gottfried Arnold\u2019s\nImpartial History included a sympathetic portrayal of Seidenbecher\u2019s plight,\ndocumented by copious excerpts from archival sources.2 Almost four\ndecades later, the Danzig-\u200bbased pastor and school teacher Albrecht Meno\nVerpoorten published his De Georgii Laurentii Seidenbecheri vita (On the Life\nof Georg Lorenz Seidenbecher). This hostile biography cast Seidenbecher as\na heretical millenarian and Rosicrucian sympathiser. Franckenberg figured\nSpiritual Alchemy. Mike A. Zuber, Oxford University Press. \u00a9 Oxford University Press 2021.\nDOI: 10.1093/\u200boso/\u200b9780190073046.003.0006\n\nPages 103:\n88\nSpiritual Alchemy\nas the chief villain, sowing seeds of doubt concerning Lutheranism, as well\nas of heresy regarding millenarianism. He thus seduced a promising young\nman\u2014\u200bthe maternal grandson of the famous school teacher of Coburg,\nAndreas Libavius, author of the important 1595 textbook Alchemia.3 To\nmake matters worse, Libavius had even held a disputation against millenarianism and positioned himself as an intractable enemy of Rosicrucianism.4\nFor his part, Franckenberg voiced the conspiratorial hypothesis that Libavius\ncould have feigned his enmity towards the Rosicrucians.5\nThough Verpoorten\u2019s account is obviously slanted, the significance it\nattributes to Franckenberg is surpassed in importance only by the primary\nsources through which his role is documented. Most but far from all of\nthese also survive in a manuscript volume prepared with a view to the print\npublication of Verpoorten\u2019s Seidenbecheri vita.6 These extant documents\nshow that Franckenberg actively communicated his spiritual alchemy\nto Seidenbecher as his young disciple. After describing Franckenberg\u2019s\nincreasing engagement with alchemical literature and his initial encounter\nwith Seidenbecher in Danzig, the remainder of this chapter explores how the\nexiled Silesian nobleman initiated his pupil into the mysteries of spiritual alchemy. Seidenbecher\u2019s account and related sources highlight Franckenberg\u2019s\nstrategies as a teacher of spiritual alchemy. In fact, manuscripts owned by\nFranckenberg that Seidenbecher copied and the correspondence between\nthem contain many references to alchemical literature and terminology.\nThese allow us to establish that even if Seidenbecher became known for his\nmillenarianism, Franckenberg instructed him as a spiritual alchemist in a\nvery real sense. This was in keeping with alchemical lore, which held that\na laboratory practitioner communicated his secrets to a successor, who became his \u2018philosophical son.\u20197\nFranckenberg\u2019s Increasing Engagement\nwith Alchemical Literature\nFranckenberg paid scant attention to alchemical literature prior to the late\n1630s. In his Conclusiones of 1625, there is a reference to Oswald Croll\u2019s\nBasilica chymica (Royal Chymistry), a famous work first published around\n1608, but that is the only relevant title among a host of devotional, mystical,\nand heterodox texts. While the Theophrastia Valentiniana documents some\nfamiliarity with alchemy, it is difficult to link its pertinent content to specific\n\nPages 104:\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher\n89\nworks or authors other than Boehme. This situation changed dramatically\nwith Raphael, composed in 1638, which quoted Heinrich Khunrath without\nnaming him, mentioned several alchemical authors, and drew on other relevant texts, some of them in manuscript.8 In a letter dated 1 November 1639,\nthere is also plenty of alchemical language and even a hint of familiarity with\nlaboratory practice in \u2018the art of the philosophers.\u20199 Closer reading suggests,\nhowever, that Franckenberg was merely showing off by liberally sprinkling\na meditation on wine with alchemical terms and symbols. Marginalia that\nthe Silesian nobleman added to his personal copy of Johannes Bureus\u2019 FaMa\n\u00e8 sCanzIa reDVX (News Returning from Scandinavia) after 1639 also contain alchemical symbols and allusions.10 Even if the precise contours of\nFranckenberg\u2019s alchemical reading remain unclear, there can be no doubt\nthat he was considerably more familiar with relevant literature by the end of\nthe 1630s.\nComposed around the middle or towards the end of the 1640s, the\nSpeculum Apocalypticum (Apocalyptic Mirror) echoed many positions already endorsed in the Theophrastia Valentiniana. Despite the preface bearing\nthe date 13 May 1629, the work repeatedly referred to the Oculus sidereus\n(Starry Eye) and to Von dem Ohrte der Seelen (On the Place of the Soul),\nwritten in 1643 and 1644, respectively.11 The Speculum Apocalypticum therefore dated to the mid-\u200b1640s and eventually found inclusion in Trias mystica,\npublished in 1651. Among other things, it contained a variation on the alchemical initialism VITRIOL, that is, \u2018Visit the interiors of the earth; while\nrectifying you will find the hidden stone\u2019 (Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando\nInvenies Occultum Lapidem). In Franckenberg\u2019s hands, this turned into \u2018Visit\nthe interiors of the Adamic macro-\u200band microcosmic earth\u2019 (Visita Interiora\nTerrae Adamicae Mai crocosmicae). In other words, one had to inspect not\nonly the outside world but also the inner world of the microcosm. This injunction \u2018towards life\u2019 ([ad] V.I.T.A.M.) was followed by \u2018there a Christian\nought to be reborn\u2019 (ibi Christianum Oportet Renasci), with the three capital\nletters forming the Latin word for \u2018heart.\u201912 Put another way, it was within the\nheart of a body made of dust, ash, and earth that rebirth towards eternal life\ntook place.\nIn correspondence throughout the early 1640s, Franckenberg emerged\nas a witness of alchemical experiments and asserted the superiority of older\nauthorities over \u2018today\u2019s experience\u2019 on 5 January 1643.13 He also exchanged\nletters with the mysterious Floretus \u00e0 Bethabor, the likely author of an alchemical allegory. On 24 June 1644, Bethabor wrote that \u2018chymical matters\n\nPages 105:\n90\nSpiritual Alchemy\n(Chymische Sachen) . . . are very difficult, arduous, and more irksome than\nuseful.\u201914 That probably was not the kind of response Franckenberg would\nhave hoped for, yet it did not deter him from further pursuing his alchemical\ninterests. Towards the end of the decade, the Silesian nobleman corresponded\nwith Tobias K\u00f6nig, later ennobled as Von K\u00f6nigfels. In August 1649\nFranckenberg wrote two letters to the \u2018distinguished artisan or mechanic\u2019 in\nRiga.15 These missives only survived thanks to Georg Lorenz Seidenbecher,\nwho copied them before they were expedited. As Seidenbecher\u2019s own letters to Franckenberg document, they exchanged information on alchemical\nbooks right until the end of his life: on 10/\u200b20 June 1652, Seidenbecher still\npromised his mentor a \u2018copy\u2019 of a text on the \u2018philosophers\u2019 stone\u2019 (L. \u03a6.).16\nSince this was a mere few days before Franckenberg passed away on 25 June,\nit is doubtful whether the letter reached him in time. But this only took place\nalmost three years after the first encounter between the Silesian mystic and a\nyoung traveller from Thuringia.\nFranckenberg and Seidenbecher in Danzig\nSeidenbecher met the impoverished Silesian nobleman in his Danzig\nexile during the summer of 1649. The young traveller wrote a detailed account of these days and weeks, titled \u2018Conversation with Ancient Virtue\nand Faith\u2019 (Conversatio cum Antiqua Virtute Fideque), integrating one\nof the many playful devices through which Franckenberg concealed the\ninitials of his name. Joachim Telle has prepared a modern edition of this\ntext and emphasised what a vivid portrayal of Franckenberg\u2019s day-\u200bto-\u200bday\nlife it contains.17 Seidenbecher himself repeatedly referred back to the\n\u2018Conversation\u2019 in later years, as he continued to grapple with the topics\nFranckenberg had discussed with him. In some ways, his encounter with the\nSilesian nobleman parallels that of a younger Franckenberg and Boehme. The\nage gap was slightly bigger: Franckenberg was already a few years older than\nthe theosopher had been at the time, and Seidenbecher met Franckenberg\nat a younger age. Seidenbecher\u2019s own letters from subsequent years leave no\ndoubt that he viewed his contact with Franckenberg as defining for his life\nand faith.18 Looking back, he wrote to Franckenberg that the Silesian mystic\nhad \u2018sired\u2019 him \u2018just like Paul his Onesimus, so I duly accord you the title and\nname of a father.\u201919 Onesimus was a runaway slave mentioned in Paul\u2019s Epistle\nto Philemon, and the apostle sought to appeal to Onesimus\u2019 former owner\n\nPages 106:\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher\n91\nPhilemon for clemency. Not only did Seidenbecher become Franckenberg\u2019s\nspiritual son, there are indications that the younger man had to return to a\nharsh master, too: the relationship between Seidenbecher and his biological\nfather was strained. On one occasion, Philipp Walther Seidenbecher, a high-\u200b\nranking minister in Eisfeld, intercepted a letter sent by Franckenberg and\nconfronted his son about it; another time, Georg Lorenz complained about\nthe enmity of household members.20 Against this backdrop, Franckenberg\nbecame an alternative father figure for Seidenbecher.\nOn the evening of Friday, 13/\u200b23 July 1649, Seidenbecher encountered\nFranckenberg for the first time. Suffering from poverty in his Danzig exile,\nFranckenberg talked about the devotional literature that had had such a\nformative impact on him: \u2018To begin with, Arndt\u2019s writings suffice; Thomas\n\u00e0 Kempis, Tauler, and the Theologia Germanica rise higher.\u2019 After accusing\nthe Jesuits of \u2018castrating writings of this kind,\u2019 he also criticised Lutheranism\nfor paying so little heed to spiritual rebirth: \u2018On regeneration, but little is\ncontained in the Augsburg Confession.\u201921 This evaluation is defining for\nFranckenberg\u2019s stance towards the Lutheran church; to a significant extent, the spiritual alchemy he developed sought to address this perceived\nshortcoming. On Sunday afternoon, 15/\u200b25 July, Franckenberg derided the\nimpiety of his age and extolled the virtue of pagan sages, such as Hermes\nTrismegistus. Seidenbecher noted that Franckenberg \u2018showed me a certain treatise written by himself, to be published in Holland at some point.\u201922\nThough the title is not mentioned in this context, the treatise in question was\nmost likely Franckenberg\u2019s 1637 Via veterum sapientum (Path of the Ancient\nSages) in manuscript\u2014\u200bit was eventually published in 1675. He handed it to\nSeidenbecher to read a few days later, on 19/\u200b29 July, when there was no time\nfor conversation. This work contains a whole section consisting of excerpts\nfrom the Hermetic writings.23 Perceiving a kindred soul in Seidenbecher,\nFranckenberg warmed to him immediately, telling the young man about the\ndevotional literature that had shaped him and letting him read a scribal publication that would only be printed a quarter of a century later.\nOn Monday, 16/\u200b26 July, Franckenberg confided his millenarianism to his\ndisciple. Though this aspect is mostly ignored by scholarship, Franckenberg\nheld millenarian views but articulated them only in the subtlest manner\nor in his least known works, such as the unprinted Sephiriel.24 Specifically,\nFranckenberg and Seidenbecher discussed the impossibility of predicting\nthe date at which the millennium was to begin. Referring to earlier writers,\nsuch as the Torgau astrologer Paul Nagel, Franckenberg cautioned against\n\nPages 107:\n92\nSpiritual Alchemy\narriving at precise predictions based on rational procedures. As he pithily put\nit in a later conversation, \u2018reason is a strumpet.\u2019 However, it would seem that\nhe did allow for the possibility of gaining further insights on God\u2019s timetable\nbased on the interaction of textual exegesis and divine revelation. Avoiding\nthe designations employed by the guardians of orthodoxy, Franckenberg\nused an exceedingly rare term in this context, \u2018sabbathism.\u2019 A decade later it\nwould find its way onto the title page of Seidenbecher\u2019s Chiliasmus sanctus\n(Holy Millenarianism), composed in 1658 and published pseudonymously\nin 1660.25 Based on the notion that world history mirrored the first week of\ncreation, this term encapsulated the millenarian belief that, after six thousand years of turmoil, there would be a final era of peace, corresponding to\nthe sabbath, the seventh day on which God rested from his creative work. On\nthis fateful Monday in Danzig, Franckenberg planted the seeds of millenarian\nheresy that would prove to be Seidenbecher\u2019s undoing in the early 1660s.\nOn the very same day, Franckenberg gave Seidenbecher the rare opportunity to read some of Boehme\u2019s epistles, presumably in manuscript: \u2018He\nshowed me the letters of Jacob Boehme I ought to read,\u2019 the young disciple\nrecalled.26 While individual letters or epistolary treatises had already been\npublished in 1639, the first more comprehensive edition was only printed in\n1658. Although published long after his death, Franckenberg was intimately\ninvolved with this project: he conceived it, provided the idea for the frontispiece, and contributed the preface to the Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben\n(Theosophical Epistles). Franckenberg may thus posthumously be counted\namong its editors, alongside Swedish diplomat Michel Le Blon, who also did\nnot live to see the final product, and Amsterdam-\u200bbased publisher Heinrich\nBetke.27 In later years, Seidenbecher continued to engage with Boehme. On\n9 June 1650, for instance, he reported on his encounter with Johann Angelius\nvon Werdenhagen. Ennobled probably in 1637, this famous lawyer had translated Boehme\u2019s Viertzig Fragen von der Seelen (Forty Questions on the Soul)\ninto Latin in 1632. Werdenhagen fondly showed to Seidenbecher the various Dutch editions of other works by Boehme which he had collected.28 In a\nlater letter, Seidenbecher remembered Franckenberg\u2019s critical remarks about\nsome translations of the theosopher\u2019s works: \u2018Because Mr [Joachim] Betke,\u2019\na minister in Linum near Fehrbellin, \u2018recommended the writings of Jacob\nBoehme Teutonicus, I would like to know which are the choicest among them\nand which ought to be read before the others, also in which language, for I recall hearing you say in Danzig that they had been poorly translated.\u201929 Once\nagain, the repercussions of that summery Monday afternoon could be felt\n\nPages 108:\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher\n93\nthroughout Seidenbecher\u2019s Chiliasmus sanctus: in this controversial publication, he referred to Boehme repeatedly and even quoted an extended passage\nfrom the theosopher\u2019s treatise on the new birth.30\nOver the coming weeks, Franckenberg and Seidenbecher usually\nmet several times a week. Although they occasionally touched upon the\nshortcomings of the church, they spent most of their time discussing devotional literature and unpublished treatises. Authors that commanded their\nattention included the apocalyptic writer Julius Sperber, \u2018several of whose\nmanuscripts\u2019 Franckenberg claimed to own, and Christoph Hirsch, \u2018an\neighty-\u200byear-\u200bold celibate deacon in Eisleben, the author of the Magical Jewel\n(Gemma magica) not yet publicly seen in print.\u201931 As Seidenbecher was plan\u00ad\u00ad\nning to travel through Eisleben on his way home, Franckenberg wrote a\nletter of recommendation for his disciple, in which he also urged Hirsch to\npublish his treatise.32 Despite this encouragement, it remained unprinted\nuntil 1688. As Franckenberg wished for Seidenbecher \u2018to make contact with\nthe associates\u2019 of the Rosicrucians, he also tasked his pupil with tracking\ndown a cell of them near his hometown, \u2018six miles from Eisfeld\u2019 and \u2018not far\nfrom Coburg at a monastery.\u201933 Their conversations ranged from treatises to\ntheir authors and thence to the more mysterious societies that harboured secret wisdom.\nOne of Seidenbecher\u2019s later letters, dated 5 September 1650, indicates\nthat he had indeed probed Hirsch for more precise directions regarding\nthe Rosicrucians of Coburg. Unfortunately, the elderly deacon was not\nforthcoming. Although he did not deny that such a cell existed, he merely\nindicated \u2018by which guise those who are called chymists enter in.\u2019 Hirsch\u2019s\nsuggestion that the Rosicrucians were chymical practitioners considerably\ndampened Seidenbecher\u2019s enthusiasm: \u2018Since I am currently a stranger to the\nchymical pursuit (in studio Chymico), although the case may be truthful regarding the aforementioned habitation, I have decided not to apply myself to\nit anymore or to investigate further: for I believe that I will not be able to learn\nmore from others than I learned from you, by God\u2019s grace.\u201934 Franckenberg\u2019s\nyoung disciple thus found himself disappointed in his quest for other guides\non the path of spiritual alchemy; in comparison, laboratory alchemy was of\nless interest to him. As far as Seidenbecher was concerned, the Silesian nobleman had already assumed the role of a mentor who had revealed to him all\nthe secrets of spiritual alchemy he needed to know.\nIn exchange for Franckenberg\u2019s guidance, Seidenbecher assisted him as\nan amanuensis, copying letters the Silesian mystic had written before they\n\nPages 109:\n94\nSpiritual Alchemy\nwere expedited. In addition to the benefit of a further copy, the young disciple was also meant to derive spiritual edification from these assignments.\nA scrap of paper Franckenberg addressed to Seidenbecher made this explicit: \u2018Greetings. I kindly ask whether you may be able to make enough time,\nwithout too much trouble, to copy what is enclosed for me; you can also edify\nyourself somewhat through this.\u201935 In this way, Franckenberg styled what was\nessentially a lengthy task to be completed on his behalf as a win-\u200bwin situation: not only did Seidenbecher become privy to Franckenberg\u2019s communications with others, his spiritual progress would be furthered by the same\ntoken. The young disciple deemed the resulting manuscripts more precious\nthan gold: one of his letters to Franckenberg recounted how a group of bandits robbed him of his financial provisions, yet upon his \u2018earnest entreaty\u2019\nthey restored his knapsack to him, which held the precious manuscripts.36\nLuckily, the robbers themselves were more interested in hard currency. If the\nvery survival of these documents is anything to go by, Seidenbecher treasured these texts and perused them throughout his later life.\nFranckenberg\u2019s Discipling through Reading\nRecommendations, Letters, and Manuscripts\nSome of the material Seidenbecher copied during his sojourn in Danzig\nand fortunately received back from the robbers treated alchemical\nmatters: Franckenberg\u2019s two letters to Tobias K\u00f6nig and a sequence of\nshorter texts with arcane content. If the Theophrastia Valentiniana contains\nthe most comprehensive statement of Franckenberg\u2019s spiritual alchemy,\nthese texts and letters show how he tried to nudge his associates towards\ndrawing similar conclusions. He did not present them with a complete\noutline; rather, he gave K\u00f6nig and Seidenbecher various pointers, presumably hoping that they would elaborate on them individually. Another\none of Franckenberg\u2019s disciples allows us to conclude that this procedure\nworked: Angelus Silesius, the physician Johann Scheffler who inherited\npart of Franckenberg\u2019s library and subsequently converted to Catholicism,\nintegrated aspects of spiritual alchemy into the poetry of his celebrated\nCherubinischer Wandersmann (Angelic Wayfarer), first published under\na different title in 1657.37 The material Seidenbecher received as part of\nthis education provides the fullest documentation for Franckenberg\u2019s\ndiscipling activities.\n\nPages 110:\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher\n95\nThroughout the letters to K\u00f6nig copied by Seidenbecher, Franckenberg\ndrew on several familiar clich\u00e9s derived from alchemical literature. In a\nvariation on the Benedictine phrase \u2018Pray and work!\u2019 (ora et labora), which\nHeinrich Khunrath had taken up prominently in an alchemical context, Franckenberg exhorted his correspondent to \u2018continue on this path\nsteadily, delicately with prayer and work, wakefully and without haste.\u201938\nSubsequently, he alluded to another borrowing from Khunrath that played\nan important role in his own Raphael: the grouping of \u2018the true kabbalah,\nmagic, chemistry.\u2019 Discussing the Transfiguration of Christ, Franckenberg\nheld that the disciples who witnessed it \u2018were so strongly tinged by this\nfiery aspect that they . . . wanted to call down fire from heaven.\u2019 However,\nas this was only a momentary prefiguration of the future \u2018glorified spirit\nand body of CHRIST,\u2019 Franckenberg explained that the time was not yet\nripe for this.\nYet such anticipatory reflections of future glory did not only take\nplace in biblical events. With the \u2018Know thyself \u2019 formula firmly in mind,\nFranckenberg held that the various stages of God\u2019s revelation throughout\nhistory were mirrored in the individual experience of the believer: \u2018which\nthreefold secret of the heavenly Tinct\u2641Re can also simultaneously be found\nin every single born-\u200bagain, believing human.\u201939 Having concluded that \u2018the\nOne Anointment can teach all of this,\u2019 Franckenberg contrasted the \u2018glorious,\nsecret arts and sciences\u2019 of the \u2018old kabbalists, magi, and chymists\u2019 against the\nantics of \u2018the new artists.\u2019 Instead of looking to them, Franckenberg encouraged K\u00f6nig to focus on \u2018the First FOundational F\u2609unt and AOURigin of all\nwisdom in God, the eternal, unique, and living WORD and his SPIRIT\u2019 (the\nTrinity), to avoid being seduced or deceived.40 After a lengthy passage on\nthe coming of Elias Artista, the biblical prophet to return as an alchemist\ntowards the end of time, Franckenberg implicitly referred to his Via veterum\nsapientum and noted that the chief aim was to become \u2018fiery\u2019 like the transfigured Christ and \u2018finally to become conformable unto HIM in being and\npowers\u2019: deiform, as it were.\nFranckenberg held that the potential for this transmutational deification\nwas contained within the believer and that it had to be wrought out in a process of spiritual alchemy: \u2018for our heavenly spirit, our divine soul, and our\nparadisiacal body already has this within itself,\u2019 Franckenberg wrote, \u2018in and\nout of Jesus Christ, God with us (ha-\u200b\u02bfImanu\u02beel); through faith, love, and hope;\nby predestination. With moderate fasting, orderly waking and watching,\nas well as passionate praying (the true masterful regimen of the spiritual,\n\nPages 111:\n96\nSpiritual Alchemy\nphilosophical fire), it only has to be nourished, augmented, and continually kept in the fire, until its proper time and perfection.\u201941 The practices of\nspiritual alchemy Franckenberg described\u2014\u200bfasting, waking, praying\u2014\u200bwere\nsimilar to those of Paul Nagel\u2019s \u2018Our Azoth Turned to Gold.\u2019 In the second extant letter to K\u00f6nig, dated 18/\u200b28 August 1649, Franckenberg doubled down\non the interiority of this spiritual alchemy when contrasted against laboratory activity: \u2018One does not need any other fire, vessel, or oven beyond a pure,\nfaithful heart and a new, certain spirit, in which God and the Word dwell\nand effect his work.\u201942 Breaking down the doctrinal content of his spiritual\nalchemy to the everyday life of his disciples, the ascetic lifestyle of fasting,\nwaking and watching, and praying\u2014\u200bcarefully maintained throughout their\nentire lives\u2014\u200bwas the fire in which the physico-\u200bspiritual new birth would mature to perfection.\nPlaying on a passage in the Rosicrucian Fama Fraternitatis (News of the\nFraternity) that Franckenberg had first encountered during his student days\nin Jena between 1613 and 1617, he exhorted K\u00f6nig to focus on the chief\nwork.43 As vividly illustrated in Daniel M\u00f6gling\u2019s pseudonymous Speculum\nsophicum rhodo-\u200bstauroticum (Sophic Rosicrucian Mirror) of 1618, this took\nplace in the oratorium and mostly consisted in prayer:44\nin sum, one should faithfully focus on the chief work (Ergon), which is\nto earnestly pray for the Holy Spirit, to seek the kingdom of God within\noneself, and to knock at the door of life. Then the subordinate work\n(Parergon)\u2014\u200bthe light of nature, which receives its lustre from the light of\ngrace, as the moon from the sun\u2014\u200bwill also be found in due course.45\nFranckenberg reiterated this notion in the second letter. In addition, he\nstressed that K\u00f6nig would have to embark on his own spiritual process\nwithout relying on \u2018artisanal habits, tools, or hands-\u200bon skills (Handgriffen),\nfor these belong to the mechanical parergon, which only afterwards comes\nforth out of the main work and becomes manifest.\u201946\nSince Franckenberg\u2019s letters to K\u00f6nig survive because Seidenbecher\ncopied them, there are tangible connections between them and the ones that\nthe Thuringian traveller later addressed to his teacher. If Franckenberg prescribed daily devotions as an alchemical regimen to K\u00f6nig, there is a closely\nrelated passage in one of Seidenbecher\u2019s letters. In it he described his religious edification in alchemical terms and alternately construed himself as\nthe matter or the adept:\n\nPages 112:\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher\n97\nthe philosophers\u2019 stone may be used by those who have it. For my part, as\na beginner still, I work towards the stone of which Psalm 118, Isaiah 8 and\n28, Daniel 2, and other passages treat. I am still in putrefaction. I have to\npray daily: \u2018Mortify me through your goodness,\u2019 etc., and \u2018Break my will,\u2019\netc. This ought to be handled carefully, also industriously and diligently. It\nmeans a lot to me to be taught a spiritual artifice (ein Geistlich Handgriefl.)\nby you, in order to correctly direct the work. Yet everything depends on the\ngrace of our Thrice-\u200bGreatest (\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5 \u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03b5\u03b3\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5): we have to seek it daily in\nhumility and content ourselves with whatever is given us from above.47\nAs alchemical matter in God\u2019s furnace, Seidenbecher viewed himself as currently undergoing an early but most significant stage of the great work; as\na novice in spiritual alchemy, he sought further instruction on how to successfully progress in it. On the whole, Seidenbecher\u2019s words appear very similar to Nagel\u2019s spiritual alchemy and its emphasis on daily prayer. His request\nfor a new \u2018spiritual artifice\u2019 is particularly fascinating: in alchemical literature, the German word Seidenbecher used (Handgriff) commonly referred\nto the most practical instructions that could be difficult to communicate\nin writing. In the most literal sense, these moves would require hands-\u200bon\ndexterity. In a way, then, Seidenbecher was requesting spiritual exercises\nthat were specifically alchemical (within the context of spiritual alchemy).\nDistancing himself from the adepts who possessed the lapis in ways reminiscent of Franckenberg\u2019s advice to K\u00f6nig, Seidenbecher emphasised his spiritual rather than laboratory alchemy.\nIn addition, the young disciple exhibited familiarity with various tropes\non the relation between alchemy and Christianity. He used the lapis-\u200bChristus\nanalogy when describing his quest for the heavenly cornerstone and established a parallel between Hermes Trismegistus and Christ as the pioneers\nof laboratory and spiritual alchemy, respectively.48 Seidenbecher played\non Hermes\u2019 \u2018Thrice-\u200bGreatest\u2019 epithet, for which different explanations had\nbeen proposed. A century and a half earlier, for instance, the Florentine philosopher Marsilio Ficino had famously described Hermes as \u2018the greatest\nphilosopher, and the greatest priest, and the greatest king.\u201949 Franckenberg\nfurnished a similar explanation to show that Christ equally deserved\nit: \u2018KING in the Resurrection: Mem. PRIEST in the Passion: Shin. PROPHET\nin the Institution: \u1e24et.\u201950 The three Hebrew letters form the root of the verb\n\u2018to anoint,\u2019 from which \u2018messiah\u2019 (mashia\u1e25) is derived. While both Jesus and\nHermes were kings and priests, they distinguished themselves through their\n\nPages 113:\n98\nSpiritual Alchemy\nthird role: although alchemical literature also occasionally hailed Hermes as a\nprophet, he was much more commonly described as a leading philosopher.51\nHaving instructed K\u00f6nig and, by the same token, Seidenbecher in the\nbasics of his spiritual alchemy, Franckenberg also pointed them to literature\nthrough which they would be able to learn more. The Silesian mystic made\nthe following recommendations:\non this subject, one might also read Gerard Dorn\u2019s booklet out of Trithemius\non the supersensible and supernatural magistery, as well as the Wasserstein\nder Weysen (which the Teutonic Jacob Boehme recommended in a letter\nto Valentin Thirnes [Tschirness], to be found with Mr Joachim Polemann)\nand other similarly foundational writings.52\nAt the time the Boehme epistle to which Franckenberg referred in his letter\nto K\u00f6nig was only available in manuscript; its actual recipient had been the\nStriegau physician Jonas Daniel Koschwitz.53 Although K\u00f6nig\u2019s share of\nthe epistolary exchange has been lost, it would seem that he expected more\nspecific guidance on laboratory matters from Franckenberg: both he and\nJoachim Polemann, his son-\u200bin-\u200blaw, who probably first introduced him to the\nSilesian nobleman, were skilled practitioners.54 In this respect, they can be\ncontrasted against Seidenbecher, who readily admitted his ignorance in laboratory alchemy but gradually became more familiar with alchemical literature, as Franckenberg requested information on the holdings of the ducal\nlibrary at Gotha.55 Not distracted by the subordinate work, the young disciple\nfound it easier to grasp Franckenberg\u2019s spiritual alchemy as the main work.\nRegarding further issues raised in an additional letter from K\u00f6nig that\narrived while Franckenberg was writing to him, the Silesian mystic indicated\nthat more insights would be found in his own \u2018RaphaEL, copied by Joachim\nPolemann, as well as J. B. T. \u2019s treatise on rebirth and Signatura rerum, as well\nas in The Way to Christ and On the Threefold Life.\u201956 Polemann thus emerges\nas an important collector of works by Boehme and Franckenberg in manuscript. More significantly, however, the very list itself (to which we might add\nthe Emerald Tablet, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, and the Rosicrucian\nmanifestos) confirms how widely read Franckenberg had become by the\nlate 1640s. Several of these texts and authors had not yet appeared in the\nConclusiones or the Theophrastia Valentiniana. In addition, the strong presence of Boehme in Franckenberg\u2019s reading recommendations confirms\nthat, specifically regarding spiritual alchemy, he continued to attribute great\n\nPages 114:\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher\n99\nimportance to the theosopher even more than two decades after he had composed the Theophrastia Valentiniana.\nThe Journey of Friedrich Gallus and the Kabbalistic Regimen\nIn addition to the two letters Franckenberg had written to K\u00f6nig,\nSeidenbecher also copied several short texts with material on alchemy and\nother arcane subjects. Seidenbecher\u2019s biographer, Verpoorten, printed them\nunder the header \u2018Other [Texts] Pertaining to the Rosicrucians,\u2019 presumably\nwith the intention of showing to what questionable material\u2014\u200bskirting the\nboundaries of credulity, superstition, and heterodoxy\u2014\u200bFranckenberg had\nintroduced the young Seidenbecher. Two among these merit closer scrutiny,\nthe longest one, Reise Frieder[ich] Galli (The Journey of Friedrich Gallus),\nand the most cryptic one, Reg[imen] Cabal[isticum] (Kabbalistic Regimen).\nAccording to Seidenbecher\u2019s closing statement, he had copied the former\ntext \u2018in the month of August 1649 out of A. V. F.\u2019s manuscripts (which had\nbeen communicated to the same out of the very own handwritten itinerary of\nFriedrich Gallus in 1638).\u201957 Franckenberg thus claimed familiarity with the\nwork a decade before its first printed edition of 1648. Philological comparison has confirmed this: Didier Kahn holds that the version harking back to\nSeidenbecher\u2019s copy is more reliable than any other edition.58 Since Johann\nFabel in Amsterdam had published a number of works by the Silesian mystic\nsince 1646, Franckenberg was most likely aware of the 1648 Gallus edition.59\nYet the nobleman continued to prefer the manuscript over the print. This\ntestifies to the importance Franckenberg attached to manuscripts and the\npractices surrounding them.\nIndeed, it would seem that Franckenberg consciously used the medium\nof the handwritten page to promote Seidenbecher\u2019s spiritual progress. There\nwere good reasons for doing so. On a more superficial level, Fabel\u2019s product\n(like Beyerland\u2019s Boehme editions) may not have met Franckenberg\u2019s high\nphilological standard. Joachim Telle remarks that Franckenberg, for all his\nmystical aspirations, was also a keen philologist who greatly appreciated\nreliable texts.60 At a deeper level, though, Franckenberg\u2019s decision to let\nSeidenbecher work with the manuscript might have had to do with the psychology of textual acquisition as well as the intensity of working with that\nmedium. One of Franckenberg\u2019s closest friends, the Silesian courtier and\npoet Johann Theodor von Tschesch, explicitly stated that he copied texts\n\nPages 115:\n100\nSpiritual Alchemy\nfrom which he hoped to derive significant devotional benefit.61 From his perspective as a teacher and spiritual guide, Franckenberg would have wanted to\ncommunicate certain materials in a way that would enhance their impact. His\nownership of the source and the effort Seidenbecher had to invest in order to\nliterally make the text his own would have greatly contributed to the importance and relevance it held for the disciple. Conversely, if Franckenberg had\nmerely given him the print, it is conceivable that Seidenbecher might not even\nhave found the time to read it. Considering how deeply Seidenbecher cared\nfor his manuscripts, it is safe to assume that he would also have paid close attention to The Journey of Friedrich Gallus and the other texts Franckenberg\nhad shared with him in Danzig. By recommending that his disciple copy\nThe Journey of Friedrich Gallus, Franckenberg made sure that Seidenbecher\nwould absorb its lessons.\nAs the title suggests, the text details Friedrich Gallus\u2019s quest for the\nphilosophers\u2019 stone, which led him from Seidenbecher\u2019s native Thuringia\nacross the Alps to what is now Italy. The German wayfarer finally found a\ntrue adept at a monastery near Trent. The scion of a noble family, Von\nTrautmannsdorf, he propagated a very high-\u200bminded ideal for the true alchemist: \u2018in sum, his entire life, whatever he does and does not do, is inclined\ntowards God and righteousness.\u2019 Due to his strong iatrochemical focus,\nTrautmannsdorf held transmutational alchemists in contempt. \u2018Always remember this as a touchstone,\u2019 he admonished Gallus, \u2018those alchemists or\nsupposed philosophers who wager whatever is given to them on the transmutation of metals build but golden mountains within heads, persuade, promise\nmuch, make expenses, demand to be published\u2014\u200bthese are false cheats.\u2019 They\nwere the noisy alchemical charlatans who advertised their skills, whereas\nthose who really had the tincture considered it less important than their\nright standing with God and kept quiet about it. Furthermore, the adept also\nposited two kinds of medicine, resembling Nagel\u2019s twofold azoth. \u2018For since\nGod has prescribed medication for the soul through Christ,\u2019 Trautmannsdorf\nasked, \u2018would he not also provide the least thing for the body, that is, righteous medicine within nature, by which it [the body] could fend off accidents\nand turn away illnesses until the appointed time, which it cannot and may\nnot transcend?\u201962 The adept proved this point through his own extreme longevity: having met Gallus in 1602, he supposedly died in 1609, at the biblical\nage of 147 years.\nAnother notable text copied by Seidenbecher merits closer scrutiny,\ntoo: the Kabbalistic Regimen, an exceedingly cryptic piece of writing even by\n\nPages 116:\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher\n101\nFranckenberg\u2019s high standard of opacity. It begins by expressing the desire\nto transcend the binary division and quaternary matter of the four elements\nin order to return, by way of the ternary\u2014\u200bthe three principles but also the\nTrinity\u2014\u200b\u2018to the simplicity . . . of the divine monad.\u201963 Since numbers figure so\nprominently in the Kabbalistic Regimen, Franckenberg\u2019s unprinted Sephiriel\ncan shed light on the associations they carried for its author (see fig. 5.1). The\nnumber two was closely associated with separation from God and opposition\ngenerally: \u2018for whatever is split in two or divided . . . is an exit and departure\nfrom the ONE, as in divorce and opposition, through which discord is born\nin the reflection or counterpart.\u2019 Three, by contrast, was the number of the\ndivine Trinity, surpassed only by one: \u2018the ONE or number ONE is not normally in and of itself a NUMBER, for it belongs to GOD who is not contained\nby any number.\u2019 Regarding the number four, Franckenberg wrote that it was\n\u2018the first physical number of the outward, worldly regime or natural, bodily\nELement.\u201964 Only by overcoming contrariety and the physical world through\nthe Trinity would the believer be able to achieve the distinctly mystical goal\nof oneness with the divine.\nIn its use of challenging language and the ideas expressed through it, the\nKabbalistic Regimen resonated with Franckenberg\u2019s angelic treatises Sephiriel\nand Raphael, as well as Gerard Dorn\u2019s De spagirico artificio Jo. Trithemii\nsententia (Johannes Trithemius\u2019 Theses on the Spagyric Art) and the circular engravings of Khunrath\u2019s Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae. At the\nvery end of his Raphael, Franckenberg himself quoted remarkably similar\nstatements from the pseudo-\u200bParacelsian Aurora philosophorum (Dawn of the\nPhilosophers), which Dorn had translated into Latin.65 Prior to the Flemish\nalchemist, the English magus John Dee had also used similar language, and\nhis Monas hieroglyphica of 1564 came to be widely read among alchemists.66\nThus, there was ample precedent for Franckenberg\u2019s combination of alchemy\nand numerological mysticism.\nSomewhat more accessibly, Franckenberg continued to extemporise on\nthe same notion of mystical union in two German stanzas, playing on alchemical tropes and language. Like alchemists baffled by the simplicity of\ntheir work in theory and the immense difficulties they faced when putting it\ninto practice, Franckenberg described the process of uniting with the One as\n\u2018a difficult and easy work\u2019 both at the same time. Once the One was attained,\nor once the \u2018temporal One\u2019 (Ain) was made \u2018an eternal 1,\u2019 it \u2018gives us all power\non earth, /\u200bEven though the fool ridicules it.\u201967 Franckenberg used the unusual spelling \u2018Ain\u2019 instead of \u2018Ein\u2019 in order to allude to its Hebrew meaning as\n\nPages 117:\n102\nSpiritual Alchemy\nFig. 5.1 Abraham von Franckenberg, Saephiriel. One of the most carefully\nexecuted Sephiriel manuscripts, this copy uses three different colours and\ncontains elaborate marginalia and diagrams. Zurich, Zentralbibliothek: SCH R\n809 (Bibliothek Oskar R. Schlag), f. 12r. \u00a9 ZB Zurich, Digitalisierungszentrum.\na possible transliteration of the words \u02bfayin (eye) or \u02beayin (nothing). With a\ndifferent pronunciation, the latter formed part of the kabbalistic key term \u02been\nsoph (without end). Franckenberg used this expression to furnish Boehme\u2019s\nUngrund with the credentials of ancient wisdom.68 This return to the One,\nto God in his primordial state, is a central topic of Franckenberg\u2019s mysticism\n\nPages 118:\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher\n103\nas expressed subtly throughout Sephiriel.69 As it bestows power on earth, the\ncelestial stone that is attained in the process corresponds to Jesus and recalls\nthe words of his Great Commission: \u2018all authority has been given to me in\nheaven and on earth.\u201970 In discussions of the lapis-\u200bChristus analogy, not least\nin pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy, the worldly rejection of Jesus as the cornerstone and the humble appearance of the philosophers\u2019 stone were frequently\naligned.\nReverting to Latin, Franckenberg instructed Seidenbecher to perform an\nalchemical marriage. Alchemists spoke of marriage when they so thoroughly\nunited two contrary substances that they could not (or hardly) be separated\nanymore. The prime example for this was the intimate union of sulphur and\nmercury in gold.71 According to Franckenberg, heaven and earth had to be\njoined together to form a single matter:\nMAKE\nOut of the celestial sea and the terrestrial feminine\nThe CIRCLE of a simple BODY:\nThence the kabbalistic quadrangle\nOf the four-\u200belementary colours.72\nFranckenberg had also used the language of alchemical marriage and the\nunion of opposites in his letter to Werdenhagen, dated 13 August 1637\nand published as the final part of Trias mystica. In that context, the Silesian\nmystic wrote of \u2018that most holy and great MYSTERY and Sacrament of the\nMARRIAGE (of the sun and moon), . . . of THINGS divine and human,\nspiritual and corporeal, celestial and terrestrial.\u201973 This suggested that the alchemical marriage of gold and silver was analogous to the unification of God\nand man, just as in Paul Nagel and Jacob Boehme.\nIndeed, beyond alchemy, the ultimate exemplar for the union of opposites\nwas Jesus Christ, the \u2018God-\u200bman\u2019 (\u0398\u03b5\u03ac\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2) uniting within himself deity\nand humanity.74 As already observed with regard to Johann Siebmacher, alchemical hermaphrodites could be viewed as reflecting this in the laboratory.\nUltimately, it was Christ\u2019s example that believers had to emulate and re-\u200benact.\nAlready in the Theophrastia Valentiniana, Franckenberg had expressed this\nnotion in unmistakably alchemical terms: \u2018this yoke, this syzygy is thus a\ngreat work, in which\u2014\u200bby descent or distillation\u2014\u200bthe superior [things] flow\ninto the inferior ones and\u2014\u200bby ascent or sublimation\u2014\u200bthe inferior [things]\nrise up to the superior ones; and like a new birth, [they] sprout, flourish,\ngrow, blossom in GOD\u2019s paradise.\u201975 In a process analogous to alchemical\n\nPages 119:\n104\nSpiritual Alchemy\nweddings, then, believers had to attain \u2018the eternal con-\u200band deiformity,\u2019 following the tracks of Christ\u2019s Incarnation in reverse: if God the Son had to\nbecome human, humans had to become god.76\nAlthough Franckenberg did mention the four elements, the four colours\nhe had in mind here were not those usually associated with them but with\nthe great work of alchemy. In this regard, the inclusion of black is telling.\nThe Silesian nobleman first mentioned black (nigra), white (alba), and\nyellow (citrina), which he associated with body, spirit, and soul, respectively.\nAs the context and progression indicate, he had in mind the alchemical\ncolour stages nigredo, albedo, and citrinitas. Ultimately, these would culminate in the red stage, rubedo, strongly associated with the philosophers\u2019\nstone: \u2018through the fiery Redness (Rubedine), once again the unchangeable\ngold of the most singular MONAD.\u2019 Franckenberg concluded: \u2018and you shall\nhave the secret Light of the Philosophers: the most excellent MEDICINE for\nthe corrupted intellect,\u2019 restoring this fallen capacity to its primordial state.77\nNot to be confused with our modern notion of intelligence, the term \u2018intellect\u2019 referred to a more elevated form of understanding that made meditation\npossible and could grasp matters divine, among other things.78 In a way, this\nwas Franckenberg\u2019s rather heady restatement of the lapis-\u200bChristus analogy\nbetween the highest medicine for the body and the soul: according to him,\nthe Fall not only affected the body but, perhaps more importantly, also the\nspirit and the soul.79 Only the heavenly cornerstone could cure the spiritual\nmalaise of fallen humankind and allow it to commune with the divine.\nFranckenberg\u2019s Kabbalistic Regimen was thus the description of a process\nof, or a recipe for, spiritual alchemy. This tied in with the way he associated\nkabbalah with the cure for the spirit throughout Raphael.80 At the very end of\nthe Kabbalistic Regimen, a table detailed its threefold aim:81\nAim\nTrue G is to be Known\nthe Blessing\nof the ONE\nB\nThe Good O is to be Loved\nthe Knowledge of the TRUTHFUL\nY\nOne D is to be Blessed\nthe Enactment of the GOOD.\nIn a similar vein, a short text in two columns, titled In Schola \u2609rientali (In\nthe \u2609riental School), listed a number of spiritual adepts, commonly known\nas patriarchs, prophets, and apostles throughout the Bible, and provided a\ngeneral description: \u2018men, evidently, within God (Enthei) and contemplative: who were likewise resigned and crucified to the world; in denial and dead\nto themselves; dedicated to and buried in CHRIST; reborn and brought to\n\nPages 120:\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher\n105\nlife by the Spirit. Thus, skilled in mystical theology and harmonic philosophy,\nhaving left behind the dark prison of the body, they commended their illuminated soul to GOD.\u201982 With these words, Franckenberg gave Seidenbecher\nan ideal to which he could aspire, and through their conversations and the\nmanuscripts he shared with his disciple, he instructed him in the spiritual\nalchemy that would allow him to attain this goal himself.\nIn this way, during his final years, Franckenberg actively passed on his\nspiritual alchemy to Seidenbecher, thanks to whom several important\nsources survive. One of these is The Journey of Friedrich Gallus according to a\ncopy Seidenbecher made in 1649, which is superior to other printed editions.\nThe young traveller wrote it out by hand and, by the same token, absorbed its\nhigh-\u200bminded ideal of the alchemist and the corresponding moral lessons. In\naddition to this accessible story, Franckenberg had Seidenbecher copy an obscure text titled Kabbalistic Regimen, which turned out to be a veritable recipe\nfor the aspiring spiritual alchemist. Perhaps it was in view of this very text\nthat Seidenbecher requested further practical instructions that would allow\nhim to mature beyond nigredo, the black stage in which he found himself.\nSeidenbecher\u2019s later works exhibit little concern with alchemy, yet we need to\nconsider that his life was cut short. Both regarding longevity and spiritual alchemy, the same cannot be said of his associate Friedrich Breckling, to whom\nI shall now turn.\n\nPages 121:\n6\nFriedrich Breckling, the 1682 Boehme\nEdition, and Spiritual Alchemy\nAfter Abr\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 98 to page 121 out of a total of 337. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=30\nPages: 30,31\nDick's interest in Boehme and his choice to fictionalize Boehme as a \"Hermetic Alchemist\" in\nValis. Use quotations and give me footnotes. This is an academic article aimed at religious\nstudies scholars but readable for interested PKD fans.\nPhilip K. Dick\u2019s Engagement with Jacob Boehme in the Exegesis and\nVALIS: Boehme as a \"Hermetic Alchemist\"\nPhilip K. Dick\u2019s Exegesis\u2014his extensive and largely unpublished theological, philosophical, and\nautobiographical writings\u2014reveals a deep fascination with Jacob Boehme, the 17th-century\nGerman mystic and theosopher. In his Exegesis and later in VALIS, Dick positions Boehme as\na pivotal figure whose mystical cosmology, particularly the concept of the Urgrund (the\nprimordial ground of being), resonates with Dick\u2019s own metaphysical concerns. By fictionalizing\nBoehme as a \"Hermetic alchemist\", Dick not only acknowledges Boehme\u2019s spiritual influence\nbut also draws upon the Hermetic and alchemical language that pervades Boehme\u2019s works.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=37\nPages: 37\nopposites produces the complexity of the world.\nConclusion\nPhilip K. Dick\u2019s engagement with Jacob Boehme in the Exegesis, VALIS, and Rosicrucian PKD\nreveals the depth of Boehme\u2019s influence on his metaphysical thought. By framing Boehme\u2019s\nUrgrund as a form of binary logic, Dick updates Boehme\u2019s theosophy for the modern world,\nintegrating it with information theory and digital computation. Through Boehme, Dick\nexplores the nature of reality as a binary process, where opposites such as yes and no, light\nand darkness, or being and nothingness structure both the material world and the spiritual\njourney of the soul. By fictionalizing Boehme as a Hermetic alchemist, Dick underscores the\ntransformative power of spiritual alchemy, positioning Boehme as a key figure in his own\nvisionary quest for hidden knowledge.\nFootnotes\n1. Philip K. Dick, Rosicrucian PKD, p. 21. Available at\nhttps://myaidrive.com/3ZQ5fMohyMJfnxFKqBeaR7/Rosicrucian-.pdf. \u21a9]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=40\nPages: 40\nBy fictionalizing Boehme as a Hermetic alchemist, Dick not only draws upon Yates\u2019s Hermetic\ntradition but also updates it for a technological age, aligning Boehme\u2019s mystical insights with\nthe information processing systems of modernity. In this way, Dick positions Boehme,\nBruno, and Paracelsus as precursors to his own visionary quest for hidden knowledge, but\nit is Boehme\u2019s exploration of the Urgrund and spiritual alchemy that most closely aligns with\nDick\u2019s personal metaphysical journey.\nFootnotes\n1. Philip K. Dick, Rosicrucian PKD, p. 12. Available at\nhttps://myaidrive.com/3ZQ5fMohyMJfnxFKqBeaR7/Rosicrucian-.pdf. \u21a9\n2. Philip K. Dick, VALIS (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), p. 144. \u21a9\n3. Philip K. Dick, Rosicrucian PKD, p. 18. Available at\nhttps://myaidrive.com/3ZQ5fMohyMJfnxFKqBeaR7/Rosicrucian-.pdf. \u21a9\n4. Philip K. Dick, Rosicrucian PKD, p. 21. Available at\nhttps://myaidrive.com/3ZQ5fMohyMJfnxFKqBeaR7/Rosicrucian-.pdf. \u21a9\nYou said:]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=32\nPages: 32\ntruths that Dick believed were also revealed to him during his visionary experiences.\nConclusion\nPhilip K. Dick\u2019s choice to fictionalize Jacob Boehme as a Hermetic alchemist in VALIS and his\nengagement with Boehme\u2019s theosophy in the Exegesis demonstrate the central role that\nBoehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy and Urgrund played in Dick\u2019s metaphysical explorations. By\ncomparing Boehme\u2019s mystical cosmology to binary computer programming, Dick updates\nBoehme\u2019s insights for the 20th century, blending ancient spiritual wisdom with contemporary\ntechnological metaphors. Through Boehme, Dick articulates a vision of reality that is at once\nmystical and scientific, grounded in the dialectic of creation and destruction, light and\ndarkness, and the eternal quest for divine transformation.\nFootnotes\n1. Philip K. Dick, Rosicrucian PKD, p. 21. Available at\nhttps://myaidrive.com/3ZQ5fMohyMJfnxFKqBeaR7/Rosicrucian-.pdf. \u21a9\nYou said:]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=20\nPages: 20,21\nIn his fictionalization, Dick blends Boehme\u2019s alchemical mysticism with his own metaphysical\nideas, portraying Boehme as a figure who bridges the gap between Gnostic wisdom and\nHermetic alchemy. By doing so, Dick not only acknowledges Boehme\u2019s influence on his\nspiritual thinking but also situates him within a broader tradition of esoteric knowledge that\nincludes figures like Bruno and Paracelsus.\nConclusion\nPhilip K. Dick\u2019s fictionalization of Jacob Boehme as a Hermetic alchemist reflects his\nunderstanding of Boehme\u2019s use of alchemical language to describe spiritual rebirth. Drawing\non Boehme\u2019s alchemical vision of the ubiquitous body of Christ as the philosophers\u2019 stone,\nDick reinterprets Boehme\u2019s cosmology to fit his own Gnostic and Hermetic worldview.\nThrough this lens, Boehme becomes a key figure in Dick\u2019s fictional universe, symbolizing the\ntransformative power of spiritual alchemy and the quest for hidden knowledge.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=14\nPages: 14\nBoehme\u2019s mystical insights provided a framework for Dick to develop his own philosophical\nideas about the nature of existence, the evolution of reality, and the relationship between the\nmaterial and the divine.\nYou said:\nNow do the same for Bruno in the same document.\nThe document Rosicrucian PKD explores Giordano Bruno's influence on Philip K. Dick,\nfocusing on his role as a key figure in Hermetic thought, particularly in the areas of memory,\ncosmology, and occult practices. Here are the key points:\n1. Bruno\u2019s Hermetic Cosmology:\n\u25cf\nBruno\u2019s Hermetic philosophy, which merges the macrocosm and microcosm, is\nessential in understanding the totality of reality as interconnected. Dick is influenced by\nthis concept, particularly in how he envisions reality in alchemical and Gnostic terms,\nwhere lower (base) elements are transformed into higher (noble) ones. This alchemical\nmetaphor reflects how Bruno\u2019s ideas permeate Dick\u2019s work, particularly in how the inner]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=28\nPages: 28,29\nhighlights Dick's interest in how hidden structures (like the Urgrund or binary code) generate\nthe manifest world. Boehme\u2019s spiritual teachings, particularly the transformation of opposites,\nalso parallel the way digital systems process simple binary data into the complexity of the virtual\nworld.\nHere are some quotations from Rosicrucian PKD that are relevant to Philip K. Dick's comparison\nof Boehme's theosophy, particularly his concept of the Urgrund, with binary computer\nprogramming:\n1. \"The initial false move that it tries out during its zero phase is Boehme's no, and\nthe 1 or on phase is Boehme's yes. So my envisioning is essentially Boehme's,\nupdated in terms of computer and information-processing systems.\"\nThis quotation clearly shows how Dick links Boehme's dialectical view of divine\ncreation (the \"yes\" and \"no\") to the binary logic of computers\u2014highlighting the\nfundamental decisions between 0 and 1 in programming that mirror the spiritual choices]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=36\nPages: 36\nIn VALIS, Boehme appears alongside other historical figures of Hermetic wisdom, such as\nGiordano Bruno and Paracelsus, all of whom are fictionalized as bearers of secret\nknowledge. Dick describes Boehme\u2019s role as a Hermetic alchemist, capable of transforming\nreality through spiritual means, just as an alchemist would transmute base metals into gold. In\nVALIS, the protagonist contemplates the failure of historical Hermetic figures to contact the\n\u201cthree-eyed invaders\u201d (a metaphor for higher spiritual knowledge), noting:\n\"Boehme tried, but like the others, failed to reach the secret race of\nthree-eyed invaders\u2026 He knew there was something beyond what he could\nperceive. Clearly, Boehme is my main man.\"2\nHere, Dick aligns Boehme with a broader Hermetic tradition, suggesting that Boehme, like\nother alchemists, sought to pierce the veil of reality and access hidden truths but ultimately fell\nshort. In calling Boehme his \u201cmain man,\u201d Dick highlights how central Boehme\u2019s theosophical]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=32\nPages: 32,33\nhttps://myaidrive.com/3ZQ5fMohyMJfnxFKqBeaR7/Rosicrucian-.pdf. \u21a9\nYou said:\nLet's add another section with a close reading of the Boehme quotes from signatures that you\npulled for me.\nClose Reading of Boehme\u2019s The Signature of All Things in Relation to\nPhilip K. Dick\u2019s Metaphysical Framework\nIn his Exegesis and VALIS, Philip K. Dick was deeply influenced by Jacob Boehme\u2019s mystical\nphilosophy, particularly as expressed in The Signature of All Things. Boehme\u2019s intricate\ndiscussion of creation, the Urgrund (the primordial nothingness), and the dynamics of spiritual\nalchemy resonate strongly with Dick\u2019s metaphysical explorations, especially his understanding\nof reality as a binary process akin to computer programming. The following section offers a\nclose reading of key quotations from Boehme\u2019s The Signature of All Things, focusing on how\nDick might have interpreted and adapted Boehme\u2019s ideas for his own cosmological framework.\nThe Urgrund as Divine Nothingness]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=45\nPages: 45\nemerges from the primordial void through a process of yes/no decisions. This mirrors\nPlotinus\u2019s concept of the One emanating into the many and reflects Dick\u2019s own experience of\nreality as a layered structure, where the material world is only a shadow of the higher\nforms. Boehme\u2019s spiritual dialectic, with its constant tension between light and darkness,\ngood and evil, is also a metaphor for the spiritual alchemy that Dick believes governs the\nForm world.\nConclusion: The Form World as a Bridge Between Esoteric Traditions\nPhilip K. Dick\u2019s understanding of the Form world as a lived reality provides a powerful\nframework for interpreting his engagement with Bruno, Paracelsus, and Boehme. Each of\nthese figures represents a different approach to the Form world: Bruno through cosmic\nmemory, Paracelsus through alchemy and healing, and Boehme through the spiritual\ndialectic of the Urgrund. For Dick, the Form world is not simply an intellectual construct but]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=37\nPages: 37,38\nhttps://myaidrive.com/3ZQ5fMohyMJfnxFKqBeaR7/Rosicrucian-.pdf. \u21a9\n2. Philip K. Dick, VALIS (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), p. 178. \u21a9\n3. Philip K. Dick, Rosicrucian PKD, p. 18. Available at\nhttps://myaidrive.com/3ZQ5fMohyMJfnxFKqBeaR7/Rosicrucian-.pdf. \u21a9\n4. Philip K. Dick, Rosicrucian PKD, p. 28. Available at\nhttps://myaidrive.com/3ZQ5fMohyMJfnxFKqBeaR7/Rosicrucian-.pdf. \u21a9\nYou said:\nAdd a section discussing the influence of Frances Yates on Dick's presentation of Boehme. How\ndoes Dick's treatment of Boehme compare and contrast with that of Bruno and Paracelsus?\nThe Influence of Frances Yates on Philip K. Dick\u2019s Presentation of Jacob\nBoehme\nPhilip K. Dick\u2019s engagement with Hermeticism, as mediated by Frances Yates\u2019s scholarship,\nparticularly in Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment,\nplays a central role in his fictionalization of Jacob Boehme. Yates\u2019s work, which revived interest]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19\nDick\u2019s metaphysical explorations, particularly in his pursuit of anamnesis\u2014the recovery of\nhidden, spiritual truths.\nNow write a section for my chapter, using quotations from the Rosicrucian PKD document,\nexplaining the influence of alchemy on Boehme that is the background for Dick's choice to\nfictionalize Boehme as a Hermetic Alchemist. Here is what Mike Zuber says about Boehme in\nhis book on spiritual alchemy. Boehme frequently used alchemical language to describe rebirth,\nthus formulating the spiritual alchemy of rebirth. For him the ubiquitous body of Christ was the\nphilosophers\u2019 stone and the subtle body of the new birth at once.\nInfluence of Alchemy on Jacob Boehme and Philip K. Dick's Hermetic\nFictionalization\nPhilip K. Dick\u2019s decision to fictionalize Jacob Boehme as a Hermetic Alchemist draws on the\nprofound influence of spiritual alchemy on Boehme\u2019s writings. Boehme\u2019s frequent use of\nalchemical language to describe the process of spiritual rebirth\u2014what Mike Zuber calls the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=36\nPages: 36\nshort. In calling Boehme his \u201cmain man,\u201d Dick highlights how central Boehme\u2019s theosophical\ninsights are to his own cosmology. For Dick, Boehme represents the ideal of the spiritual\nseeker who, through his writings, attempts to bridge the gap between the Urgrund (the hidden\nsource of reality) and the manifest world, much like Dick himself sought to understand the\nhidden structure of reality through his visionary experiences.\nBoehme, the Urgrund, and the Demiurge\nIn both VALIS and the Exegesis, Dick explores the Gnostic concept of the Demiurge, a flawed\ncreator who is ignorant of the true source of reality\u2014the Urgrund. In Dick\u2019s view, the Demiurge\nacts like a reality-projecting artifact, unaware of its own artificiality and the higher source from\nwhich it originates. Dick writes in Rosicrucian PKD:\n\"It constructed a reality-projecting artifact (or demiurge; cf. Plato and the\nGnostics), which then, on command, projected the first stage of the world we]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=34\nPages: 34,35\nemergence of being from the Urgrund provides a mystical foundation for this vision, helping\nDick conceptualize how reality might be both illusory and structured by underlying\nprinciples.\nConclusion\nJacob Boehme\u2019s use of alchemical language and his concept of the Urgrund profoundly\ninfluenced Philip K. Dick\u2019s metaphysical explorations. Through a close reading of The Signature\nof All Things, it becomes clear how Dick adapted Boehme\u2019s vision of creation and\ntransformation to fit his own binary model of reality, where opposites such as light and\ndarkness or yes and no shape existence. For Dick, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy offered a\nmodel for understanding both the material world and the spiritual processes that underlie it,\nmaking Boehme a pivotal figure in Dick\u2019s philosophical thought. By fictionalizing Boehme as a\nHermetic alchemist, Dick not only acknowledges the depth of Boehme\u2019s theosophy but also\nupdates it for a world increasingly defined by information theory and digital logic.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=35\nPages: 35\nupdates it for a world increasingly defined by information theory and digital logic.\nFootnotes\n1. Jacob Boehme, The Signature of All Things, p. 123. Available at\nhttps://myaidrive.com/3xatemhBSfJYqi9LsqVyLs/signature.18.pdf. \u21a9\n2. Ibid., p. 20. \u21a9\n3. Ibid., p. 11. \u21a9\nYou said:\nNow add a section with a close reading of the Dick quotes you pulled from Rosicrucian PKD.\nInclude quotes from Valis and the Exegesis.\nClose Reading of Philip K. Dick's Engagement with Boehme in Rosicrucian\nPKD, VALIS, and the Exegesis\nPhilip K. Dick\u2019s engagement with Jacob Boehme\u2014particularly his theosophical concept of the\nUrgrund\u2014is central to both his fiction and philosophical musings in the Exegesis. By portraying\nBoehme as a Hermetic alchemist in VALIS and elaborating on Boehme's mystical ideas in the\nExegesis, Dick adapts Boehme\u2019s concepts for a modern context, blending them with his own\nconcerns about binary logic and information theory. This section provides a close reading of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=13\nPages: 13\nemphasis on the interconnectedness of all things and the reflection of cosmic forces within\nthe individual. This influence shaped his approaches to alchemy, medicine, and spirituality,\nallowing him to develop a holistic view of the universe in which the physical and spiritual realms\nwere inseparable.\nYou can explore these themes in greater detail by reviewing the full article here.\nNow give me a summary of Jacob Boehme in the Rosicrucian PKD document.\nThe section on Jacob Boehme in the Rosicrucian PKD document explores his mystical and\nphilosophical contributions, particularly in relation to Philip K. Dick\u2019s own metaphysical ideas.\nBoehme\u2019s influence on Dick, especially his vision of the cosmos and the Urgrund (the primal\nsource or ground of being), helps shape Dick's views on the nature of reality, spirituality, and\ndivine reflection.\nKey Themes on Boehme in the Document:\n1. Boehme\u2019s Mystical Experiences:]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19\nelements of divine transformation. Boehme\u2019s understanding of alchemy was not limited to\nphysical processes but extended to the transmutation of the soul, where the subtle body\nformed through spiritual regeneration could be understood as the new birth of the individual in\nChrist.\nIn Dick\u2019s writings, this concept is mirrored in his depiction of Boehme as a Hermetic alchemist\nwhose spiritual insights extend beyond the material into the metaphysical realm. In the\nRosicrucian PKD document, Dick references Boehme\u2019s philosophical and mystical\nframework, noting how Boehme\u2019s revelations were akin to his own visionary experiences.\nDick\u2019s alignment with Boehme\u2019s alchemical vision is clear when he reflects on the inner\nfirmament brought by the character \"Thomas\" in his Exegesis: \u201cThat was the mind of\nParacelsus, and it was infinitely older and wiser than mine\u2014and it embraced vast vistas,\nin terms of its \u2018philosopher's stone\u2019 comprehension of the mysteries of the universe.\u201d]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=20\nPages: 20\ntransformation.\nDick\u2019s Use of Alchemy in Fictionalizing Boehme\nDick\u2019s portrayal of Boehme in VALIS and the Exegesis reflects his deep interest in the alchemy\nof spiritual transformation. By depicting Boehme as a Hermetic alchemist, Dick underscores\nthe role of spiritual regeneration\u2014a key theme in Boehme\u2019s writings\u2014in the process of\nacquiring divine knowledge. For Dick, Boehme\u2019s alchemical framework provided a\ncosmological model for understanding the relationship between the microcosm (the\nindividual) and the macrocosm (the universe). As Dick observed, this model resonated with his\nown experiences of Gnostic revelation and the breakdown of conventional understandings of\ntime and space: \u201cClearly, Bruno is my main man, and could of all people explain\n2-74/3-74: these experiences of mine make sense within his hermetic hylozoic\ncosmology.\u201d (page 6).\nIn his fictionalization, Dick blends Boehme\u2019s alchemical mysticism with his own metaphysical]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=32\nPages: 32,31\nessentially Boehme's, updated in terms of computer and information-processing\nsystems.\"1\nFor Dick, Boehme\u2019s Urgrund operates much like a binary code, generating the complexity of\nthe universe through simple oppositions. This binary understanding of reality allows Dick to\nbridge the mystical with the scientific, positioning Boehme as a precursor to modern\ntechnological metaphors. In this way, Dick\u2019s fictionalization of Boehme as a Hermetic alchemist\naligns with his broader project of \"updating\" ancient mystical systems to reflect\ncontemporary concerns, including the rise of information theory and computing.\nBoehme\u2019s Influence on Dick\u2019s Vision of Spiritual Alchemy\nIn both the Exegesis and VALIS, Dick presents Boehme as a figure engaged in spiritual\nalchemy, the process by which the soul is purified and transformed through suffering and divine\nillumination. This alchemical process mirrors Dick\u2019s own experiences of spiritual revelation,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/uzzAsxMmgDYV2LXFimbK6Z/PKD-Bruno-Pa.pdf?pdfPage=31\nPages: 31\nOne of the most important aspects of Boehme\u2019s theosophy that Dick explores in the Exegesis is\nthe concept of the Urgrund, the primordial nothingness from which all things emerge. Boehme\ndescribes the Urgrund as the eternal Abyss, the groundless source of creation that manifests\nthrough a divine perturbation, giving rise to light and darkness, good and evil, and all the\nopposites of the material world. Boehme\u2019s concept of the Urgrund resonates deeply with Dick\u2019s\nexplorations of dualities and binary logic. In the Exegesis, Dick explicitly compares Boehme\u2019s\nUrgrund to binary computer programming, where nothingness (0) and being (1) form the\nfundamental structure of reality. Dick writes: \"The initial false move that it tries out during its\nzero phase is Boehme's no, and the 1 or on phase is Boehme's yes. So my envisioning is\nessentially Boehme's, updated in terms of computer and information-processing\nsystems.\"1]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=295\nPages: 295\nFranckenberg, Abraham von. Briefwechsel. Edited by Joachim Telle. Stuttgart-\u200b\nBad\nCannstatt: Frommann-\u200bHolzboog, 1995.\nFranckenberg, Abraham von. Conclusiones de fundamento sapientiae theorico-\u200bpracticae.\nDas ist, Endlicher Beschlu\u00df Vom Grunde der Wei\u00dfheit, Von etlichen Liebhabern der\nWahrheit zusammen getragen. K\u00f6nigstein [Amsterdam]: [Hans Fabel], 1646.\nFranckenberg, Abraham von. Jordans Steine, welche Einem nach dem Lande der Lebendigen\nreisenden Mit-\u200bPilgrim, Au\u00df dem Wege zu r\u00e4umen. Frankfurt a.M./\u200bLeipzig: Bey Andr\u00e4e\nLupplo [recte: Luppio], Buchh\u00e4ndlern in Nimm\u00e4gen, 1684.\nFranckenberg, Abraham von. \u2018Kurtz-\u200bjedoch gr\u00fcndtlich-\u200bund warhaffter Bericht, von dem\nLeben und Abscheid des in Gott seelig ruhenden JACOB BOEMENS.\u2019 In Von Erschaffung\ndes Menschen zu Gottes Ebenbilde. . . Alles aus J. B. T. Schrifften gezogen: Der IV. Theil.\nEdited by [Gottfried Richter], ff. A2v\u2013\u200bC2r. [Toru\u0144]: [Michael Karnall], 1652/\u200b53.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=314\nPages: 314,315\nK\u00fchlmann and Vollhardt, Offenbarung und Episteme, 165\u2013\u200b82.\nTelle, Joachim. Sol und Luna: Literar-\u200bund alchemiegeschichtliche Studien zu einem\naltdeutschen Bildgedicht. H\u00fcrtgenwald: Pressler, 1980.\nTelle, Joachim. \u2018Zum Opus mago-\u200bcabbalisticum et theosophicum von Georg von Welling.\u2019\nEuphorion 77 (1983): 359\u2013\u200b79.\nThumm, Theodor, Georg Hehl, and Marcus Hailand. Brevis consideratio trium\nquaestionum, nostro seculo maxim\u00e8 controversiarium. T\u00fcbingen: Typis Theodorici\nWerlini, 1624.\n300\nWorks Cited\nThune, Nils. The Behmenists and the Philadelphians: A Contribution to the Study of\nEnglish Mysticism in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Uppsala: Almquist &\nWiksells, 1948.\nTilton, Hereward. \u2018Alchymia Archetypica: Theurgy, Inner Transformation and the\nHistoriography of Alchemy.\u2019 Quaderni di studi indo-\u200bmediterranei 5 (2012): 179\u2013\u200b215.\nTilton, Hereward. The Quest for the Phoenix: Spiritual Alchemy and Rosicrucianism in the\nWork of Count Michael Maier (1569\u2013\u200b1622). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=117\nPages: 117,118\ndifferent pronunciation, the latter formed part of the kabbalistic key term \u02been\nsoph (without end). Franckenberg used this expression to furnish Boehme\u2019s\nUngrund with the credentials of ancient wisdom.68 This return to the One,\nto God in his primordial state, is a central topic of Franckenberg\u2019s mysticism\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher\n103\nas expressed subtly throughout Sephiriel.69 As it bestows power on earth, the\ncelestial stone that is attained in the process corresponds to Jesus and recalls\nthe words of his Great Commission: \u2018all authority has been given to me in\nheaven and on earth.\u201970 In discussions of the lapis-\u200bChristus analogy, not least\nin pseudo-\u200bWeigelian alchemy, the worldly rejection of Jesus as the cornerstone and the humble appearance of the philosophers\u2019 stone were frequently\naligned.\nReverting to Latin, Franckenberg instructed Seidenbecher to perform an\nalchemical marriage. Alchemists spoke of marriage when they so thoroughly]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=288\nPages: 288,287\nSchleswig\nLandesarchiv Schleswig-\u200bHolstein: Abt. 7, Nr. 2059:3.\nUtrecht\nUtrechts Archief: 711\u2014\u200bBurgerlijke stand gemeente Utrecht, nr. 130.\nWolfenb\u00fcttel\nHerzog August Bibliothek: Cod. Guelf. 65 Noviss. 4\u00b0.\nWroc\u0142aw\nBiblioteka Uniwersytecka: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b252; Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b255; Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b271;\nMs. Akc. 1977/\u200b109.\nZurich\nZentralbibliothek: Sammlung Oskar R. Schlag, SCH R 809.\nPrinted and Electronic Sources\nAbbri, Ferdinando. \u2018Alchemy and Chemistry: Chemical Discourses in the Seventeenth\nCentury.\u2019 Early Science and Medicine 5 (2000): 214\u2013\u200b26.\nWorks Cited\n273\nAddey, Crystal. \u2018In the Light of the Sphere: The \u201cVehicle of the Soul\u201d and Subtle-\u200bBody\nPractices in Neoplatonism.\u2019 In Samuel and Johnston, Religion and the Subtle Body,\n149\u2013\u200b67.\nAdelung, Johann Christoph. Geschichte der menschlichen Narrheit. 7 vols. Leipzig: In der\nWeygandschen Buchhandlung, 1785\u2013\u200b89.\nAker, Gudrun. \u2018Johann Jakob Zimmermann 1642\u2013\u200b1693: Ein Prophet des Tausendj\u00e4hrigen]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=246\nPages: 246\nFranckenberg, \u2018Kurtze Beschreibung,\u2019 f. ( 0 )5r.\n19. G\u00fcnther Bonheim, \u2018Zur Entstehung und Verbreitung der Aurora,\u2019 B\u00f6hme-\u200bStudien 4\n(2017): 17\u2013\u200b49. For remarks on Boehme\u2019s unusually clean autographs, see Buddecke,\nDie Urschriften, 2:438.\n20. Franckenberg, \u2018Kurtz-\u200b... und warhaffter Bericht,\u2019 f. B3r/\u200bv (para. 29).\n21. Tobias Kober, \u2018Umst\u00e4ndlicher Bericht ... von der Kranckheit, Absterben und\nBegr\u00e4bni\u00df des sel. Autoris Theosophi, an die Edlen Herren von Schweinichen,\u2019 in\nJacob Boehme, De vita et scriptis ([Leiden?], 1730), 40\u2013\u200b52, on 41, para. 1.\n22. Beyerland is the subject of various contributions in Harmsen, Jacob B\u00f6hmes Weg in\ndie Welt, 39\u2013\u200b54 (Gilly), 133\u2013\u200b67 (Lamoen), 213\u2013\u200b47 (Bouman and Lamoen).\n23. Boehme, Josephus Redivivus, 1\u2013\u200b261 (MM 64:15\u2013\u200b78:9); Jacob Boehme, \u2018Metapsychica\nde terrestri et coelesti mysterio, ex cognitione mysterii magni concepta, contemplatio,\u2019\nin Abraham von Franckenberg, Trias mystica: In qu\u00e2 1. Speculum apocalypticum: 2.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=239\nPages: 239\nihre Alchemisierung,\u2019 in Grund und Ungrund: Der Kosmos des mystischen Philosophen\nJacob B\u00f6hme, ed. Claudia Brink and Lucinda Martin (Dresden: Sandstein, 2017),\n114\u2013\u200b29.\n9. Matthew 19:28; see e.g. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 352\u2013\u200b53, 622\u2013\u200b23, 664\u2013\u200b65 (A 12:50, 21:54,\n22:69).\n10. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 528\u2013\u200b29, 666\u2013\u200b67, 774\u2013\u200b75 (A 18:58, 22:80, 26:77). See Revelation 1:4.\n11. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 740\u2013\u200b41 (A 25:52).\n12. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 182 (ET 18:13). On the identification of the\nnobleman, see Hessayon, \u2018Boehme\u2019s Life and Times,\u2019 14.\n13. For a ground-\u200bbreaking study of this phenomenon, see Harold Love, The Culture\nand Commerce of Texts: Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-\u200bCentury England, 2nd ed.\n(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998).\n14. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 122 (ET 12:13).\n15. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 85 (ET 10:26).\n16. Leigh T. I. Penman, \u2018Boehme\u2019s Intellectual Networks and the Heterdox Milieu of His]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=249\nPages: 249,250\nBetrachtung G\u00f6ttlicher Offenbarung, was GOTT, Natur und Creatur, sowol Himmel,\nH\u00f6lle und Welt, samt allen Creaturen sind ([Leiden?]: 1730), 75\u2013\u200b120, on 110 (= C,\n\u2018Clavis specialis\u2019). See G\u00f6rlitz, OLBW: LA III 409, f. 29v.\n79. Copenhagen, KB: Thott 49 oktav, f. 20r/\u200bv (C, para. 73\u2013\u200b74).\n80. Copenhagen, KB: Thott 49 oktav, f. 24v (C, para. 95).\n81. Cf. \u202b( \u05d0\u05d5\u05bc\u05e8\u202c\u02beur, fire) and \u202b( \u05d0\u05d5 \u05b9\u05e8\u202c\u02beor, light).\n82. Franckenberg, Raphael, 4. Compare Berlin, SB\u2013\u200bPK: Ms. germ. fol. 142, f. 135v (in\nGreek letters).\nNotes\n235\n83. Franckenberg, \u2018Theophrastia Valentiniana,\u2019 31. See Matthew 25:33.\n84. Franckenberg, Raphael, 5, 43.\n85. Durham, NC, Duke University Libraries: Harold Jantz Collection, Bound MS 148,\nf. 15r. See also Franckenberg, Raphael, 43.\n86. Franckenberg, Raphael, 11.\nChapter 5\n1. For modern accounts, see Ernestien G. E. van der Wall, \u2018Chiliasmus Sanctus: De\ntoekomstverwachting van Georg Lorenz Seidenbecher (1623\u2013\u200b1663),\u2019 Nederlands]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=290\nPages: 290\n(Gr\u00fcndlicher Bericht, Mysterium Pansophicum, 1620). Edited and translated by\nAndrew Weeks and G\u00fcnther Bonheim. Leiden: Brill, 2013.\nB\u00f6hme, Jacob. Werke: Morgenr\u00f6te. De signatura rerum. Edited by Ferdinand van Ingen.\nFrankfurt a.M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1997.\nBonheim, G\u00fcnther. \u2018Die \u201cgro\u00dfe Reinigung\u201d vom \u201cgemeinen Geiste\u201d: Zu den Umst\u00e4nden\nder Entstehung der dritten B\u00f6hme-\u200b\nGesamtausgabe 1730/\u200b\n31 und zu ihrem\nphilologischen Ertrag.\u2019 In K\u00fchlmann and Vollhardt, Offenbarung und Episteme,\n451\u2013\u200b62.\nBonheim, G\u00fcnther. \u2018 \u201cLernet von ehe unterscheiden\u201d: Jacob B\u00f6hmes Mystik der Naturen.\u2019\nIn Mystik und Natur: Zur Geschichte ihres Verh\u00e4ltnisses vom Altertum bis zur Gegenwart.\nEdited by Peter Dinzelbacher, 123\u2013\u200b39. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009.\nBonheim, G\u00fcnther. \u2018Zur Entstehung und Verbreitung der Aurora.\u2019 B\u00f6hme-\u200bStudien 4\n(2017): 17\u2013\u200b49.\nBonus, Petrus. Pretiosa margarita novella de thesauro, ac pretiosissimo philosophorum]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=93\nPages: 93\ndiffered on the preconditions of this restoration, for instance. Whereas\nthe theosopher\u2019s lead of fallen humanity would appear wholly passive,\nFranckenberg argued that all human beings still carried within themselves\nsome of the paradisiacal earth from which they were first created, prior\nto the Fall. The Silesian mystic described this seed of light as \u2018ash (\u02beepher),\nthe powder of lead, the ash of sixty colours according to the Arabs, the\ngolden sand and purple grain of Ophir.\u201948 This guaranteed the possibility\nof restoration; in alchemical terms, it was the material potential for gold\nwithin fallen humanity that made transmutation possible. Drawing on\nhis knowledge of the sacred language, Franckenberg later developed his\nnotion of an uncorrupted substance with recourse to the highly similar\nHebrew words for dust and ash. In so doing, he followed in the footsteps\nof his namesake patriarch: Abraham had eloquently described himself]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=300\nPages: 300\nIllg, Thomas. Ein anderer Mensch werden: Johann Arndts Verst\u00e4ndnis der imitatio Christi\nals Anleitung zu einem wahren Christentum. G\u00f6ttingen: V&R unipress, 2011.\nIngen, Ferdinand van. \u2018Die Edition von Jacob B\u00f6hmes \u201cAurora\u201d und die Bedeutung\neines Variantenapparats.\u2019 In Probleme der Edition von Texten der Fr\u00fchen\nNeuzeit: Beitr\u00e4ge zur Arbeitstagung der Kommission f\u00fcr die Edition von Texten der\nFr\u00fchen Neuzeit. Edited by Lothar Mundt, Hans-\u200bGert Roloff, and Ulrich Seelbach, 15\u2013\u200b\n25. T\u00fcbingen: Niemeyer, 1992.\nIngen, Ferdinand van. \u2018Die Jungfrau Sophia und die Jungfrau Maria bei Jakob B\u00f6hme.\u2019 In\nGarewicz and Haas, Gott, Natur und Mensch, 147\u2013\u200b63.\nIngen, Ferdinand van. Jacob B\u00f6hme in seiner Zeit. Stuttgart-\u200bBad Cannstatt: Frommann-\u200b\nHolzboog, 2015.\nInvictus. \u2018Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery.\u2019 Historic Magazine 25 (1907):\n224e.\nIsing, Dieter. \u2018Radikaler Pietismus in der fr\u00fchen Korrespondenz Johann Albrecht\nBengels.\u2019 Pietismus und Neuzeit 31 (2005): 152\u2013\u200b95.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=102\nPages: 102\nhis later life. Early in the 1640s, the Thirty Years\u2019 War forced Franckenberg\nto flee his family\u2019s estate at Ludwigsdorf and eventually Silesia altogether. By\n9 July 1642, he found himself in Danzig where he remained for more than\nseven years. During July and August 1649, just a few months before his return to Ludwigsdorf, Franckenberg met a young traveller by the name of\nGeorg Lorenz Seidenbecher.1 In him the Silesian mystic found a spiritual\nson and intellectual heir, who went on to become the author of an important\ntreatise on millenarianism. In contrast to other discipleships Franckenberg\ncultivated throughout his life, his relation to Seidenbecher is particularly\nwell-\u200bdocumented because this pupil was investigated on charges of heresy\nin 1661. Around Christmas of that year, Seidenbecher was removed from his\noffice as pastor in the tiny hamlet of Unterneubrunn, then in the Duchy of\nSaxe-\u200bGotha.\nIn the course of proceedings against him, the ecclesiastical authorities]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=310\nPages: 310\nBiological and Biomedical Sciences 44 (2013): 787\u2013\u200b89.\nRosarium philosophorum. Frankfurt a.M.: Ex officina Cyriaci Jacobi, mense Junio, 1550.\nRoss, Tricia M. \u2018Anthropologia: An (Almost) Forgotten Early Modern History.\u2019 Journal of\nthe History of Ideas 79 (2018): 1\u2013\u200b22.\nRuh, Kurt, Gundolf Keil, Werner Schr\u00f6der, Burghart Wachinger, and Franz Josef\nWorstbrock, eds. Verfasserlexikon: Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Berlin: De\nGruyter, 1978\u2013\u200b2008.\nRuland, Martin. Lexicon alchemiae sive dictionarium alchemisticum. Frankfurt a.M.: Cura\nac sumtibus Zachariae Palthenii, Librarii ac D., 1612.\nRusterholz, Sibylle. \u2018Abraham von Franckenbergs Verh\u00e4ltnis zu Jacob B\u00f6hme: Ver\u00adsuch einer Neubestimmung aufgrund kritischer Sichtung der Textgrundlagen.\u2019 In\nKulturgeschichte Schlesiens in der Fr\u00fchen Neuzeit. Edited by Klaus Garber, 205\u2013\u200b41.\nT\u00fcbingen: Niemeyer, 2005.\nRusterholz, Sibylle. \u2018Elemente christlicher Kabbala bei Abraham von Franckenberg.\u2019\nIn Christliche Kabbala. Edited by Wilhelm Schmidt-\u200b]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=313\nPages: 313\nder weg gezeiget, die Materia genennet, und der Proce\u00df beschrieben wird, zu dem\nhohen geheymnu\u00df der Universal Tinctur zukommen. Frankfurt a.M.: Bey Lucas Jennis\nzufinden, 1619.\n[Siebmacher, Johann]. Das G\u00fcldne Vlie\u00df, Oder Das Allerh\u00f6chste, Edelste, Kunstreichste\nKleinod, und der ur\u00e4lteste verborgene Schatz der Weisen. Leipzig: Bey Samuel Benjamin\nWalthern, 1736.\nSilberer, Herbert. Probleme der Mystik und ihrer Symbolik. Vienna: Heller, 1914.\nSilesius, Angelus. Cherubinischer Wandersmann: Kritische Ausgabe. Edited by Louise\nGn\u00e4dinger. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000. First published 1984.\nSimon, Matthias. \u2018Die Fenitzerbibliothek in N\u00fcrnberg.\u2019 Zeitschrift f\u00fcr bayerische\nKirchengeschichte 29 (1960): 167\u2013\u200b85.\nSimon, Matthias. \u2018Zur Geschichte der Fenitzerbibliothek.\u2019 Zeitschrift f\u00fcr bayerische\nKirchengeschichte 30 (1961): 101.\nSimpson, Anne, and J. K. Rowling. \u2018Casting a Spell over Young Minds.\u2019 Herald\n(Edinburgh, 7 December 1998).]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=221\nPages: 221\nPretiosa Margarita Novella of Petrus Bonus of Ferrara,\u2019 Ambix 20 (1973): 165\u2013\u200b81. For\nmore on the medieval context, see e.g. Zachary A. Matus, \u2018Alchemy and Christianity\nin the Middle Ages,\u2019 History Compass 10 (2012): 934\u2013\u200b45.\n30. See Joachim Telle\u2019s entry in Kurt Ruh et al., eds., Verfasserlexikon: Die deutsche\nLiteratur des Mittelalters (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1978\u2013\u200b2008), s.v. \u2018Ulmannus.\u2019 For a study\nof the work\u2019s imagery, see Obrist, Les d\u00e9buts de l\u2019imagerie alchimique, ch. 3.\n31. Rosarium philosophorum (Frankfurt a.M.: Ex officina Cyriaci Jacobi, Mense Junio,\n1550), f. a4r. On the German alchemia picta that led to the Rosarium, see Joachim\nTelle, Sol und Luna: Literar-\u200bund alchemiegeschichtliche Studien zu einem altdeutschen\nBildgedicht (H\u00fcrtgenwald: Pressler, 1980).\n32. Examples can be found from the early 1980s onward until 2013, the year of his death;\nsee e.g. Joachim Telle, \u2018Zum Opus mago-\u200bcabbalisticum et theosophicum von Georg]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=167\nPages: 167\nwas born of her, was not then Immediately the perfected or Consummated\nTincture, but stood as then in the beginning Process only, by the\nConsummation of which it was to be made a Transmuting Tincture for our\nSouls.\u201960 Freher was adamant that even the fact of the Word made flesh was\nnot enough: \u2018in all his Life upon Earth He could not yet Tincture One single\nSoul,\u2019 as the disciples only became representatives of Christ both convinced\nand convincing after Pentecost: only then were they willing to die for\ntheir faith and able to convert many others to it.61 Prior to completing \u2018the\nProcess of his own Personal Transmutation\u2019 through his passion and resurrection, Christ had not yet acquired the ability to tinge others, and \u2018only\nafter all this, when he could be called the First begotten from the Dead,\nwhen his whole Process was fully Consummated . . . then He was and is the\nonly Transmuting Tincture of our Souls.\u201962 As for the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=159\nPages: 159\nand perceived your love in it. The Most High be praised eternally, who has\nrevealed his great compassion and liberated us from the unbelieving, false\nbrethren.\u201916 In a 1707 letter, more than a decade after the fact, \u00dcberfeld vividly recounted the event that precipitated his companion\u2019s departure. With\nFreher\u2019s help \u00dcberfeld was filling \u2018a large wheelbarrow with bags of apples for\nLoth Fischer.\u2019 Yet suddenly, \u2018the evil spirit fell upon\u2019 Freher, and he stopped\ndead \u2018without saying a word.\u2019 When \u00dcberfeld asked if Freher would help\nhim still, he refused because \u2018Loth Fischer had not sent him greetings.\u2019 So\n\u00dcberfeld tried to carry on alone, \u2018but having reached the gate of our garden,\nI could not possibly pass the threshold without assistance.\u2019 He turned and\ncommanded Freher, \u2018by virtue of the fraternal community which we have\nwith one another in Christ,\u2019 to help him pass the threshold. Yet even when\n\u00dcberfeld repeated his command a second time, Freher refused to be ordered]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=308\nPages: 308\nSteine der Wei\u00dfheit.\u2019 In Theologia mystica: oder Geheime und verborgne g\u00f6ttliche Lehre\nvon den Ewigen unsichtbahrlichkeiten: als vom Mund\u00f4 et Glob\u00f4 Archetyp\u00f4, 267\u2013\u200b82.\nAmsterdam: Bey Heinrich Wettstein daselbst zu finden, 1698.\nPowers, John C. Inventing Chemistry: Herman Boerhaave and the Reform of the Chemical\nArts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.\nPraamsma, Frits. Zacharias Webber (1644\u2013\u200b\n1696): irenisch lutheraan\u2014\u200bverlicht protestant. Kerk en theologie in het denken van een zeventiende-\u200beeuws kunstschilder.\nDelft: Eburon, 2013.\nPrak, Maarten. Gouden Eeuw: het raadsel van de Republiek. Nijmegen: SUN, 2002.\nPriesner, Claus, and Karin Figala, eds. Alchemie: Lexikon einer hermetischen Wissenschaft.\nMunich: Beck, 1998.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. Alchemy and Chemistry: Breaking Up and Making Up (Again\nand Again). Dibner Library Lecture, December 11, 2014. Washington: Smithsonian\nLibraries, 2017.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. \u2018Alchemy Restored.\u2019 Isis 102 (2011): 305\u2013\u200b12.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=296\nPages: 296\nGanzenm\u00fcller, W. \u2018Das Buch der heiligen Dreifaltigkeit: Eine Deutsche Alchemie aus\ndem Anfang des 15. Jahrhunderts.\u2019 In Beitr\u00e4ge zur Geschichte der Technologie und der\nAlchemie, 231\u2013\u200b72. Weinheim: Verlag Chemie, 1956.\nGarewicz, Jan, and Alois Maria Haas, eds. Gott, Natur und Mensch in der Sicht Jacob\nB\u00f6hmes und seiner Rezeption. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994.\nGayler, Christoph Friedrich. Historische Denkw\u00fcrdigkeiten der ehemaligen freien\nReichsstadt, itzt K\u00f6niglich W\u00fcrtembergischen Kreisstadt, Reutlingen vom dritten Viertel\ndes 16ten bis gegen die Mitte des 18ten Jahrhunderts. Nebst einem Anhang von 1789 bis\n1803. Reutlingen: Fleischhauer und Spohn, 1845.\nGeissmar, Christoph. Das Auge Gottes: Bilder zu Jakob B\u00f6hme. Wiesbaden:\nHarrassowitz, 1993.\nGennrich, P. Die Lehre von der Wiedergeburt, die christliche Zentrallehre in dogmen\u00ad\ngeschichtlicher und religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung. Leipzig: Deichert, 1907.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=286\nPages: 286\nWorks Cited\nManuscript and Archival Sources\nAmsterdam\nBibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica (now Embassy of the Free Mind): M 328, M 519.\nBerlin\nStaatsbibliothek Berlin\u2014\u200bPreu\u00dfischer Kulturbesitz: Ms. germ. fol. 142; Ms. germ. fol.\n1070; Ms. germ. quart. 1525.\nCopenhagen\nKongelige Bibliotek: Thott 49 oktav.\nDurham, NC\nDuke University Libraries: Harold Jantz Collection, Bound MS 148.\nD\u00fcsseldorf\nLandeskirchliches Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland: Nachlass Prof. J. F.\nGoeters, 7 NL 015, Nr. 720; Nr. 759.\nErfurt\nAugustinerkloster, Bibliothek des Evangelischen Ministeriums: Msc 21.\nG\u00f6rlitz\nOberlausitzische Bibliothek der Wissenschaften: LA III 409.\nGotha\nForschungsbibliothek der Universit\u00e4t Erfurt: Chart. A 291; Chart. A 297; Chart. A 306;\nChart. A 310; Chart. A 413; Chart. B 195; Chart. B 197\u2013\u200b98; Chart. B 962.\nThe Hague\nKoninklijke Bibliotheek: 72 E 14; Ritman Kerncollectie, PH261 M135; PH266 M140;\nPH317 M197; PH404 M315.\nHalle]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=309\nPages: 309,310\nvon dem k\u00f6stlichen Eckstein der Natur und desselben wunderbaren unaussprechlichen\nKr\u00e4ften und Tugenden. Amsterdam, 1787.\nPseudo-\u200bWeigel. Zwey sch\u00f6ne B\u00fcchlein, Das Erste, Von dem leben Christi, . . . Das Ander,\nEine kurtze au\u00dff\u00fchrliche Erweisung. Edited by [Johann Siebmacher]. Newstatt\n[Frankfurt a.M.]: [Lucas Jennis], 1618/\u200b21?\nPumfrey, Stephen. \u2018The Spagyric Art; or, the Impossible Work of Separating Pure from\nImpure Paracelsianism: A Historiographical Analysis.\u2019 In Grell, Paracelsus, 21\u2013\u200b51.\nPutscher, Marielene. Pneuma, Spiritus, Geist: Vorstellungen vom Lebensantrieb in ihren\ngeschichtlichen Wandlungen. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1973.\nWorks Cited\n295\nQuispel, Gilles. \u2018The Original Doctrine of Valentinus the Gnostic.\u2019 Vigiliae Christianae 50\n(1996): 327\u2013\u200b52.\nQuispel, Gilles. Valentinus de gnosticus en zijn Evangelie der Waarheid. Amsterdam: In de\nPelikaan, 2003.\nRabinowitz, Joseph L. \u2018The Owl of Heinrich Khunrath: Its Origins and Significance.\u2019\nChymia 3 (1950): 243\u2013\u200b50.]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=76\nPages: 76\nJacob Boehme\u2019s Spiritual Alchemy\n61\nBalthasar Walther as an intermediary, Stiefel\u2019s disciples in Erfurt submitted\none of his treatises to Boehme, requesting his assessment. Honoured by such\na request, the Teutonic philosopher showed himself charitably disposed\ntowards Stiefel and acknowledged him to be \u2018pious, born-\u200bagain, and holy in\nChrist through his new birth in the new man.\u201971 Nevertheless, Boehme noted\nthat he and Stiefel had markedly different conceptions of spiritual rebirth.\nHe finished his Bedencken \u00fcber Esai\u00e4 Stiefels, von Langensaltza, B\u00fcchlein\n(Assessment of the Booklet of Esaias Stiefel of Langensalza) on 8 April 1621.\nUnfortunately, the relationship quickly soured and turned into vicious rivalry. Writing early in 1622, Stiefel responded to Boehme in his Tract\u00e4tlein\nvon zweyen Spr\u00fcchen (Treatise on Two Proverbs). He aggressively denigrated\nBoehme\u2019s concept of rebirth while placing him in dubious company:]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=271\nPages: 271\n69. Walton, Notes and Materials, xxvii; [Mary Anne South], A Suggestive Inquiry\ninto the Hermetic Mystery with a Dissertation on the More Celebrated of the\nAlchemical Philosophers (London: Trelawney Saunders, 1850), 54. For more\non Brooke\u2019s Behmenist views, see B. J. Gibbons, Gender in Mystical and Occult\nThought: Behmenism and Its Development in England (Cambridge: Cambridge\nUniversity Press, 1996), 187\u2013\u200b90.\n70. Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers, 113 and 121\u2013\u200b31, resp.\n71. Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers, 131.\n72. [South], A Suggestive Inquiry, 122 (n. 2), 124 (n. 1), 130\u2013\u200b31 (n. 2), 500\u2013\u200b2.\n73. Boehme, De signatura rerum, 56 (SR 7:26); see also 130 (SR 11:19). Further, London,\nBL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 205.\n74. Boehme, De signatura rerum, 57 (SR 7:27).\n75. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, pp. 226, 228\u2013\u200b29, 231, 234\u2013\u200b39, 241, 247.\n76. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 231.\n77. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 207.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=239\nPages: 239\nihre Alchemisierung,\u2019 in Grund und Ungrund: Der Kosmos des mystischen Philosophen\nJacob B\u00f6hme, ed. Claudia Brink and Lucinda Martin (Dresden: Sandstein, 2017),\n114\u2013\u200b29.\n9. Matthew 19:28; see e.g. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 352\u2013\u200b53, 622\u2013\u200b23, 664\u2013\u200b65 (A 12:50, 21:54,\n22:69).\n10. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 528\u2013\u200b29, 666\u2013\u200b67, 774\u2013\u200b75 (A 18:58, 22:80, 26:77). See Revelation 1:4.\n11. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 740\u2013\u200b41 (A 25:52).\n12. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 182 (ET 18:13). On the identification of the\nnobleman, see Hessayon, \u2018Boehme\u2019s Life and Times,\u2019 14.\n13. For a ground-\u200bbreaking study of this phenomenon, see Harold Love, The Culture\nand Commerce of Texts: Scribal Publication in Seventeenth-\u200bCentury England, 2nd ed.\n(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998).\n14. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 122 (ET 12:13).\n15. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 85 (ET 10:26).\n16. Leigh T. I. Penman, \u2018Boehme\u2019s Intellectual Networks and the Heterdox Milieu of His]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=243\nPages: 243\n86. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 688 (SR 11:56).\n87. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 591 (SR 7:53).\n88. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 687 (SR 11:54). In the 1635 edition used by Ingen as well as the textus\nreceptus of 1730, the final two words are given as \u2018im Himmel,\u2019 which I take to be a misreading of \u2018inn Himmel.\u2019 Accordingly, the reading \u2018in Himmel\u2019 of the 1682 and 1715\neditions is to be preferred; compare Jacob Boehme, De Signatura Rerum, Das ist: Von\nder Gebuhrt und Bezeichnung aller Wesen (Amsterdam, 1682), 139; Jacob Boehme,\nTheosophia . . . Oder: Alle Werke, ed. [Johann Otto Gl\u00fcsing], 2 vols. ([Hamburg/\u200b\nAltona], 1715), vol. 2, col. 2321.\n89. Subsumed under \u2018(Christian) mortalism,\u2019 the technical term for Boehme\u2019s position\nis psychopannichism, which is contrasted against the temporary death of the soul\n(thnetopsychism); see e.g. Nicholas McDowell, \u2018Dead Souls and Modern Minds?\nMortalism and the Early Modern Imagination, from Marlowe to Milton,\u2019 Journal]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=28\nPages: 28\nearly Christians (\u00adchapter 4). He then actively communicated these insights to\nhis spiritual and philosophical son, Georg Lorenz Seidenbecher (\u00adchapter 5).\nLater to become notorious as a millenarian, Seidenbecher befriended\nFriedrich Breckling, who eventually rediscovered Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy and added his own accents in the 1680s (\u00adchapter 6). He did so partly\nin unmarked additions to the writings of an obscure sixteenth-\u200bcentury author, Bartholomaeus Sclei (\u00adchapter 7). Subsequently, Dionysius Andreas\nFreher took the spiritual alchemy of rebirth to England after spending a formative decade in Holland. In London, he introduced it to an English audience through his manuscript works (\u00adchapter 8). Freher received a delayed\nreception in the nineteenth century. Christopher Walton, a collector of\nFreher manuscripts, and Thomas South, the father of Mary Anne Atwood,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=240\nPages: 240,239\n16. Leigh T. I. Penman, \u2018Boehme\u2019s Intellectual Networks and the Heterdox Milieu of His\nTheosophy, 1600\u2013\u200b1624,\u2019 in Hessayon and Apetrei, An Introduction to Jacob Boehme,\n57\u2013\u200b76. Strictly speaking, the common characterisation of Boehme as a cobbler does\nnot do justice to his various business activities; for a detailed account, see Lemper,\nJakob B\u00f6hme, esp. pt. 1, ch. 2.\n17. The earliest letter included in Boehme\u2019s correspondence is dated 18 January 1618, yet\nBuddecke and other scholars before him have emended the year to 1619\u2014\u200beven so\nit remains the theosopher\u2019s oldest surviving epistle. For an edition of the autograph\nNotes\n225\nversion and comments on the date, see Buddecke, Die Urschriften, 2:333\u2013\u200b36 (ET,\nno. 1), 455.\n18. Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben, 225 (ET 30:6).\n19. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 670, 672 (SR 11: title and 6).\n20. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 600 (SR 7:78).\n21. Schoeps, Vom himmlischen Fleisch Christi, 56\u2013\u200b62; Gantenbein, \u2018The New Adam\u2019;\nPfefferl, \u2018Weigel und Paracelsus.\u2019]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=240\nPages: 240,241\n25. B\u00f6hme, Aurora, 204\u2013\u200b5 (A 6:12\u2013\u200b13); Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b255, ff. 81v\u2013\u200b82r\n(TP 10:6\u2013\u200b7); Jacob Boehme, Mysterium Magnum, Oder Erkl\u00e4rung \u00fcber das Erste Buch\nMosis, 2nd, corrected ed. (Amsterdam: Auff Kosten Henrici Betkii, und Consorten,\n1678), 121 (MM 19:4\u2013\u200b5).\n26. Boehme, Mysterium Magnum, 121 (MM 19:6).\n27. Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b255, ff. 194r and 186r/\u200bv (TP 17:58 and 21).\n28. Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b255, f. 288r (TP 22:33).\n29. Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b255, ff. 286v\u2013\u200b87r (TP 22:24\u2013\u200b26).\n30. See Proverbs 1:20\u2013\u200b33. For a recent summary with references to earlier literature, see\nLucinda Martin, \u2018Jakob B\u00f6hmes \u201cg\u00f6ttliche Sophia\u201d und Emanzipationsans\u00e4tze bei\npietistischen Autorinnen,\u2019 in K\u00fchlmann and Vollhardt, Offenbarung und Episteme,\n241\u2013\u200b57, on 242\u2013\u200b43. See also Ferdinand van Ingen, \u2018Die Jungfrau Sophia und die\nJungfrau Maria bei Jakob B\u00f6hme,\u2019 in Garewicz and Haas, Gott, Natur und Mensch,\n147\u2013\u200b63.\n226\nNotes]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=240\nPages: 240\nPfefferl, \u2018Weigel und Paracelsus.\u2019\n22. According to one study, Boehme was primarily read among Pietists as a devotional writer until his speculative dimension was rediscovered by the Romanticists;\nPaola Mayer, Jena Romanticism and Its Appropriation of Jakob B\u00f6hme: Theosophy,\nHagiography, Literature (Montreal: McGill-\u200bQueen\u2019s University Press, 1999), ch. 3.\n23. There are many accounts of Boehme\u2019s theosophy, ranging from brief summaries to\nweighty volumes. For a full-\u200blength study and a helpful primer in English, respectively, see e.g. Andrew Weeks, Boehme: An Intellectual Biography of the Seventeenth-\u200b\nCentury Philosopher and Mystic (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991);\nMayer, Jena Romanticism, ch. 2. There are also many studies in other languages, particularly French and German; e.g. Alexandre Koyr\u00e9, La philosophie de Jacob Boehme\n(Paris: Librarie philosophique J. Vrin, 1929); Pierre Deghaye, La naissance de Dieu ou]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82,83\nto Boehme, spiritual rebirth reversed the effects of the Fall: it reversed the\nreverse transmutation, as it were. Although this process would only be completed on the Last Day, it was held to begin here and now, during the believer\u2019s\nlife on earth.\nWhile it is a challenge to grasp Boehme\u2019s shifting theosophy, he did tend\ntowards identifying the body of Christ with the holy element of Paradise\nand the second principle of love and light, as well as with the quintessence.\nAll of these\u2014\u200bChrist\u2019s body, holy element, and quintessence\u2014\u200bBoehme designated lapis philosophorum. For the theosopher, the spiritual body of the\nnew birth was Christ and the philosophers\u2019 stone at once\u2014\u200bnot figuratively\nand by way of analogy but literally and in reality. Going far beyond pseudo-\u200b\nWeigelian alchemy in its ambitious scope, Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy was\n68\nSpiritual Alchemy\nintricately connected not only to the daily experience of the believer, but]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=241\nPages: 241,242\n51. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 581 (SR 7:25).\n52. Boehme, Von der Menschwerdung, 112 (IV, pt. 1, 10:1).\n53. Jacob Boehme, Epistolae Theosophicae, oder Theosophische Send-\u200bBriefe ([Leiden?],\n1730), e.g. nos. 23, 41 (abbr.).\n54. Wroc\u0142aw, BU: Ms. Akc. 1975/\u200b271, f. 77r/\u200bv (TV 7:29\u2013\u200b30).\nNotes\n227\n55. [Siebmacher], Wasserstein, 101\u2013\u200b\n2; Bonus, Pretiosa margarita novella, f. ***4v;\nRosarium philosophorum, f. a4r.\n56. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 585 (SR 7:35).\n57. E.g. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 666 (SR 10:70); see also 679 (SR 11:29).\n58. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 574 (SR 7:1).\n59. E.g. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 670 (SR 11: title).\n60. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 629 (SR 9:26). See Matthew 4:1\u2013\u200b11.\n61. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy, pl. 3.\n62. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 694 (SR 11:77). See Luke 23:44\u2013\u200b45.\n63. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 708 (SR 12:22).\n64. Priesner and Figala, Alchemie, s.v. \u2018Opus magnum,\u2019 on 262.\n65. E.g. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 684, 685 (as a verb), 750 (SR 11:43, 46; 14:55).\n66. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 591 (SR 7:53); cf. Acts 2:41.\n67. B\u00f6hme, Werke, 591 (SR 7:54).]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=162\nPages: 162\nDionysius Andreas Freher\n147\nwriting thus earned his keep or at the very least contributed to augmenting\nthe meagre livelihood he gained through teaching. In this peculiar situation,\nFreher at times appeared to write as a Boehme expert on demand: he expanded on topics and digressed \u2018according to what was lately desired,\u2019 as a\nrare admission reveals.30\nThe following survey of Freher\u2019s Fundamenta mystica focuses on the\nmanner in which he appropriated Boehme\u2019s spiritual alchemy and communicated it to an English audience. The theosophical jargon Boehmists\nemployed around 1700 made excessive use of alchemical terms, yet only a\nfew instances actually harked back to transmutational alchemy. Despite\nthis, the \u2018outward Process of the Philosophical Work\u2019 of alchemy played\nan exceptional role, supplying as it did the \u2018similitude . . . which would be\nthe nearest and most proper\u2019 to the mysteries Boehme sought to convey.31]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=228\nPages: 228\nspiritualistisch-\u200bhermetischen Theologie, 3 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001), 2:97\u2013\u200b182.\nOn the controversial early reception of Arndt, see Martin Brecht et al., eds., Geschichte\ndes Pietismus, 4 vols. (G\u00f6ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993\u2013\u200b2004), 1:142\u2013\u200b51.\n22. Sibylle Rusterholz, \u2018Zum Verh\u00e4ltnis von Liber Naturae und Liber Scripturae bei Jacob\nB\u00f6hme,\u2019 in Gott, Natur und Mensch in der Sicht Jacob B\u00f6hmes und seiner Rezeption,\ned. Jan Garewicz and Alois Maria Haas (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994), 129\u2013\u200b46, on\n136, 145.\n23. Jacob Boehme, Theosophische Send-\u200bSchreiben (Amsterdam: Verlegt durch Henrico\nBetkio, 1658), 149 (ET 12:60).\n24. Brecht et al., Geschichte des Pietismus, 1:212.\n25. W. R. Ward, Early Evangelicalism: A Global Intellectual History (Cambridge: Cambridge\nUniversity Press, 2006), ch. 1; Douglas H. Shantz, \u2018The Origin of Pietist Notions of\nNew Birth and the New Man: Alchemy and Alchemists in Gottfried Arnold and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=174\nPages: 174,175\nFundamenta mystica primarily served the purpose of interpreting and\nexplaining Boehme\u2019s theosophy to an Anglophone audience. In the course\nof this grand project, Freher also employed several alchemical terms, derived from Boehme, rather than any independent encounter with alchemical literature, and related them to the overarching concern he shared with\nthe theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz: spiritual rebirth. Particularly in \u2018The Process in\nthe Philosophical Work,\u2019 Freher detailed the three-\u200bway analogy between alchemy, Christ\u2019s Incarnation, and the regeneration of individual believers. As\na rare exception among his mostly unprinted work, a drastically shortened\nversion of Freher\u2019s \u2018Process\u2019 found its way into The Lives of Alchemystical\nPhilosophers, likely compiled by an English Behmenist. \u2018The Process in the\nPhilosophical Work\u2019 guarantees the continuity of spiritual alchemy from\nBoehme to Atwood.\n9\nMesmerists and Alchemists\nin Victorian London]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=298\nPages: 298,299\nand Renaissance Studies, 2005.\nHanegraaff, Wouter J., Antoine Faivre, Roelof van den Broek, and Jean-\u200bPierre Brach, eds.\nDictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Leiden: Brill, 2007.\nHannak, Kristine. Geist=reiche Critik: Hermetik, Mystik und das Werden der Aufkl\u00e4rung\nin spiritualistischer Literatur der Fr\u00fchen Neuzeit. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013.\nHannaway, Owen. The Chemists and the Word: The Didactic Origins of Chemistry.\nBaltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.\nHa-\u200bPenini, Yedayah. Be\u1e25inot ha-\u200b\u02bfolam . . . Examen mundi, R. J. Badreshitae: Latina\ninterpretatione, atque animadversionibus illustratum. Edited and translated by Allard\nUchtman. Leiden: Ex Officina Joannis Maire, 1650.\n284\nWorks Cited\nHarmsen, Theodor, ed. Jacob B\u00f6hmes Weg in die Welt: Zur Geschichte der\nHandschriftensammlung, \u00dcbersetzungen und Editionen von Abram Willemsz van\nBeyerland. Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 2007.\nHarrison, Peter. The Territories of Science and Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=161\nPages: 161\nThe peculiar Fundamenta mystica represent the most impressive fruit of\nFreher\u2019s long-\u200b\nstanding intellectual engagement with the theosopher of\nG\u00f6rlitz. In the only monograph on Freher so far, Charles A. Muses has hailed\nthe work as a most faithful exposition of Boehme\u2019s theosophy.25 Freher likely\nthought of his work in a similar way, although he modestly acknowledged\nhis limitations, \u2018saying plainly, that I do not Understand him [Boehme] any\nfurther, than According to the small Measure of my own Progress.\u201926 For an\nAnglophone audience, Freher played the important role of a cultural intermediary. In this capacity, he communicated his own understanding of\nBoehme to people who, by and large, read Boehme\u2019s works in English translation. In the process, Freher commented upon choices made by earlier\ntranslators and occasionally translated Boehme passages himself.27\nMoreover, Freher\u2019s writings often addressed specific interlocutors, though]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=24\nPages: 24,25\nHermetic Christianity\u2019 from which all other heresies flowed.49\nBearing in mind the layers of meaning accruing around \u2018spirit\u2019 in the early-\u200b\nmodern world, I define the spiritual alchemy investigated here as the practical\npursuit of inward but real bodily transmutation. This transmutation amounted\nto the reversal of the Fall and its consequences; furthermore, it prepared the\nfaithful for the resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgement. This spiritual\nalchemy is thus closely connected to the idea of spiritual rebirth, which it\nhelped shape and by which it was shaped in turn.50 Apart from the fact that,\n10\nSpiritual Alchemy\nfrom Jacob Boehme onward, all the figures studied here drew on his theosophy, there are three key elements of this alchemy. First, there is a three-\u200bway\nlapis-\u200bChristus in nobis analogy between the philosophers\u2019 stone, Christ incarnate, and the believer who mystically identifies with Christ. This element]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=272\nPages: 272,273\nPhilosophers, 121\u2013\u200b22; [South], A Suggestive Inquiry, 500\u2013\u200b502; Mary Anne Atwood,\nA Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery with a Dissertation on the More\nCelebrated of the Alchemical Philosophers, 3rd ed. (Belfast: William Tait, 1920),\n528\u2013\u200b29.\n92. Boehme, De signatura rerum, 118 (SR 10:48).\n93. Boehme, De signatura rerum, 128 (SR 11:11).\n94. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. E, p. 81.\n95. London, BL: Add. MS 5792, pp. 69\u2013\u200b70, 276. Gottfried Arnold was another author\nmentioned by name; e.g. London, BL: Add. MS 5783, f. 2r\u2013\u200b15v.\n96. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 206.\n97. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 207.\n98. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 214.\n99. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, pp. 207\u2013\u200b8. See John 1:12.\n100. Boehme, De signatura rerum, 56 (SR 7:25).\n101. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 205. See Genesis 3:15.\n258\nNotes\n102. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 222; Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=64\nPages: 64\n49\nlaboratory and to the spiritual rebirth of the believer. Around the same time,\nBoehme engaged with another religious dissenter, Esaias Stiefel, who competed for disciples with him. In his Apologia, Betreffend Die Vollkommenheit\ndes Menschen (Apology Concerning Human Perfection), the second treatise\nhe addressed to Stiefel, the theosopher of G\u00f6rlitz outlined the spiritual alchemy of rebirth and its intricate connections to salvation history from the\nvery beginning until the end of time, from creation and the Fall to the Last\nJudgement.\nAlchemy in Boehme\u2019s Aurora\nBoehme\u2019s Aurora articulated a general stance regarding alchemy from which\nhe did not depart even in his later writings. The most pertinent passage is\nfound in c\u00ad hapter 22, in a section titled \u2018Concerning the metals in the earth.\u20193\nHere Boehme described the purification of gold in seven stages. Due to the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=162\nPages: 162,163\n[of] Behmen\u2019s Writings.\u201934 Just like Freher, \u2018I shall say nothing more\u2019 of annihilation, but transmutation certainly merits further discussion due to its\ndistinctly alchemical origin. Ultimately, Freher\u2019s own perceptive commentary on Boehme\u2019s writings actually succeeded in bringing out several hidden\nconnections between the meanings involved in alchemical terminology and\ntheir theosophical appropriation.\nThroughout his monumental work, Freher\u2014\u200blike Boehme\u2014\u200boften relied\non alchemy and its terms. Yet the German expatriate appears to have had\nan even more limited grasp of alchemy than Boehme, Franckenberg, and\nBreckling, deriving his knowledge from Boehme\u2019s writings and his own\nmentors in Holland, Gichtel and \u00dcberfeld. Though Freher never referred to\nmany authors other than the omnipresent Boehme, it does not seem that he\nengaged with alchemical literature, let alone the actual practice of alchemy in\n148\nSpiritual Alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3dPyZ5uW5BmjcZ3nkyvY6k/_Oxford-Stud.pdf?pdfPage=270\nPages: 270\nPierre Deghaye, \u2018Die Natur als Leib Gottes in Jacob B\u00f6hmes Theosophie,\u2019 in Garewicz\nand Haas, Gott, Natur und Mensch, 71\u2013\u200b111, on 93\u2013\u200b94. Another English Behmenist\nalso attached considerable weight to the term; Hanegraaff et al., Dictionary, s.v.\n\u2018Pordage, John,\u2019 esp. 968\u2013\u200b69.\n54. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. A, p. 135.\n55. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. A, pp. 232, 271\u2013\u200b72.\n56. London, BL: Add. MS 5792, pp. 203\u2013\u200b5.\n57. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. A, p. 135.\n58. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. A, pp. 135\u2013\u200b36.\n59. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. A, p. 141.\n60. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. A, p. 138.\n61. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. A, p. 143.\n62. London, BL: Add. MSS 5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. A, p. 142.\n63. Boehme, De signatura rerum, chs. 7 and 10\u2013\u200b12, according to London, BL: Add. MSS\n5767\u2013\u200b74, vol. G, p. 202.\n64. Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers, 121\u2013\u200b\n31. The first edition is now exceedingly rare: The Lives of the Adepts in Alchemystical Philosophy]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=104\nPages: 104,103\nbut a further proceeding bringeth the mind back to religion.\u201d59 But reason in \u201cthe\nlight of nature\u201d could not penetrate the stubborn walls of idolatry and superstition, and therefore God had to approach these individuals differently, more spectacularly, through the use of miracles.\nClearly, there was little room for spiritual alchemy in Bacon\u2019s theology. Alchemy embodied a mistaken search for knowledge and, despite all of its spiritual\ninvocations, was an impious approach to God. The superstitious associations that\nalchemists invoked were, in his mind, cynical attempts to cloak their self-serving\nwork in the guise of piety. He never invoked the creation, the Old Testament,\nF r a n c i s Bac on , A l c h e m y, a n d t h e G reat Redemp tion \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 89\nor ancient wisdom when he discussed cosmology\u2014the fundamental concern of\nParacelsians.60 He pruned away the branches of cabalism and mysticism that had]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=29\nPages: 29\nlittle-recognized school of \u2018supernatural alchemy\u2019 which seems to have developed\nin seventeenth-century England.\u201d52 This \u201csupernatural alchemy\u201d promised to bestow upon skilled practitioners monumental intellectual, medicinal, or spiritual\npowers. While the alchemists we will encounter probably fall into this category,\nsuch a discrete partition presupposes the relevance of a particular alchemical approach to its contribution to the scientific revolution. While alchemy was certainly a part of the scientific revolution, Alchemical Belief assumes that it was part\nof much larger religious and political contexts. Further, while alchemists occasionally used the term \u201csupernatural,\u201d they used language such as \u201cdivine,\u201d \u201csacred,\u201d and \u201cheavenly\u201d just as often, if not more so. This study investigates how and\nwhy individuals who inhabited the traditional center of English ecclesiastical and\npolitical power, or supported those who did, believed in the relevance of alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=183\nPages: 183\n44. See Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority, 204n19.\n45. Although not as specific as this study purports to be, Deborah Harkness explores the role\nof belief in John Dee\u2019s occultism in John Dee\u2019s Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and\nthe End of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).\n46. See Newman and Principe, \u201cSome Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\u201d in\nSecrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Grafton and William R. Newman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), esp. 388\u2013400.\n47. I am not the first to recognize the limitations of Newman and Principe\u2019s critique. Hereward Tilton provides an extended critique of Newman and Principe\u2019s essay in The Quest for the\nPhoenix: Spiritual Alchemy and Rosicrucianism in the Work of Count Michael Maier (1569\u20131622)\n(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), 1\u201334, 255\u201356, and passim. Brian Vickers also takes issue with]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27,28\nalchemical work.\nNewman and Principe have also written a powerful account of how spirituality crept into the study of alchemy, and their critique of this trend deserves serious attention. Surely their critique of the laudatory work of Margaret Atwood\nand Ethan Allen Hitchcock in the nineteenth century, and of Arthur Edward\nWaite in the twentieth, is valid. Equally valid and convincing is their argument\nIntroduction \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 13\nthat the Jungian approach to the study of alchemy has produced anachronistic\nconclusions.46\nSome of their other criticisms are more problematic.47 They suggest that the\nreligious imagery employed by early modern alchemists functioned \u201cas a source\nof tropes and imagery for rhetorical embellishment or didactic exemplification\nrather than as an inherently spiritual exercise which elevates the practitioner by\nsome esoteric illumination.\u201d48 This observation does not appreciate that virtually all early modern acts of piety and devotion were intended to elevate \u201cthe]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=58\nPages: 58,59\nThe result was a ten-thousand-word manuscript, \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d\nthat defended the material aspects of alchemy.2 Fludd did not deny\u2014and indeed\neven encouraged\u2014the metaphysical and spiritual elements of alchemy, but he argued that these should not overshadow the very real, very tangible qualities of\nthe art. Scot\u2019s advocacy of spirituality without physical transformation was pernicious to Fludd.3 For Fludd, alchemy had to be both metaphysical and physical; it\nwas God\u2019s work on earth, and spirituality alone was not enough for the faithful.\nChristians had a sacred responsibility to achieve God\u2019s will on earth, and Fludd\nbelieved that alchemy was one of the most sacred responsibilities God ever gave\nto humanity.\n44\nAlchemical Belief\nHowever, in \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow\u201d we confront the essential paradox of\nChristianity. Fludd did not turn to recipes, testimonies of past success, personal\nexperiences, or historical anecdotes of alchemical processes to demonstrate their]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=59\nPages: 59\nexperiences, or historical anecdotes of alchemical processes to demonstrate their\nphysical reality. Instead, he turned to philosophical and theological constructs to\ndemonstrate that alchemy involved real, demonstrable processes. In other words,\nFludd\u2019s argument for alchemy\u2019s physical reality was based upon intellectual and\nspiritual beliefs. As a conforming member of the Church of England, a Christian\nNeoplatonist, and a member, and eventually an officer, of the College of Physicians, spirituality was as real for Fludd as any physical experience he witnessed or\nconducted.4 Spiritual as well as occult forces would ultimately effect change in this\nworld. In this regard he was as much a part of the religious culture of the Church\nof England as he was of the medical and philosophical community in the early\ndecades of seventeenth-century England.\nIndeed, as far as his religious sensibilities were concerned, Fludd was quite]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=53\nPages: 53\nClearly, in the context of a study that had examined matter and form and the\nprime elements of the universe, he understood Paul\u2019s spiritual message to refer\nto a physical transformation, a renewal and redemption of the natural as well\nas the spiritual world. Alchemy might even result in the return of Christ, ushering in a new world, a world redeemed and transformed alchemically. The Day\nof Judgment itself, as we saw earlier, would be an alchemical event. Theophrast\nproceeded to describe chapters 20 and 21 of the book of Revelation. He recounted\na city with walls and gates made of precious stones and streets paved in gold,\nmaking clear that the alchemical transformation was securely founded upon holy\nscripture. However, this event would be more than a simple transmutation of the\nnatural world: \u201cIn this Kingdome, God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes,\nand there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, neither crying, neither shall]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=20\nPages: 20\nwould help them attain.\nThe concept of religious or spiritual belief itself, however, is slippery and elusive. As sophisticated studies of alchemy by historians of science have shown,\nbelief played little or no part in the work of some alchemists. These alchemists left\ncontracts and notebooks that document days, months, even years of hard work\nin search of tangible results for the alchemist and patron, but reveal little or no\npreoccupation with what we could call religious belief.19\nBut there were also early modern alchemists whose alchemical and religious\nbeliefs came together with breathtaking results. These alchemists used alchemy to\nillustrate, demonstrate, and, in their minds, even prove theological doctrines such\nas the Trinity and the resurrection of the dead. What better way to gain a deeper\nunderstanding of early modern English mentalit\u00e9s than to look into the contemporary understanding of alchemy?]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=110\nPages: 110\namong alchemists. In his History of Life and Death Bacon clarified that he did not\nmean a virtue or a power when he spoke of the spirit of a substance \u201cbut a body,\nsubtle and invisible yet situated in actual space,\u201d a definition many alchemists\nwould have accepted.87\nThe spiritual quality of matter was a central alchemical supposition. Early\nmodern alchemists believed that metals differed because each possessed a different spirit. A metal could be transmuted if a new spirit was introduced into\nit. While Rossi does not suggest that Bacon expressed this view of metals, he\nbelieves that Bacon\u2019s vocabulary betrayed the influence this notion had on him:\n\u201cBacon\u2019s vocabulary bears the distinctive mark of this [alchemical] tradition:\nhe speaks of the assimilation, nourishment, generation, and irritation of substances in the process of conservation or mutation; he makes frequent use of\nthe term fixation with its traditional alchemical connotations.\u201d88 Rossi points to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=69\nPages: 69\n54\nAlchemical Belief\nIn observing that God prefers \u201ccredulous love\u201d to \u201ca curious head,\u201d Scot was\ntrying to redirect the spiritual energies of alchemists to more productive and,\nin his mind, less perilous pursuits. However, it was not the physical reality of\nalchemy that he feared but its temptations. Time spent away from pursuing divine truths was time wasted: \u201cwhat ill lucke is it, that we who have the Oracles of\neternall truth are so carelese & prodigall of our short time, that we doe not freely\nenjoy the happinesse of true divine light, which onely sheweth generous spirits, worthy to be the master-peece of that soveraigne worke-master their Creator,\nI can give no other reason, then quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat [Jupiter\ndrives insane those whom he wishes to destroy].\u201d45 Scot saw alchemy as part of\nthe larger efforts of natural philosophers and scholars to demolish previously accepted notions about the world, an endeavor that he thought could only lead to\nruin.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=28\nPages: 28,29\nGod on earth, and the resurrection of the dead. However, even if alchemy was a\nmetaphor\u2014and surely it was for some practitioners\u2014its religious significance is\nnot diminished. From its very beginnings, Christianity used metaphor in making\ntheological or spiritual points. Christ\u2019s parables and the apostolic letters are filled\nwith similes and metaphors intended to convince their readers of the truth of\nChristianity and instruct them in following that truth. Christ compared faith to a\nmustard seed (Matt. 17:20), and Paul reminded his followers that they understood\nthe world only dimly, as through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13:12). When alchemists\nturned to metaphor, they called upon a tradition as old as Christianity itself.\n14\nAlchemical Belief\nIn their taxonomy of alchemical inquiry, Newman and Principe identify \u201cthe\nlittle-recognized school of \u2018supernatural alchemy\u2019 which seems to have developed]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=94\nPages: 94\nintellectual history but will highlight the peak of the alchemical tradition in late\nsixteenth- and early seventeenth-century political culture. Thus our question:\nHow does alchemy help us to understand the place of reverence and revelation\nin Bacon\u2019s thought? Understanding his spirituality, intellectual philosophy, and\npolitical strategy will provide a clearer, more historically grounded understanding of Francis Bacon.\nAlchemical Irreverence and the Sacred Nature of Knowledge\nThe number of Bacon\u2019s writings devoted exclusively to religious issues is small,\nand most of them were published posthumously by his chaplain and biographer,\nDr. William Rawley. His religious writings are also some of his earliest, composed\nmostly in the 1580s and 1590s, after he had returned from serving as attach\u00e9 in the\nEnglish embassy in Paris. Yet we err if we consider Bacon\u2019s religious expressions\nsolely in terms of his direct statements. Although he wrote very few explicitly]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=84\nPages: 84\nFludd concluded his long manuscript with a final summation of how alchemy\nrepresented humanity\u2019s hope for redemption in a corrupted natural world: \u201cWherupon I conclude that the materiall Elixir of the philosophers is not therfore\nto be excluded, because the shadow of it, which is morality is not to be rejected,\n. . . Look therefore for a reall [mercury] of the philosophers, and in it search a\nsonne which can give light unto the darknes as wel of bodys as soules\u201d (56v\u201357r).\nFludd\u2019s search for a \u201csonne\u201d through which spiritual as well as physical healing\ncould occur may have more historical resonance than his labyrinthine treatise\nmay appear to possess. On June 20, 1624, James Ussher, the Irish bishop of Meath,\npreached a sermon before James I that \u201cwas much admired, and the King ordered\nhim to print it.\u201d98 Indeed, the sermon appeared in print that year and again in]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=142\nPages: 142,143\nmathematicians, chemists, philosophers, and writers of the day. His passing in\n1665 put an end to the salon, but discussions there had already inspired Robert\nBoyle to produce his mechanical explanation for the alchemical process, a work\nthat Sir Isaac Newton read with great interest and that inspired his life\u2019s devotion\nto the secret art.96\nDigby\u2019s alchemy brings us back to the death of his wife, Venetia. Although he\neventually regained his composure and even fell in love again, he never remarried. His consolation ultimately seems to have lain in his intellectual and spiritual\npursuits. Digby believed that the alchemical process confirmed God\u2019s gift of redemption and resurrection. Alchemy reassured him that his faith did not have to\nreside merely in hope or miracles. Divine agency could be replicated, and could\nremind individuals of God\u2019s continuing presence on earth.\n5\nElias Ashmole:\nThe Collection and Culmination of Alchemical Thought]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=140\nPages: 140\nDigby\u2019s Catholicism permeated his life and thus also his natural philosophy.\nHe viewed alchemy and natural philosophy not just on their own terms but as a\nmeans of resolving theological problems and confirming Catholic doctrine.93 He\nprobably associated the transformation of the spirit through religious rituals with\nhis natural philosophy. If individuals could be transformed into a state of grace\nthrough a series of sacred rituals, then surely material bodies could also be purged\nof their corrupt elements and their pure elements revealed. If the processes of dissolution and putrefaction had alchemical significance, then they had theological\nsignificance as well. He had already explained that his treatise on the nature of\nbodies could not be understood without grasping the argument of his treatise on\nthe nature of the soul. Irrefutable and immutable principles in natural philosophy\ncould only be, by definition, expressions of God.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=45\nPages: 45\nand Hermeticall Physicke. In his dedication to Charles Blount he reassured his\nreaders that alchemy was not concerned merely with the transmutation of metals,\na common error, he noted: \u201cFor Halchymie . . . hath also a chyrurgical hand in\nthe anatomizing of every mesenteriall veine of whole nature: Gods created handmaid, to conceive and bring forth his Creatures.\u201d Alchemy was God\u2019s assistant, the\n\u201chand-maid\u201d who responded to divine direction.\nAlchemy demonstrated the power and wisdom of God. It imitated nature by\nseparating salt, sulfur, and mercury from vegetable, mineral, and animal matter.\nBy separating these elements, one \u201cshal by that mystery, as in glasse, discerene\nthe holy and most glorious Trinitie, in the Unitie of one Hupostasis Divine.\u201d Although he understood the three elements as \u201cdivine,\u201d he went further, referring\nto Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans: \u201cthe invisible things of God (saith the Apostle) that]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=44\nPages: 44\nBody because it is the Bond of them both. And thus this one thing [mercury] is\nBody, Soule, and Spirit in divers respects.\u201d However closely this passage operated\nalong alchemical principles, it clearly went beyond that to an instructive spiritual\nplane. After his brief discussion of lead, tin, iron, copper, silver, and, of course,\ngold, he observed that \u201cthis noble Science is the way to caelestiall & supernaturall\nthings, by whiche the ancient Wisemen were led from the worke of Arte & Nature\nto understande, even by reason the wonderfull powre of God in the creacion of all\nthings: & their finall purificacion by alteracion through fire in the day of doome.\u201d\nTymme did not think people should fear this \u201cday of doome,\u201d for on this day\n\u201cuncleane faeces & corrupcion\u201d would be separated from the four elements and\nbe made into a \u201cChristalline cleerenes.\u201d He reassured his readers that nothing\nwould be destroyed in a fire, because \u201cGod by his power will change all things &]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=72\nPages: 72,71\nLater he wrote of the cloud that guided the Jews in the wilderness, the rock Moses\nstruck with his staff, and the wisdom of Solomon; these things not only represented but actually proved alchemy\u2019s transformative powers (\u201cand yet dare any\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 57\nman be so blind as to calle this divine Elixir or summum bonum an imaginary\nnon Ens, a fume or a Chimera?\u201d) (10v). For Fludd, alchemy was, or at least was\npart of, an animating force that suffused the entire natural world. He believed that\nwhen God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, every creature was inspired with \u201ca certayne germinating and vegetatinge spirit or viridity . . . and this multiplying was bestowed as well on mineralls as eyther animalls\nand vegetables\u201d (13v). Indeed, Allen Debus points out that Fludd\u2019s Philosophicall\nKey (1619) explained \u201cspontaneous generation on the basis of this spiritus mundi;]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=28\nPages: 28\nhis worldly possessions, he continued to believe \u201cthat the devout practice of alchemy led to the redemption of the soul.\u201d50 At least some alchemists believed\nthat alchemy correlated with the central doctrines and liturgy of the Church of\nEngland. Robert Schuler identifies no fewer than three distinct religious strains in\nseventeenth-century alchemical literature: Church of England, orthodox Calvinism, and the dissenting Familist doctrine.51\nFurther, while Alchemical Belief does not make claims beyond the alchemists\nstudied, hopefully it will be clear that alchemy was not simply a metaphor or a\ntrope for adepts but a very real tool that they used to help them to understand\nand negotiate the world around them, a tool particularly helpful in defining and\nexplaining elusive but crucial doctrinal beliefs such as the Trinity, the presence of\nGod on earth, and the resurrection of the dead. However, even if alchemy was a]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=136\nPages: 136\non the role of God\u2019s blessings and the particular spirituality, sometimes even the\nelection, of a particular alchemist.84 That an alchemical procedure be replicable\u2014\nregardless of a given philosopher\u2019s particular church\u2014was an important requirement for Digby and a measure of his desire to apply the more rigorous principles\nof natural philosophy to the occult tradition of alchemy than previous generations had. It also preserved his Catholic belief in individual free will.\nYet Digby\u2019s position on free will was only one aspect of his theory of the resurrection of the dead. He also related the question of resurrection to his eclectic matter theory and his alchemy. Matter was the \u201ccapacity to be this or that or\nany thing whatsoever.\u201d What determined that capacity, however, was \u201cform,\u201d the\nblueprint of matter on earth. \u201cAnd consequently as long as the Form remaineth\nthe same, the thing is the same, and the matter is the same. Were it not for this]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=27\nPages: 27,28\nalchemical work.\nNewman and Principe have also written a powerful account of how spirituality crept into the study of alchemy, and their critique of this trend deserves serious attention. Surely their critique of the laudatory work of Margaret Atwood\nand Ethan Allen Hitchcock in the nineteenth century, and of Arthur Edward\nWaite in the twentieth, is valid. Equally valid and convincing is their argument\nIntroduction \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 13\nthat the Jungian approach to the study of alchemy has produced anachronistic\nconclusions.46\nSome of their other criticisms are more problematic.47 They suggest that the\nreligious imagery employed by early modern alchemists functioned \u201cas a source\nof tropes and imagery for rhetorical embellishment or didactic exemplification\nrather than as an inherently spiritual exercise which elevates the practitioner by\nsome esoteric illumination.\u201d48 This observation does not appreciate that virtually all early modern acts of piety and devotion were intended to elevate \u201cthe]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=208\nPages: 208,206\nWarre be ended.\u201d\n2. Kishlansky, Monarchy Transformed, 63.\n3. Newman and Principe\u2019s Alchemy Tried in the Fire is particularly relevant to the present\nstudy; just as Newman and Principe argue that seventeenth-century alchemy was far more orderly than has been appreciated, we have seen that the alchemists in the present volume believed\nthat worship and spirituality should also be approached with order, precision, and method.\n4. Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 232\u201335. Michael Hunter noticed the same discrepancy\nas I have in Christopher Hill\u2019s interpretation. See his Elias Ashmole and His World, 5\u20136.\n5. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Pantheon Books,\n1964), 12\u201313.\nBibliography\nPrimary Sources\nManuscript Collections and Libraries\nBritish Library, London\nAdditional MSS\nSloane MSS\nOxford University\nBodleian Library\nAshmole MSS\nDigby MSS\nTanner MSS\nCodrington Library, All Souls College\nPrinted Sources]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=183\nPages: 183\n(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), 1\u201334, 255\u201356, and passim. Brian Vickers also takes issue with\nNewman and Principe\u2019s approach. See Vickers, \u201cThe \u2018New Historiography\u2019 and the Limits of\nAlchemy,\u201d Annals of Science 65 (January 2008): 128\u201330, 135\u201336.\n48. Newman and Principe, \u201cSome Problems with the Historiography,\u201d 398.\n49. Tom Webster, Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England: The Caroline Puritan Movement, c.\n1620\u20131643 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 60\u201374, 122\u201348; Sharpe, Personal Rule\nof Charles I, 317\u201328. More generally, see Dewey D. Wallace Jr., Puritans and Predestination: Grace\nin English Protestant Theology, 1525\u20131695 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982),\n191\u201396.\n50. Laurinda S. Dixon, Alchemical Imagery in Bosch\u2019s Garden of Delights (Ann Arbor: UMI\nResearch Press, 1981), 7.\n51. Robert M. Schuler, \u201cSome Spiritual Alchemies of Seventeenth-Century England,\u201d Journal\nof the History of Ideas 41 (April\u2013June 1980): 317\u201318.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=183\nPages: 183\n44. See Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority, 204n19.\n45. Although not as specific as this study purports to be, Deborah Harkness explores the role\nof belief in John Dee\u2019s occultism in John Dee\u2019s Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and\nthe End of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).\n46. See Newman and Principe, \u201cSome Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\u201d in\nSecrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Grafton and William R. Newman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), esp. 388\u2013400.\n47. I am not the first to recognize the limitations of Newman and Principe\u2019s critique. Hereward Tilton provides an extended critique of Newman and Principe\u2019s essay in The Quest for the\nPhoenix: Spiritual Alchemy and Rosicrucianism in the Work of Count Michael Maier (1569\u20131622)\n(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), 1\u201334, 255\u201356, and passim. Brian Vickers also takes issue with]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=220\nPages: 220\nNewman, William R. \u201cAlchemical and Baconian Views on the Art/Nature Division.\u201d In Reading\nthe Book of Nature: The Other Side of the Scientific Revolution, ed. Allen G. Debus and\nMichael T. Walton, 81\u201390. Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth-Century Journal Publishers, 1998.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature. Chicago: University of\nChicago Press, 2004.\nNewman, William R., and Lawrence M. Principe. Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and\nthe Fate of Helmontian Chymistry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cSome Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy.\u201d In Secrets of Nature: Astrology\nand Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Grafton and William R. Newman,\n385\u2013431. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001.\nNugent, Donald. Ecumenism in the Age of the Reformation: The Colloquy of Poissy. Cambridge:]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=182\nPages: 182,183\nNewman, Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature (Chicago: University\nof Chicago Press, 2004); and Lawrence M. Principe, The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His\nAlchemical Quest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).\n40. See Lauren Kassell, Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman, Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005).\n41. See Lyndy Abraham, Marvell and Alchemy (Brookfield, Vt.: Scolar Press, 1990); and Stanton J. Linden, Darke Hierogliphicks: Alchemy in English Literature from Chaucer to the Restoration (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996).\n168\u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 N ot e s to Pag e s 1 1 \u2013 1 7\n42. See Robert M. Schuler, ed., Alchemical Poetry, 1575\u20131700, from Previously Unpublished\nManuscripts (New York: Garland, 1995).\n43. See Neil Kamil, Fortress of the Soul: Violence, Metaphysics, and Material Life in the Huguenots\u2019 New World, 1517\u20131751 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=182\nPages: 182\nthe Union of 1603, ed. Roger A. Mason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 41\u201357.\n35. See especially Newman and Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire.\n36. See, all by Allen G. Debus, The English Paracelsians (New York: Franklin Watts, 1966);\nThe Chemical Philosophy: Paracelsian Science and Medicine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth\nCenturies, 2 vols. (New York: Science History Publications, 1977); and The French Paracelsians\n(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).\n37. R. J. W. Evans, Rudolf II and His World: A Study in Intellectual History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 196\u2013274; Bruce T. Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court: Occult\nPhilosophy and Chemical Medicine in the Circle of Moritz of Hessen (1572\u20131632) (Stuttgart: Franz\nSteiner Verlag, 1991); Bruce T. Moran, Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy:]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=26\nPages: 26\nreceived a great deal of scholarly attention. In three monographs and numerous\narticles, B. J. T. Dobbs identified and clarified the role of alchemy in the work of\none of the towering figures of the scientific revolution, Sir Isaac Newton.38 William Newman has traced the influence of one of the most elusive alchemists of the\nseventeenth century, George Starkey, who wrote his alchemical treatises under the\npseudonym Eiraneus Philalethes. Newman has also written a much broader study\nof alchemy, considering the issue within the context of the debate over art and\nnature. Lawrence Principe has argued that alchemy was a more significant factor in natural philosophy and the religious belief of Robert Boyle than historians\nhave recognized.39 Through her study of the Elizabethan physician Simon Forman, Lauren Kassell has provided us with a deeper understanding of the medical]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=183\nPages: 183\nof the History of Ideas 41 (April\u2013June 1980): 317\u201318.\n52. Newman and Principe, \u201cSome Problems with the Historiography,\u201d 399.\n53. Sir Walter Raleigh, The History of the World (London: Printed for Walter Burre, 1614), 171.\n54. For an analysis of the politics of an elusive, idealized past, see J. G. A. Pocock\u2019s classic Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), reissued\nwith \u201cA Retrospect\u201d in 1987. For a more recent study, see Janelle Greenberg, The Radical Face\nof the Ancient Constitution: St. Edward\u2019s Laws in Early Modern Political Thought (Cambridge:\nCambridge University Press, 2001).\n55. On this point, see especially Julian Martin, Francis Bacon, the State, and the Reform of\nNatural Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Julian Martin, \u201cNatural]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=221\nPages: 221\nPopper, Nicholas. \u201c\u2018Abraham, Planter of Mathematics\u2019: Histories of Mathematics and Astrology\nin Early Modern Europe.\u201d Journal of the History of Ideas 67 (January 2006): 87\u2013106.\nPotter, G. R. Zwingli. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976.\nPrest, John. The Garden of Eden. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.\nPrincipe, Lawrence M. The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest. Princeton:\nPrinceton University Press, 1998.\nQuinn, Arthur. \u201cOn Reading Newton Apocalyptically.\u201d In Millenarianism and Messianism in\nEnglish Literature and Thought, 1650\u20131800: Clark Library Lectures, 1981\u201382, ed. Richard H.\nPopkin, 176\u201392. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988.\nRabb, T. K. The Struggle for Stability in Early Modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press,\n1976.\nRead, John. Prelude to Chemistry. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1936.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Through Alchemy to Chemistry. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1957.\nRees, Graham. \u201cFrancis Bacon\u2019s Semi-Paracelsian Cosmology.\u201d Ambix 22 (July 1975): 81\u2013101.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=234\nPages: 234\nUssher on, 70\nTrinity as ordering principle in, 37, 57\u201358, 67\nThe Nature of the Book (Johns), 48\nNew Atlantis (Bacon), 98, 135\nNewcastle Circle, 112\nNewes from Ninive to Englande (Brenz), 18\u201319\nNewman, William R., 11, 12\u201313, 168 n. 47, 180\nn. 49\nNewton, Sir Isaac, 11, 61, 101, 127\nNew World, discovery of, and rise of skepticism, 51\nNicholas of Cusa, 35\nNoceto, Gian Battista, 175\u201376 n. 57\nNorton, Samuel, 152, 154\nNorton, Thomas, 152\nNovum Organum (Bacon), 75, 77, 81, 83, 87, 88,\n92, 95, 97\nnumerology\nin Cabala, 66\nFludd on, 66\u201367\nNummedal, Tara, 12\nObservations upon Religio Medici (Digby), 113\noccult, as term, 119\noccultism\nas destabilizing force, 162\nand dissimulation, 89\nand elite levels of early modern English\nsociety, 4\nmechanical philosophy and, 119\n\u201cOf Simulation and Dissimulation\u201d (Bacon), 89\nOf the Wisdom of the Ancients (Bacon), 90\u201392,\n97\nO\u2019Malley, Therese, 138\nOmnibus & Singulis (Scot), 49, 53\n\u201cOn Cunning\u201d (Bacon), 89\noriginal sin. See also redemption\nBacon on, 81\u201382, 87]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=235\nPages: 235\nA Preparation against the prognosticated dangers\nof this yeare (Tymme), 16\u201317, 20\nPrincipe, Lawrence, 11, 12\u201313, 168 n. 47, 180 n. 49\nThe Problem of Unbelief (Febvre), 4\nProtestant reunification\nas goal of alchemy, 3\nJames I and, 45\u201346, 70\u201371\nPrynne, Clarendon, 118\nPrynne, William, 118\nPurbeck, Lady (Frances Coke Villiers), 110\nPuritans\nand English Civil War, 6\u20137\nand predestination, 115\nand Protestant schism, 16, 31, 45, 101, 115, 162\nand worship, 72\nPyrrhonian school of skepticism, 51\u201353\nPyrrho of Elis, 51\u201352\nQuarles, Francis, 27\nRabb, T. K., 167 n. 34\nRabelais, Fran\u00e7ois, 4\nRaleigh, Sir Walter, 14\nRawley, William, 79\nredemption\nof alchemist, through devout practice, 13\nof humanity: Bacon on, 80\u201383; Digby on, 117,\n127; Fludd on, 69; Tymme on, 18\nof nature: Bacon on, 83, 92, 97\u201398, 161; as\ngoal of alchemy, 2\u20133, 55, 56, 124, 146, 150,\n157\u201358; Tymme on, 35, 38\nReligio Medici (Browne), 109\nreligious expression, post-Reformation, debate\non, 45, 72]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=220\nPages: 220\nof the Theologians. 2 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cCross, Constellation, and Crucible: Lutheran Astrology and Alchemy in the Age of the\nReformation.\u201d Ambix 11 (June 1963): 65\u201386.\nMoran, Bruce T. The Alchemical World of the German Court: Occult Philosophy and Chemical\nMedicine in the Circle of Moritz of Hessen (1572\u20131632). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag,\n1991.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy: Separating Chemical Cultures with\nPolemical Fire. Sagamore Beach, Mass.: Science History Publications/USA, 2007.\nMorgan, John. \u201cPuritanism and Science: A Reinterpretation.\u201d Historical Journal 22 (1979):\n535\u201360.\nMulryan, John. \u201cThrough a Glass Darkly\u201d: Milton\u2019s Reinvention of the Mythological Tradition.\nPittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1996.\nNauert, Charles G., Jr. Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965.\nNewman, William R. \u201cAlchemical and Baconian Views on the Art/Nature Division.\u201d In Reading]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=91\nPages: 91\nprinces, nobles, and courtiers to a Christmas celebration at Gray\u2019s Inn. In a court\nmasque he counseled that the monarch ought to direct the state toward a conquest of nature. He advised the court to begin \u201csearching out, inventing and discovering of all whatsoever is hid in secret to the World, that your Excellency be\nnot as a Lamp that shineth to others, and yet seeth not it self; but as the Eye of the\nWorld, that both carrieth and useth Light.\u201d The rising courtier thought that this\ntask could be accomplished through what he called \u201cfour principal Works and\nMonuments of your self.\u201d The first monument would consist of a library of books\nand manuscripts from all regions and in all languages, the second of a garden,\nso that Elizabeth\u2019s court would have \u201ca Model of Universal Nature made private.\u201d\nThird, a cabinet was required, one that would hold not only the art and accomplishments that individuals had made but also artifacts from nature. Finally, the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=216\nPages: 216\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cOccult Qualities and the Experimental Philosophy: Active Principles in Pre-Newtonian\nMatter Theory.\u201d History of Science 24 (September 1986): 335\u201381.\nHibbard, Caroline M. Charles I and the Popish Plot. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina\nPress, 1983.\nHill, Christopher. The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution. London: Penguin\nBooks, 1993.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. The Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution\u2014Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University\nPress, 1997.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. New York:\nViking Press, 1973.\nHine, William L. \u201cMarin Mersenne: Renaissance Naturalism and Renaissance Magic.\u201d In Occult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance, ed. Brian Vickers, 165\u201376. Cambridge:\nCambridge University Press, 1984.\nHotson, Howard. Johann Heinrich Alsted, 1588\u20131638: Between Renaissance, Reformation, and\nUniversal Reform. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=64\nPages: 64\nScot\u2019s first publication, Omnibus & Singulis, was a devotional book of advice\non leading a spiritual and moral life. Yet another book of advice followed in 1621,\nthis one devoted to princes, specifically Prince Charles. In A Table-Booke For\nPrinces, Scot outlined how he believed an heir to a throne should conduct himself. He wrote of education, governing, nobility, and, of interest to our study, how\nto approach religious controversies. Scot, unsurprisingly, positioned himself as a\nvigorous supporter of the Church of England but offered an olive branch to dissenters when he wrote, \u201cThe bonds of religion are our faith, our baptisme, and not\nour ceremony.\u201d However, he then continued more ominously, \u201cour policy: that\nsuch who are given to unfruitfull and unnecessary controversies, unswadles the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=225\nPages: 225\nKepler, Descartes, and Newton.\u201d In God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter\nBetween Christianity and Science, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers, 218\u201337.\nBerkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986.\nWestman, Robert S. \u201cNature, Art, and Psyche: Jung, Pauli, and the Kepler-Fludd Polemic.\u201d In\nOccult and Scientific Mentalities in the Renaissance, ed. Brian Vickers, 177\u2013229. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.\nWheelock, Arthur J. A Collector\u2019s Cabinet. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1998.\nWhite, Peter. Predestination, Policy, and Polemic: Conflict and Consensus in the English Church\nfrom the Reformation to the Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cThe Rise of Arminianism Reconsidered.\u201d Past and Present 101 (November 1983): 34\u201354.\nWhitney, Charles. Francis Bacon and Modernity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.\nWillard, Thomas. \u201cAlchemy and the Bible.\u201d In Centre and Labyrinth: Essays in Honour of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=65\nPages: 65\nprofound division between Scot and Fludd. Scot advocated divorcing the search\nfor physical principles from biblical exegesis, while Fludd believed that scriptural\nstudy, spirituality, and natural philosophy must be completely integrated.\nThere were some principles, however, on which Scot and Fludd could agree.\nScot said that there was a light that was given to \u201ccleere bodies\u201d that began with\ncreation itself and was in fact the soul of the earth:\nThis light was incorporat in the sunne, whose vertue and essence cherisheth\nthe essence of every creature: but the full knowledge of the tillage of light,\nariseth from the true notice of the first and last end of things: as man was\ncreated of pure earth, coagulat by pure ayre: so his last end is to shine as the\nsunne. There bee spirituall, intellectuall and sensible perfections of light;\nthe first is that inaccessible light which seeth all things, but is comprehended]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=128\nPages: 128,127\nbe clarified and perhaps Christendom unified once again.\nDuring this time, Digby, along with other English exiles, discussed the subtleties of the mechanical philosophy with virtually all of its most illustrious proponents: Isaac Beeckman (1588\u20131637), Ren\u00e9 Descartes (1596\u20131650), Pierre Gassendi\n(1592\u20131655), Thomas Hobbes (1588\u20131679), and Marin Mersenne (1588\u20131648), to\nname a few. They met to discuss one another\u2019s work throughout the 1640s and\n1650s.52\nGary Deason explains that the mechanical philosophy, from its inception,\nbegan with a single assumption: Matter is passive. Change in matter did not\noccur because of an inherent tendency in matter to change but as a result of external forces that compelled inert matter to change. Change, therefore, according to mechanism, was a result of motion.53 Digby believed that the fundamental\nproperties of bodies were quantity, density, and rarity, and that these qualities\nC at h ol i c Nat ural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 113]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=216\nPages: 216,215\nGolinski, Jan. \u201cThe Secret Life of an Alchemist.\u201d In Let Newton Be! ed. John Fauvel, Raymond\nFlood, Michael Shortland, and Robin Wilson, 147\u201367. Oxford: Oxford University Press,\n1988.\nGoodare, Julian, and Joyce Miller, eds. Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland. New\nYork: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.\nGrafton, Anthony. Defenders of the Text: The Traditions of Scholarship in an Age of Science, 1450\u2013\n1800. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.\nBiblio graphy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 201\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cThe Importance of Being Printed.\u201d Journal of Interdisciplinary History 11 (Autumn\n1980): 265\u201386.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. New Worlds, Ancient Texts. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.\nGrant, Edward. \u201cThe Condemnation of 1277, God\u2019s Absolute Power, and Physical Thought in the\nLate Middle Ages.\u201d Viator 10 (1979): 211\u201344.\nGreenberg, Janelle. The Radical Face of the Ancient Constitution: St. Edward\u2019s Laws in Early Modern Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=29\nPages: 29\nlittle-recognized school of \u2018supernatural alchemy\u2019 which seems to have developed\nin seventeenth-century England.\u201d52 This \u201csupernatural alchemy\u201d promised to bestow upon skilled practitioners monumental intellectual, medicinal, or spiritual\npowers. While the alchemists we will encounter probably fall into this category,\nsuch a discrete partition presupposes the relevance of a particular alchemical approach to its contribution to the scientific revolution. While alchemy was certainly a part of the scientific revolution, Alchemical Belief assumes that it was part\nof much larger religious and political contexts. Further, while alchemists occasionally used the term \u201csupernatural,\u201d they used language such as \u201cdivine,\u201d \u201csacred,\u201d and \u201cheavenly\u201d just as often, if not more so. This study investigates how and\nwhy individuals who inhabited the traditional center of English ecclesiastical and\npolitical power, or supported those who did, believed in the relevance of alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=28\nPages: 28,29\nGod on earth, and the resurrection of the dead. However, even if alchemy was a\nmetaphor\u2014and surely it was for some practitioners\u2014its religious significance is\nnot diminished. From its very beginnings, Christianity used metaphor in making\ntheological or spiritual points. Christ\u2019s parables and the apostolic letters are filled\nwith similes and metaphors intended to convince their readers of the truth of\nChristianity and instruct them in following that truth. Christ compared faith to a\nmustard seed (Matt. 17:20), and Paul reminded his followers that they understood\nthe world only dimly, as through a glass darkly (1 Cor. 13:12). When alchemists\nturned to metaphor, they called upon a tradition as old as Christianity itself.\n14\nAlchemical Belief\nIn their taxonomy of alchemical inquiry, Newman and Principe identify \u201cthe\nlittle-recognized school of \u2018supernatural alchemy\u2019 which seems to have developed]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=104\nPages: 104,103\nbut a further proceeding bringeth the mind back to religion.\u201d59 But reason in \u201cthe\nlight of nature\u201d could not penetrate the stubborn walls of idolatry and superstition, and therefore God had to approach these individuals differently, more spectacularly, through the use of miracles.\nClearly, there was little room for spiritual alchemy in Bacon\u2019s theology. Alchemy embodied a mistaken search for knowledge and, despite all of its spiritual\ninvocations, was an impious approach to God. The superstitious associations that\nalchemists invoked were, in his mind, cynical attempts to cloak their self-serving\nwork in the guise of piety. He never invoked the creation, the Old Testament,\nF r a n c i s Bac on , A l c h e m y, a n d t h e G reat Redemp tion \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 89\nor ancient wisdom when he discussed cosmology\u2014the fundamental concern of\nParacelsians.60 He pruned away the branches of cabalism and mysticism that had]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=152\nPages: 152\nmanuscript of a collection that would eventually span thousands of pages and fill\ndozens of folio volumes. The manuscript never made it into print in any of his alchemical publications, but its title, \u201cThe Supercelestial, Celestiall, and Terrestrial\nDivine Lighte of Nature,\u201d suggests that it was an alchemical text that was very\nmuch in keeping with his integration of natural philosophy and divine inquiry.24\nAlthough he did not mention Bowden\u2019s manuscript, Anthony Wood recorded\nin 1648 that Ashmole \u201centred upon the study of plants, and in a few months became an eminent botanist.\u201d Wood\u2019s silence on Ashmole\u2019s occult studies should not,\nperhaps, be taken too seriously. Wood first mentioned Ashmole\u2019s alchemical interests when he noted that \u201cin 1651 [Ashmole] began to learn seal-graving, casting\nin sand and goldsmith\u2019s work. At which time he being very knowing in chymistry\nand accounted a great Rosy Crucian, Will. Backhouse of Swallowfield in Berks,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=170\nPages: 170\nbut easy, wonderous easy, Naturall and Honest.\u201d86 Such a blithe attitude sharply\ndistinguishes Ashmole from his pious contemporary Robert Boyle, who thought\nvery carefully about the moral distinction between alchemy and spiritual contact,\nwhether angelic or diabolical.87\nYet, however impressive the powers of the \u201cMagicall\u201d stone, they paled next\nto those of the \u201cAngelicall Stone,\u201d which could not be seen, felt, or weighed \u201cbut\nTasted only.\u201d With this stone one could converse with angels through dreams or\nrevelations and counter any evil spirit. Because it was composed of the \u201cQuintessence,\u201d presumably the fifth element, the \u201cAngelicall Stone\u201d could not be corrupted and therefore warded off the devil. This stone not only allowed one to\nlive without food for a time but also to live a longer life. The gift of prophecy was\nanother power conveyed by this stone. However, only three individuals in history\nhad ever possessed this stone: Hermes, Moses, and Solomon.88]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=44\nPages: 44\nBody because it is the Bond of them both. And thus this one thing [mercury] is\nBody, Soule, and Spirit in divers respects.\u201d However closely this passage operated\nalong alchemical principles, it clearly went beyond that to an instructive spiritual\nplane. After his brief discussion of lead, tin, iron, copper, silver, and, of course,\ngold, he observed that \u201cthis noble Science is the way to caelestiall & supernaturall\nthings, by whiche the ancient Wisemen were led from the worke of Arte & Nature\nto understande, even by reason the wonderfull powre of God in the creacion of all\nthings: & their finall purificacion by alteracion through fire in the day of doome.\u201d\nTymme did not think people should fear this \u201cday of doome,\u201d for on this day\n\u201cuncleane faeces & corrupcion\u201d would be separated from the four elements and\nbe made into a \u201cChristalline cleerenes.\u201d He reassured his readers that nothing\nwould be destroyed in a fire, because \u201cGod by his power will change all things &]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=178\nPages: 178\nwhen the names of Civil War battlefields like Edgehill and Marston Moor rolled\noff proud survivors\u2019 tongues, decades before the idea of toleration would become\ncommonplace.\nThey wrote of their hopes and goals because, like Shakespeare\u2019s Burgundy,\nthese alchemists believed that the political and religious hatred and conflict of\ntheir day was \u201cunnatural.\u201d Perhaps alchemy could flourish only in an era of unrest, uncertainty, and civil war. What was natural, what was God\u2019s providence,\nwas a world that was fertile, prosperous, politically stable, and unified by religious\nworship.\nWhat\u2019s more, alchemical processes demonstrated that belief in the Trinity was\nnot only a matter of faith; it was something that could indeed be replicated in the\nnatural world by those divinely ordained to accomplish such work. There was\nnever absolute agreement about how the alchemical transformations they sought\nmight be accomplished, but there was complete agreement that they believed the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=33\nPages: 33\n18\nAlchemical Belief\nwas revealed in sacred scripture, it might also be secreted in nature. Natural philosophy might reveal those secrets, with wondrous consequences for the redemption of humanity. Alchemy might even reveal God\u2019s providence for humanity.\nAt the very least these may appear to be unusual if not unorthodox ideas for an\nAnglican clergyman.7 Indeed, he turned to alchemy to demonstrate the \u201cproof \u201d\nof that most orthodox Christian doctrine of all: the Trinity. In studying Tymme\u2019s\nalchemical and religious writings, we can begin to appreciate the lively nature\nof the Elizabethan and Jacobean church, belied by the Book of Common Prayer\nand concerns that dissenting believers raised within the English church decades\nbefore this conflict erupted into civil war\u2014as well as the equally vibrant nature\nof the London book trade\u2014and we can see how Tymme was able to use this new\ninstrument quite effectively. In Thomas Tymme we see ministerial and alchemical]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=183\nPages: 183\n44. See Nummedal, Alchemy and Authority, 204n19.\n45. Although not as specific as this study purports to be, Deborah Harkness explores the role\nof belief in John Dee\u2019s occultism in John Dee\u2019s Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and\nthe End of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).\n46. See Newman and Principe, \u201cSome Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy,\u201d in\nSecrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Grafton and William R. Newman (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001), esp. 388\u2013400.\n47. I am not the first to recognize the limitations of Newman and Principe\u2019s critique. Hereward Tilton provides an extended critique of Newman and Principe\u2019s essay in The Quest for the\nPhoenix: Spiritual Alchemy and Rosicrucianism in the Work of Count Michael Maier (1569\u20131622)\n(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), 1\u201334, 255\u201356, and passim. Brian Vickers also takes issue with]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=24\nPages: 24\nalchemists worked at their furnaces or wrote their philosophical treatises, they\nreflected widely held assumptions about how the universe operated under God\u2019s\ndivine guidance, and how it could be manipulated by those elect few.\nBut people in early modern Europe believed that all kinds of forces\u2014both divine and demonic\u2014were at work in their world. For the years in which alchemists\nwere engaged in their work were the same years that witch hunts engulfed much\nof western Europe and Britain. A few naysayers and skeptics notwithstanding,\nearly moderns, notably the intellectual elite, clerics, justices, and lawyers, believed\nthat the devil stalked and seduced those most likely to fall under his spell (old\nwomen, primarily, but others too), in an effort to reclaim what he believed was\nrightfully his, the earthly world.30 Although the estimates of accusations, prosecutions, and executions are diminishing in light of new research, the scale of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=29\nPages: 29,30\nseventeenth centuries did not simply study the physical world but examined God\u2019s\nprovidence and provenance. Seventeenth-century English alchemists appropriated Renaissance syncretism. Paracelsianism, with its emphasis on imagination,\nwas melded with Jewish mysticism, particularly the Cabala, and the result was a\nIntroduction \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 15\nJudeo-Christian vision of alchemy and the occult. Prophecy and natural theology\nled the alchemists examined in this book to extend the boundaries of Calvinist\nand Anglican orthodoxies to their farthest reaches. They debated whether the\nBook of God (the Bible) or the Book of Nature (the natural world) was the more\nperfect. Some saw alchemy as a physical process that confirmed God\u2019s presence\non earth\u2014almost an occult incarnation. Their writings show how these adepts\nbelieved God veiled and revealed the secrets of his creation.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=72\nPages: 72,71\nLater he wrote of the cloud that guided the Jews in the wilderness, the rock Moses\nstruck with his staff, and the wisdom of Solomon; these things not only represented but actually proved alchemy\u2019s transformative powers (\u201cand yet dare any\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 57\nman be so blind as to calle this divine Elixir or summum bonum an imaginary\nnon Ens, a fume or a Chimera?\u201d) (10v). For Fludd, alchemy was, or at least was\npart of, an animating force that suffused the entire natural world. He believed that\nwhen God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, every creature was inspired with \u201ca certayne germinating and vegetatinge spirit or viridity . . . and this multiplying was bestowed as well on mineralls as eyther animalls\nand vegetables\u201d (13v). Indeed, Allen Debus points out that Fludd\u2019s Philosophicall\nKey (1619) explained \u201cspontaneous generation on the basis of this spiritus mundi;]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=45\nPages: 45\nand Hermeticall Physicke. In his dedication to Charles Blount he reassured his\nreaders that alchemy was not concerned merely with the transmutation of metals,\na common error, he noted: \u201cFor Halchymie . . . hath also a chyrurgical hand in\nthe anatomizing of every mesenteriall veine of whole nature: Gods created handmaid, to conceive and bring forth his Creatures.\u201d Alchemy was God\u2019s assistant, the\n\u201chand-maid\u201d who responded to divine direction.\nAlchemy demonstrated the power and wisdom of God. It imitated nature by\nseparating salt, sulfur, and mercury from vegetable, mineral, and animal matter.\nBy separating these elements, one \u201cshal by that mystery, as in glasse, discerene\nthe holy and most glorious Trinitie, in the Unitie of one Hupostasis Divine.\u201d Although he understood the three elements as \u201cdivine,\u201d he went further, referring\nto Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans: \u201cthe invisible things of God (saith the Apostle) that]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=53\nPages: 53\nClearly, in the context of a study that had examined matter and form and the\nprime elements of the universe, he understood Paul\u2019s spiritual message to refer\nto a physical transformation, a renewal and redemption of the natural as well\nas the spiritual world. Alchemy might even result in the return of Christ, ushering in a new world, a world redeemed and transformed alchemically. The Day\nof Judgment itself, as we saw earlier, would be an alchemical event. Theophrast\nproceeded to describe chapters 20 and 21 of the book of Revelation. He recounted\na city with walls and gates made of precious stones and streets paved in gold,\nmaking clear that the alchemical transformation was securely founded upon holy\nscripture. However, this event would be more than a simple transmutation of the\nnatural world: \u201cIn this Kingdome, God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes,\nand there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, neither crying, neither shall]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=69\nPages: 69\n54\nAlchemical Belief\nIn observing that God prefers \u201ccredulous love\u201d to \u201ca curious head,\u201d Scot was\ntrying to redirect the spiritual energies of alchemists to more productive and,\nin his mind, less perilous pursuits. However, it was not the physical reality of\nalchemy that he feared but its temptations. Time spent away from pursuing divine truths was time wasted: \u201cwhat ill lucke is it, that we who have the Oracles of\neternall truth are so carelese & prodigall of our short time, that we doe not freely\nenjoy the happinesse of true divine light, which onely sheweth generous spirits, worthy to be the master-peece of that soveraigne worke-master their Creator,\nI can give no other reason, then quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat [Jupiter\ndrives insane those whom he wishes to destroy].\u201d45 Scot saw alchemy as part of\nthe larger efforts of natural philosophers and scholars to demolish previously accepted notions about the world, an endeavor that he thought could only lead to\nruin.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=236\nPages: 236\nstability\nas goal of alchemists, 4, 9, 10, 149\u201350, 160\u201364\nsources of instability, 5\u20138\nStarkey, George, 11, 12, 161\u201362\nStationers\u2019 Company, 32, 33\nStationers\u2019 Register, 30, 32, 33\nStoicism, pneuma in, 122, 186 n. 85\n\u201cThe Supercelestial, Celestiall, and Terrestrial\nDivine Lighte of Nature\u201d (Bowden), 137,\n188 n. 24\nsuperstition, Bacon on, 87\u201388\nSutcliffe, Matthew, 21\nSylva Sylvarum (Bacon), 95\nSynesius, 59, 175\u201376 n. 57\nSynod of Dort, 46, 115\nSzulakowska, Urszula, 24\u201325\nA Table-Booke for Princes (Scot), 49\nTheatrum Botanicum (Parkinson), 139\nTheatrum Chemicum Britannicum (Ashmole,\ned.), 1, 128\u201329, 130\u201331, 145, 150\u201352, 153,\n154, 156\nTheatrum naturae (Colutius), 145\nThirty Years\u2019 War, 71\nThompson, E. P., 163\nThe Tillage of Light (Scot), 43, 48, 49, 53\nTilton, Hereward, 168 n. 47\nTractatus Apologeticus (Fludd), 44\nTradescant, John, 133\nTradescant collection, Ashmole and, 129, 133, 140\nTradescant family, gardens of, 137\nThe Trew Law of Free Monarchies (James I), 8\nTrinity]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nknowledge and wisdom, but he forfeited that knowledge when he sinned, and\nthus the forces of nature became mysterious. As Peter Harrison explains, \u201cknowledge of nature required not only a recognition of the cognitive limits of fallen\nminds, but of the corruption and epistemological inaccessibility of nature and its\noperations.\u201d9 Alchemists of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries believed\nthat the philosophers\u2019 stone would redeem \u201ccorrupted\u201d matter and therefore possibly\u2014hopefully\u2014transform and restore the entire natural world to its pristine,\nprelapsarian state, when humanity and nature were in perfect harmony.10 The\npurpose of this study is to examine the historical significance of these beliefs at\ntheir apogee.\nAlchemical Belief examines how alchemy in late Tudor and early Stuart England became integrated into central tenets of Christianity. While the individuals\nunder consideration here had their own particular beliefs in the possibilities and]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=18\nPages: 18\nunder consideration here had their own particular beliefs in the possibilities and\npotential of alchemy, adepts in early modern England believed that they were\nuniquely, even divinely, ordained to re-create the harmony that existed between\nhumanity and nature before the Fall. As the Hebrew prophet Malachi made clear,\nGod\u2019s messenger would come, \u201cand he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver:\nand he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they\nmay offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of\nJudah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in\nformer years\u201d (Mal. 3:3\u20134). Some English alchemists believed that they were such\ngodly messengers. Alchemical Belief attempts to understand these theological and\noccult beliefs that early moderns embraced, to understand and explain their religious and political culture.\nAlthough the individuals we will encounter were engaged in restoring England]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=5\nPages: 5\nreprint an earlier version of chapter 4 that appeared in Rethinking the\nScientific Revolution, ed. Margaret Jacob (New York: Cambridge\nUniversity Press, 2000), 89\u2013118.\nLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data\nJanacek, Bruce, 1961\u2013\nAlchemical belief : occultism in the religious culture of early\nmodern England / Bruce Janacek.\np.\u2003\u2003\u2003 cm. \u2014 (Magic in history)\nSummary: \u201cExplores the practice of alchemy in the context of the\nreligious and political tensions in late Elizabethan and early Stuart\nEngland, and the use of occult knowledge to demonstrate proof of\ntheological doctrines\u201d\u2014Provided by publisher.\nIncludes bibliographical references (p.\u2003\u2003 ) and index.\nisbn 978-0-271-05013-3 (cloth : alk. paper)\n1. England\u2014Church history\u20141485\u2013 .\n2. Alchemy\u2014Religious aspects\u2014Christianity\u2014History.\n3. Alchemy\u2014England\u2014History.\nI. Title.\nBR757.J36 2011\n261.5'13094209031\u2014dc22\n2011015428\nCopyright \u00a9 2011 The Pennsylvania State University\nAll rights reserved\nPrinted in the United States of America]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=19\nPages: 19\n4\nAlchemical Belief\nAn interest in alchemy and the occult typified these movements and defined\nthis effort in England. What\u2019s more, the individuals who wrestled with alchemical concepts came from educated, even elite levels of society. The case studies in\nthis volume collectively argue that some of the most prominent public figures\nin traditional Tudor-Stuart politics turned to the occult tradition of alchemy to\ndefine and defend orthodox Christian beliefs and practices. Like Roman Catholicism, the major Protestant confessions upheld the doctrines of the Trinity, the\nresurrection of the dead, the redemption of God\u2019s creatures, and the active and\nliving presence of God on earth, and their adherents believed in the importance\nof approaching all Christian work with humility and reverence. Certain individuals turned to the occult practice of alchemy to demonstrate the veracity of these\northodoxies, using unorthodox proofs for orthodox beliefs.13]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 30 to page 49 out of a total of 238:\nPages 30:\nIntroduction \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 15\nJudeo-Christian vision of alchemy and the occult. Prophecy and natural theology\nled the alchemists examined in this book to extend the boundaries of Calvinist\nand Anglican orthodoxies to their farthest reaches. They debated whether the\nBook of God (the Bible) or the Book of Nature (the natural world) was the more\nperfect. Some saw alchemy as a physical process that confirmed God\u2019s presence\non earth\u2014almost an occult incarnation. Their writings show how these adepts\nbelieved God veiled and revealed the secrets of his creation.\nThe constitutional monarchy the English finally settled upon in 1689 was the result of nearly two centuries of political strife, polemic, and bloodshed. It is because\nof this accomplishment that in Western Civilization courses, late seventeenthcentury England is usually noted as one of the first \u201cmodern\u201d states. Yet such\nan assessment, while correct in one sense, is also anachronistic. The architects\nof seventeenth-century English society were not concerned with contributing\nto \u201cmodernity\u201d\u2014far from it. They believed that the salvation of English society\nrested upon their efforts to re-create an Edenic paradise based upon an imagined\ngolden past, an ideal gleaned sometimes from the Bible, sometimes from ancient\nand medieval sources, and sometimes from legends and stories they themselves\ncreated.54 As much as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke differed in\ntheir perceptions of ideal government, all of them attempted to attune governing\nwith God and the forces of nature. They too believed that it was critical to align\nhuman endeavor with the natural world.55 Only then would political stability and\nprosperity be achieved; only then would heaven be made on earth.\nThere was, however, an occult side to the story of science, belief, and governing in the seventeenth century, but in order to tell that story we must examine the\nalchemical literature of the time with the imagination that its seventeenth-century readers exercised. In a postscript to Fasciculus Chemicus, the first alchemical\ntext he published, Ashmole wrote that he hoped his work would be the thread\nthat would conduct his readers \u201cthrough the delusive windings of this intricate\nLabyrinth.\u201d The seventeenth-century world of belief is labyrinthine indeed, and\nfraught with perils from its own Minotaurs. However, the obstacles inherent in\nalchemical studies did not deter Ashmole and numerous others from combing\nthrough alchemical literature to find the secrets of the philosophers\u2019 stone. Alchemy preoccupied some of the most learned minds and devout hearts of the day.\nTo understand the intellectual history of the seventeenth century, we must follow\nthe path of faith and belief wherever it leads, even, perhaps especially, when it is\nmarked with occult signposts.\n\nPages 31:\n1\nThomas Tymme and Natural Philosophy:\nSchism and Alchemical Unity in the Book of Nature\nReverend Thomas Tymme was probably a local figure of note (and a figure of fun)\nas he hurried along the labyrinthine streets in and around St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral\nin late Elizabethan London. This learned but odd and fretful clergyman surely\ntalked with the neighborhood shopkeepers, artisans, journeymen printers and\nbooksellers, and even more surely preached to them in his parish dedicated to\nSaint Anthony (and subsidized by St. Paul\u2019s). He preached about the perils of sin\nto their immortal souls, about how only daily prayers and humble obeisance to\nGod would keep their souls safe from evil. Most provocatively, he preached on\nhow their nation was coming to ruin because of the increasing presence and influence of Puritans, Presbyterians, Brownists, Familists, and the whole panoply of\ndissenters from the official Church of England.1\nTymme wrote on these matters, too. That Tymme\u2019s parish was located near the\nimpressive spires of St. Paul\u2019s placed him in one of the centers of London\u2019s lively\nprinting industry. His concern about the threats to orthodoxy and his proximity\nto printing houses provided him the opportunity to warn those beyond his parish\nof the many dangers of what he believed was their dissolute culture. In A Preparation against the prognosticated dangers of this yeare (1588), he proclaimed that\nEngland would fall to the heathens because of its moral decay. Like a sixteenthcentury Jeremiah, Tymme castigated his people, but rather than warn of a looming threat from Babylon, he prophesied that the English people had been blessed\nwith a great queen for thirty years, and yet, because of their unrighteous behavior,\nGod \u201cwill give us a king in his wrath, which shall be a scourge unto us.\u201d Because of\nhumanity\u2019s sins, God\u2019s wrath did not end with the flood: \u201cWhat was the cause that\nthe olde world perished in that generall destruction of the floud, (wherein onely\nNoah and his familie were preserved) but the contempt of Noah his preaching?\nwhat was the cause that fire and brimstone fell from heaven upon Sodom & Gomorha, and utterly consumed them, and the people that dwelt in them, and made\n\nPages 32:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 17\nthat frutifull plaine countrie (which was Eden, the garden of the Lord) a salt sea,\nbut the abominable wickedness of those sinnes, and their obstinate contempt of\nLots admonition?\u201d2\nThis was just one of many prophetic clarion calls that Tymme trumpeted during his long and curious life. The late 1580s and 1590s witnessed the publication\nof several of his prophecies from London presses. His first treatise, The figure of\nAntichriste, appeared in 1586, followed two years later by A Preparation against the\nprognosticated dangers. In 1592 he sounded another warning in A plaine discoverie\nof ten English lepers, and in 1605 his most famous work, A Silver Watch-Bell, appeared. Although A Silver Watch-Bell was essentially a devotional book, a chapter\ntitled \u201cConcerning the Generall Day of Doome\u201d revealed his continued interest\nin prophecy and apocalypticism. A Silver Watch-Bell was also his most popular\npublication, going through nineteen printings. What bound all of these treatises\ntogether was his fear of schism in England\u2019s religious culture and society.\nAs we follow Tymme\u2019s publications beyond the 1580s and 1590s, however, his\nconcerns about what ailed England appear to vanish. In 1602 he wrote but did not\npublish a commentary on John Dee\u2019s alchemical study, the Monas Hieroglyphica,\ntitled A Light in Darkness.3 In 1605, the same year in which A Silver Watch-Bell appeared, he completed an English translation of Joseph Duchesne\u2019s Latin Paracelsian alchemical text, The Practise of Chymicall, and Hermeticall Physicke.4 Nothing\nelse appeared from his pen until 1612, when he wrote his longest and most complex work devoted to alchemy, A Dialogue philosophicall. Wherein natures secret\ncloset is opened and the cause of all motion shewed. Although he published one\nmore devotional work in 1618, by 1605 Tymme appears to have turned virtually\nall of his prophetic and spiritual energies toward the study of natural philosophy,\nespecially alchemy.5 Why?\nAlthough it may appear that Tymme\u2019s interests changed over the years, his\nalchemical writings should be understood as a continuation of his religious and\npolitical interests and beliefs rather than a departure.6 His greatest concern was to\npreserve the unity of Christendom\u2014at least in England\u2014embodied, in his view,\nby the Church of England. While England certainly had foreign concerns, and\nalthough English soldiers were engaged in the Netherlands, France, Spain, and\nIreland, for Tymme the greatest menace lay within the realm. The division or,\nas he frequently called it, the \u201cschism\u201d created by dissenting Protestants was the\nmost dangerous threat England faced.\nBy the early seventeenth century, Tymme was arguing that alchemy could\nsummon divine forces that would bring unity and cohesion to England\u2019s religious\nculture. An Anglican clergyman, he believed that God was revealed in sola scriptura and that salvation depended upon predestined and immutable divine election. However, his alchemical studies led him to believe that although God\u2019s word\n\nPages 33:\n18\nAlchemical Belief\nwas revealed in sacred scripture, it might also be secreted in nature. Natural philosophy might reveal those secrets, with wondrous consequences for the redemption of humanity. Alchemy might even reveal God\u2019s providence for humanity.\nAt the very least these may appear to be unusual if not unorthodox ideas for an\nAnglican clergyman.7 Indeed, he turned to alchemy to demonstrate the \u201cproof \u201d\nof that most orthodox Christian doctrine of all: the Trinity. In studying Tymme\u2019s\nalchemical and religious writings, we can begin to appreciate the lively nature\nof the Elizabethan and Jacobean church, belied by the Book of Common Prayer\nand concerns that dissenting believers raised within the English church decades\nbefore this conflict erupted into civil war\u2014as well as the equally vibrant nature\nof the London book trade\u2014and we can see how Tymme was able to use this new\ninstrument quite effectively. In Thomas Tymme we see ministerial and alchemical\ncareers converge almost seamlessly.\nThe Foundation of Tymme\u2019s Historical and Religious Studies, 1570\u20131592\nTymme wrote prodigiously, and the breadth of his work is impressive, especially\ngiven how little we know about his education and training. Although the date of\nhis birth is unknown, his first publication appeared in 1570 and he died in 1620,\nso we can surmise that he was born in the early to mid-1550s. He studied at Cambridge, possibly at Pembroke Hall, although there is no record of his graduation.\nCambridge was a major center of Protestantism in sixteenth-century England,\nPembroke Hall especially so. Gabriel Harvey called some of the more prominent\nProtestant reformers of the era\u2014Nicholas Ridley, John Bradford, and Edmund\nGrindal\u2014\u201cthe late ornaments of Cambridge and the glory of Pembroke Hall.\u201d8\nTymme sought Grindal\u2019s patronage in later years, and his history with Pembroke\nmay explain why. When Grindal studied at Pembroke in the early 1530s, he was exposed to the new theologies of Peter Martyr, Johannes Brenz (sometimes spelled\nBrentz), and Heinrich Bullinger.9 Although nothing in Reformation England was\ntheologically uniform, still less monolithic, Tymme\u2019s education probably took\nplace in a college that had entertained and discussed Reformed theology in the\nearly days of the English Reformation.\nTymme\u2019s name first appeared in print as the translator of Latin Protestant commentaries. In 1570 he translated Johannes Brenz\u2019s commentary on the Hebrew\nscriptures, Newes from Ninive to Englande. Brenz (1499\u20131570) was a Lutheran reformer and humanist, notable more for his organizational contributions to the\nProtestant movement than for original theological expositions. That said, English\ndivines admired his work, and Edward VI gave Brenz\u2019s work his official sanction.10\nThe 1570s also witnessed Tymme\u2019s translations of the Huguenot pastor Augustine\n\nPages 34:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 19\nMarlorat\u2019s commentaries on the four Gospels.11 Marlorat (1506\u20131562) was trained\nas a Bourges monk but began preaching the Reformed message in 1533. Forced\nto flee to the securely Calvinist cantons near Thonon and Lausanne, Marlorat\nearned his Calvinist credentials as a pastor and preacher, roles in which he served\nfor more than twenty-five years. Yet it was not until 1559 that he and six other\nformer monks were judged worthy of returning to France to preach the Reformed\nconfession. Marlorat served briefly in Paris but was moved to Rouen, where he\nestablished himself as a prominent exponent of Calvin\u2019s message. Marlorat enjoyed a brief period as Rouen\u2019s leading pastor when Protestants seized the city in\nApril 1562. Rouen quickly fell to Catholic forces in the autumn of 1562, during the\nearly months of the French wars of religion. The restored Catholic officials used\nMarlorat\u2019s preaching as clear evidence of his sedition: He was condemned and\nmet his grim end, along with five fellow Protestant officials, in October 1562.12 In\nthe 1570s Tymme also completed translations of Calvin\u2019s commentaries on Genesis and Corinthians, and also all four volumes of the Huguenot historian Jean de\nSerres\u2019s history of the French wars of religion.13\nFinally, in 1595, Tymme translated the Dutch author Christiaan van Adrichem\u2019s\nLatin treatise A Briefe Description of Hierusalem. This text uses the Bible as a sort\nof Baedecker\u2019s guide to Jerusalem and includes a map of the holy city, meticulously drawn, with landmarks identified and described. For example, \u201cThe Pallace\nof Pilate\u201d and \u201cThe Sepulcher of David\u201d are located and described according to\nbiblical references. Despite its informative nature, Tymme made it clear that this\nwas a properly Protestant treatise. He explained in his dedication that although\nVan Adrichem was Catholic, and \u201chath left behind him sum rubbish and reliques\nof the Romish superstition,\u201d Tymme had \u201cin some measure purged and swept the\nstreets and corners of the same, with the broome of truth.\u201d\nAll the while he was translating this decidedly Reformist literature, he was\nserving as rector of St. Anthony\u2019s parish, sustained by the patronage of the dean\nand chaplain of St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral, a position he held until 1592.14 Thus the early\nyears of Tymme\u2019s adult life were devoted to placing no fewer than ten very large,\nvery erudite volumes of Reformed theology and scholarship before the English\nreading public. The histories in particular educated Tymme on the cataclysmic\nconsequences for a polity divided by religion. It was an education that shaped his\nperceptions of what constituted a stable commonwealth for the rest of his life.\nIn the 1580s Tymme began to write of his growing concerns about schism\nwithin the English Christian community, beginning in 1586 with The figure of Antichriste, with the tokens of the end of the world, a gloss on 2 Thessalonians. This\ntreatise reflected Tymme\u2019s interest in the general stability of the Christian Church\nin its earliest days and, more specifically, his concern with enthusiastic apocalypticism.15 He differentiated between the true church and \u201ca Church gathered together\n\nPages 35:\n20\nAlchemical Belief\nin the Divell; as in the malignant Church.\u201d What made the church true, though,\nwas quite unexceptional, in Tymme\u2019s view. \u201cThis Epistle was in the first beginning\ndedicated to that Church,\u201d he wrote, \u201cwhich in Thessalonica agreeing in the unitie\nof faith, worshipped one God the father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and which\nstedfastly beleeved the promises of the Gospell, that in them alone is conteyned\nthe doctrine of Christian righteousnesse, and of eternall life.\u201d He concluded that\nthe true church depended on the belief that God the creator and Christ were equal\nto each other\u2014pretty basic stuff in an era in which the finest doctrinal lines created a dizzying array of dissenting sects. In contrast to the fractured religious culture of England in the 1580s, he wrote about \u201cthe holy unitie of the body of Christ,\u201d\nand about how communion and fellowship benefited each member of the church\nand thereby the whole church. Therefore, in addition to praising God\u2019s benefits,\n\u201cwe must always have respect unto the universalitie of the Church.\u201d16\nWhat was exceptional was how conciliatory Tymme believed 2 Thessalonians\ncommanded the Christian church to be. He acknowledged that of course Christians were bound together by kinship, friendship, society, and custom, but the\nlimits of the community extended far beyond these obvious ties: \u201cHe also shalbe\n[sic] our neighbour which standeth in need of our helpe whatsoever, although he\nbe not a Citizen with us, a fellow, a cosin or any other way joyned unto us: even as\nthat man was which fell into the hands of theeves.\u201d17 Now, here was a conciliatory\nclergyman.\nIn A Preparation against the prognosticated dangers (1588), after a thundering\ncritique of the English, Tymme calmly urged that his brethren be more humble\nand devout and begged them to \u201cimbrace christian unity and concord.\u201d Such unity\nwould make them \u201cinvincible against all our enemies that seeke to invade us.\u201d\nFurther, he encouraged his readers to beware of discord. He referred to biblical\nand medieval chronicles of conflicts between emperors and popes and kingdoms,\nblaming even the Scottish liberation by Robert the Bruce on civil discord. Because\nGod had given the English one commonwealth and one church, their salvation lay\nin setting aside their differences and seeking peace and concord within.18 By the\ntime this treatise was printed, Sir Francis Drake had already defeated the Spanish\nArmada, but the unified defense against foreign invaders contrasted sharply with\nthe divided religious community at home.\nOne particular division occurred mysteriously in print. Beginning in October\n1588, the first of six anonymous tracts appeared in London bookstalls that have\ncome to be known as the Martin Marprelate tracts. These books, along with an\nadditional broadside, attacked the \u201cpopish\u201d structure of the Church of England\nand defended the decentralized hierarchy of Presbyterianism, which allowed for\nlocal control of individual parishes. The tone of the treatises ranged from gently\nchiding to blisteringly satirical. Although no one admitted to writing the tracts,\n\nPages 36:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 21\nseveral individuals were prosecuted\u2014though no one was executed, either because they submitted to Elizabeth\u2019s mercy or simply died in prison.19\nThe Martin Marprelate tracts received a vigorous response in defense of the\necclesiastical state, including Matthew Sutcliffe\u2019s An Answere to a Certaine Libel\n(1592), Gabriel Harvey\u2019s Pierces Supererogation (1593), and Tymme\u2019s A Myrror for\nMartinists (1590). The title page of A Myrror for Martinists identifies the author\nas \u201cT. T.,\u201d which led to the treatise\u2019s being misattributed to Thomas Turswell and\nto Thomas Nash, the notable Elizabethan satirist. Leland Carlson has pointed out\nthat Turswell died in 1584 or 1585.20 And although Tymme was not without wit, he\ncould not approach Nash in that respect.21 Carlson suggests that Tymme was the\nauthor, and he is surely correct.22 In addition to the similarities in language and\nrhetoric, Tymme\u2019s Preparation against the prognosticated dangers and A Myrror\nwere both published by John Wolfe. Further, this was a topic and position Tymme\nhad been studying for many years; it is practically inconceivable that he did not\nwrite it.23 Finally, the author of the 1606 and 1608 editions of Tymme\u2019s A Silver\nWatch-Bell is identified only as \u201cT. T.\u201d\nTrue to his earlier cause, it was not so much the Martin Marprelate tracts that\nTymme attacked as the problem of schism. In the preface he warned that the oldest human flaw is mistaking falsehood for truth. Just as the serpent deceived the\nfirst human beings, he asked, why should they not also see the devil at work when\nsurrounded by \u201cPapists, Heretiques, Brownists, the familie of Love, Martinists,\nand all Schismatiques, which never cease perverting the truth?\u201d24\nYet in restraining the dissenting forces of Presbyterianism and other sects,\nTymme also distanced himself from polemicists like Sutcliffe and Nash, observing that although he agreed with them, they \u201chandle it not so charitably and modestly as it requireth\u201d (A3r). His desire to avoid polemic extended even further; he\nlater pointed out that the divisions within the English religious community were\nparticularly problematic because \u201cPapists\u201d could rightly accuse Protestants of hypocrisy in claiming to return to the true religion while in fact continuing to divide\nit, perhaps even to the point of self-destruction (23\u201324). Earlier in his text, he allowed that sometimes schisms and divisions could lead to good, citing Abraham\u2019s\ndeparture from \u201cCaldea,\u201d Lot\u2019s from Sodom, John the Baptist\u2019s from \u201cthe Levitical\nPriesthood,\u201d \u201cPaul departing from the Scribes and Pharesies: the Gentiles converted from the Jewes: and we, from the Church of Rome: For Christ came not to\nsend peace, but a sworde, and to severe men from their owne household\u201d (4).\nIt was also evident to Tymme that no such good could come from the present schism, which was pernicious in its effects. When he detailed the evils of\nschism, he shifted metaphors as awkwardly as a student driver learning to drive\na five-speed. He began with the rather gruesome image of a healthy body, but\n\u201csome members being purtrified and defiled are departed awaie.\u201d This situation\n\nPages 37:\n22\nAlchemical Belief\ndestroyed both, because the healthy body was \u201cafter a sort ruined,\u201d and the parts\nthat were separated perished. \u201cThey that separate themselves in this kinde of\nSchisme,\u201d Tymme wrote, \u201cwhat other thing do they but rip up the seamlesse coat\nof Christ, and breake the limites he hath set?\u201d (4). He later compared the present\nschism to the Tower of Babel, the various sects \u201cconfounded in their worke, building by presumption a tower of fonde conceit to themselves, and are by the just\nplague of God so divided therein, that some are Anabaptisticall Brownists, some\nlibertine Family-lovists, and some (beside other sectes) malecontent Martinists\u201d\n(7). Whether his metaphors were anatomical, legendary, or biblical, he would not\ndignify the menacing schisms of his day with comparisons to the past.\nTymme\u2019s almost cool distance from the controversy, his ability to distinguish\nbetween relevant and irrelevant historical precedent, resulted in part from his\nown sensibilities and training and also his clerical profession. For it was in this\ntract, surely more than in any other he had written or would write in the future,\nthat he spoke as much as a representative of his parish as he did for himself. He\nwrote of how \u201cthe godly and faithfull\u201d both felt and feared the danger of schism\nand complained of it to their ministers (8). Although these kinds of problems\nwere not new, what was new was how contemporary Christians responded. Early\nChristians, he said, had not allowed one brawl to lead to another but replied to\ntheir differences \u201cby admonition, by friendly communication and brotherly conference\u201d (12). Even as divided as the church at Corinth was, Paul never abandoned\nit\u2014but that was precisely what the English dissenters were doing (27). The \u201cschismatiques\u201d of his day were a plague, he charged, like the locusts of the apocalypse,\ndividing households, laying waste to what was once healthy and vibrant (B3).\nTymme\u2019s religious community lacked the unity that he believed the early\nchurch possessed. Unity for him began with a coherent expression of the most\nbasic tenets of Western Christianity, whether Roman Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, or Church of England: \u201cthere is one God, one Faith, and one Baptisme:\none Christ, one holy Ghost, one onely true religion\u201d (14). It was essential to cleave\nto these tenets; otherwise, the church would be split into \u201cinfinite religions,\u201d and\nindividuals would establish churches based upon their own imagination (14).\nMore significantly for Tymme, though, was his belief that the foundations of the\nchurch began with a bond that existed in the spirit, word, sacraments, and redemption of Christ. He cited Bernard of Clairvaux\u2019s plea for unity, adding that\nneither fasting, nor vigilance, nor prayer would affect the devil, but unity would,\nbecause it was his separation from the angels that left Satan isolated\u2014this was\nthe best way, the only way, Tymme could convince his readers \u201cthat the earthly\nJerusalem, is builded as a citie that is at unitie in it selfe\u201d (29\u201330).\nTwo years later, in 1592, Tymme published A plaine discoverie of ten English lepers. These lepers, however, were identifiable not by the condition of their skin but\n\nPages 38:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 23\nby the consequences of their actions. He listed the church robber, the simoniac,\nthe hypocrite, the proud man, the glutton, the adulterer, the covetous man, and\nthe murderer among the ten. The first leper, though, was \u201cthe Schismatique.\u201d\nTymme scoffed at the notion that dissenters claimed to have scriptural authority for their beliefs, sneering, \u201cas in the primative time of the Church, no heresie\nwas so bad, but that it would relie upon one Scripture or other.\u201d He proceeded to\nnote that the heresies of late antiquity, as well as adherents of Arianism, Montanism, Manichaeism, and the Familists and other dissenters of his day all pointed to\nscripture to justify their beliefs.\nThe divisions of schism could be healed, Tymme claimed, if people would acknowledge that no church was or ever could be free from blemishes. The most\nappropriate place for the church was the center of a defined circumference: \u201cin religion there is both a centre & a space. Although it be best to be in the centre, yet if\nwe be not out of the space we be well.\u201d25 And in a rare, possibly a singular moment\nof scatological language, Tymme continued: \u201cOut of the space is too bad, like as\nit is to be out of the But. What madness is it then in those men, who because they\ncannot be in the prick, wil not be in the but neither. This was at one time Peters extremity, Lord (saith he) thou shalt never wash my feet: and incontinent he desireth\nChrist to wash both feet, head, hand, & al. We must learn to keepe a mean, and\nsometime to tollerate imperfections\u201d (C2r). Tymme closed his immodest analysis\nwith a sobering consideration of the consequences of schism. He said that schism\nshould be approached with the gravity of a father, and that when things were not\nas they should be, they should be amended, or if not amended, then taken away,\nor if not taken away, then accepted with resignation. Or, as Tymme put it, we can\nonly \u201csuffer and sigh. Contention in this case helpeth not, but rather hurteth, and\noffendeth both God and good men\u201d (C2r\u2013v).\nWhile the first leper was the schismatique, the tenth\u2014the murmurer\u2014was almost as menacing. While Tymme of course condemned those who \u201cmurmured\u201d\nagainst God when dissatisfied with their lives, he spilled more ink attacking those\nwho murmured against the civil government and ecclesiastical authorities. As\nif anticipating James VI\u2019s 1598 True Lawe, he wrote unequivocally that \u201cKings,\nQueenes and other princes, are ordained of God, are to bee obeyed and honoured of all persons without exception\u201d (Mv). Even if a monarch was \u201cwicked\nand tyrannous,\u201d the subject was still obliged to obey without murmuring (M2r).\nHe reminded his readers that the first murmurer was Lucifer; more to the point,\nthe English chronicles swarmed with murmuring rebels (M2r). To refuse to pay\ntribute to the civil authorities or to do so grudgingly left one open to God\u2019s wrath.\nBetween 1586 and 1592 Tymme wrote and published four treatises warning of\nthe danger of civil discord, but he also reassured his readers that unity was possible if they were willing to concede that, as there was only one God, there could\n\nPages 39:\n24\nAlchemical Belief\nbe only one church. When he rose to his pulpit and preached to his congregation,\nwhen he sat at his desk and wrote of his concerns, when he urged his listeners to\nrelinquish their desire for churches that suited their individual \u201cfantasies\u201d and\nembrace the church that gathered together all English believers, when he hurried\nto the print shops and watched as they turned his manuscript into hundreds of\nprinted copies, Tymme if nothing else established himself as a consistent voice of\nspiritual conciliation and ecclesiastical order. Still, for the next ten years Tymme\nwould watch his beloved kingdom and his beloved church drift even further away\nfrom the goal of a unified religious community. Although he remained silent on\nthe increasing influence of dissenters in the 1590s, it gradually became clear to\nhim that he would have to take matters into his own hands.\nTymme\u2019s Alchemical Unity\nIn a departure from his earlier years, Tymme went largely silent in the decade\n1592\u20131602. Whatever else consumed his time and energy during those years, we\ncan say with some confidence that one subject he studied was alchemy. For in the\nyears between 1602 and 1612, Tymme produced three alchemical treatises that\nspoke to new questions that were also tied to his former concerns. His foray into\nalchemical studies must have begun sometime before 1602, when he wrote his\nearliest extant alchemical treatise, A Light in Darkness, an explanatory postscript\nto a translation he proposed to make of John Dee\u2019s Monas Hieroglyphica (1564),\na translation that is no longer extant.26 All that survives are two manuscript versions of his postscript, one in code and one in English, both in Elias Ashmole\u2019s\nhand.27 A Light in Darkness was to be an explanatory guide for readers of Dee\u2019s\ntext, but all we have is a manuscript that is a fragment of his great plan.\nIn the Monas, Dee attempted to decipher the Book of Nature.28 The notion\nof the two books, one the scriptural word of God, the Bible, and the other, the\nBook of Nature, was commonplace in the sixteenth century. More to the point,\nsixteenth- and early seventeenth-century scholars did not perceive the two books\nas dichotomous or as opposed to each other but as complementary. Kathleen\nCrowther-Heyck argues that natural histories were written and read in the assumption that the natural world and the divine were suffused with each other,\nsuch that to study one was to study the other.29 For Dee, perhaps, the Monas extended beyond simply studying nature to controlling it as well. In Urszula Szulakowska\u2019s words, it was \u201ca linguistic alchemy, since by manipulating this sign [the\nMonas] the magus can control nature.\u201d30\nIn his \u201cFore-speech to the Reader,\u201d Tymme spoke precisely to this suffusion\nof the natural world by the divine. He wrote of how God had endowed Adam\n\nPages 40:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 25\nwith knowledge of the secrets and natural reason of the universe; this was how he\ncould name the animals, \u201cagreeing with their nature and kind.\u201d Even after the Fall,\nalthough his knowledge was \u201cweakened,\u201d he nevertheless invented \u201cArte,\u201d which\nenabled him to build \u201ctwo Tables of Stone\u201d in which he engraved his knowledge\nof natural philosophy, \u201cnot in letters (which were not then known) but in Hieroglyphicall characters.\u201d These tables contained the knowledge that might have\nprevented the \u201cgenerall Deluge.\u201d31\nWe also learn that while one table was lost in the flood, one survived at the foot\nof Mt. Ararat, and on this table the astronomical knowledge of the universe was\ninscribed. \u201cAt length,\u201d Tymme wrote, \u201cthis universall knowledge in naturall Philosophie, particularly drawne into sundry parts, was in force deminished, in such\nsort that such separacion made one an Astronomer, another a Magitian, a third a\nCabalist, and a fourth, an Alchemist.\u201d32 Knowledge, once unified and whole, was\nnow divided, disparate, and lost.\nOr so it might seem. In the remainder of his foreword Tymme explained how\nthis knowledge remained intact and how it led to a unified understanding of God\u2019s\ncreation. He wrote of how \u201cthat Vulchanicall Abram Tubalcain the Astrolgian\n& greate Arithmatitian went out of Egypt, into the land of Chanaan, by whose\nmeanes Egypt wan greate fame.\u201d33 The author of Genesis tells us that Tubal-cain\nwas the son of Lamech and Sella, who \u201cwrought cunningly every craft of brasse\nand iron\u201d (Gen. 4:22, Bishops\u2019 Bible). Moshe Idel points out that because Tubalcain was believed to be the inventor of weapons, and made them available to those\nwilling to use them, he was read as the agent of violence.34\nHowever, Tymme clearly saw Tubal-cain in a more benevolent light. In describing him as \u201cVulchanicall,\u201d he seemed to see Tubal-cain as a Christian analogue of Vulcan, the god of metalsmiths and forgers. Raphael Patai suggests that\nTubal-cain\u2019s renown with alchemists was not simply because he invented labor at\nthe furnace, but because he was the transmitter of figures, formas hieroglyphicas,\nthat presumably revealed the secret of the philosophers\u2019 stone itself.35 In calling\nhim an \u201cAstrolgian & great Arithmatitian,\u201d Tymme presumably referred to Tubalcain\u2019s invention of metallurgy and metals\u2019 long-standing relationship with the\nplanets and stars.\nTymme explained how alchemical knowledge had been preserved and transmitted from antiquity, beginning with Moses and Daniel. He reminded his readers that Moses was educated by the Egyptians and that this was how he had\nlearned \u201cthese Scyences,\u201d while Daniel, who lived among the Chaldeans, \u201cbecame\na perfect Cabalist, the wisdome of Gods spirit dwelling in him, whereby he expounded these misticall words Mene Mene Tekel Upharzin.\u201d36 We learn that this\n\u201cextraordinary wisdom\u201d was given to Persian priests who \u201cwalked in his Commandments,\u201d and it was from this lineage that the magi who brought Jesus gifts\n\nPages 41:\n26\nAlchemical Belief\nfrom the East were descended. He noted that the Egyptians excelled in this secret\nknowledge and that because \u201cHermes, who lived about Moses tyme, was truly\ncalled Trismegistus,\u201d he too obtained this knowledge.37\nAt this point Tymme broke from his narrative and turned directly to an explanation of alchemy: \u201cAlchimy is a Science, whereby the principles, causes, properties and passions of all Metalls that are thoroughly knowne & discovered and by\nwhich those Mettalls that are imperfect and corrupted, are altered and changed\ninto true & perfect Gold. That this is no fable nor deceiptfull Imaginacion, is thus\nproved.\u201d Indeed, that is precisely what he set out to do: to prove that alchemy\nwas not a fable. Anything that could be ingested, and \u201cany impure thing,\u201d could\nbe digested and purified. He made a passing reference to Aristotle (\u201cThe Major\nand Minor are plainely proved by thee saying of the Philosopher in the 4 chap. of\nMetheors, concerning the Digestion of Opsesis and Epsesis, and likewise in the 2\nchap. of Generacion and Corrupcion\u201d), and with this succinct proof now before\nhis readers, he averred, \u201cAgaine the certainety of this Science is thus proved\u201d (emphasis added).38\nClearly, in the years in which Tymme appeared to have finished haranguing\nhis audience, he had immersed himself in a new literature. He had long read histories, we know, but alchemical literature, Aristotle, and the Hermetica also surfaced in his work. Why he turned to alchemical and hermetic literature is not\nimmediately clear, but at the very least we can say that he began to see loose correlations between elements of the alchemical process and aspects of Christianity.\n\u201cIn regard of the assurance of this Scyence,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthe famous Philosopher\nTrismegistus before remembered wrote thus . . . \u2018Do not all things flow from unity\nthrough the goodnes of One . . . what else springeth from Unity, but the Ternary it\nselfe. The Unarie is simple, the Binarie is compound, & the Ternarie is reduceable\nto the simplicity of unitie.\u2019\u201d39 His observation may have been written in the spirit\nof the Hermetica, but it was not in fact a direct quotation.40 The more likely source\nwas Dee\u2019s preface to Euclid\u2019s Elements, in which Dee made what might have been\na loose reference to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity as \u201cthe Ternarie\u201d: \u201cAnd\nalbeit these thynges be waighty and truthes of great importance, yet (by the infinite goodnes of the Almighty Ternarie,) Artificiall Methods and easy wayes are\nmade.\u201d Also: \u201cWhich Ternaries, are eche, the Union, knot, and Uniformite, of\nthree discrete and distinct Units.\u201d41 In Tymme\u2019s glossary at the end of the document, he wrote, \u201cBy the word Ternarie is meant (as I conjecture) the first matter\nof the Philosophers stone, which are there in.\u201d42 In the context of this treatise, the\nTrinity and the philosophers\u2019 stone were not mutually exclusive.\nBefore Tymme could unlock the secrets, he first had to learn how to use one of\nthe keys needed to turn alchemical tumblers: hieroglyphics. Tymme\u2019s discovery\nof the importance of hieroglyphics is evident in his early unpublished preface\n\nPages 42:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 27\nto Dee\u2019s Monas Hieroglyphica, Light in Darkness, mentioned above, in which he\nstudied hieroglyphics and incorporated them into his own epistemology. That\nTymme turned to hieroglyphics should come as no surprise. Since the publication\nof Horapollo\u2019s Hieroglyphics in the late fifteenth century, interest in hieroglyphics\nin Renaissance humanist circles had grown. Hieroglyphics were thought to be\nnot just symbols but Platonic ideas, the meaning of which could be perceived\nintuitively by the reader.43 The meaning of these symbols was veiled to all but\nthose who were divinely inspired to read them. Erik Iversen argues that \u201cthe true\nsignificance thus revealed was nothing less than an insight into the very essence\nof things, in fact their ideas, and the method involved, the ultimate understanding\nof the true nature of things made possible by an immediate contact between the\nhuman intellect and the divine ideas, was supposed to reflect and illustrate the\ndynamic process of divine thought.\u201d44 There was a sense of both universality and\ntimelessness associated with hieroglyphics. Sometime about 1453 Leon Battista\nAlberti noted that while letters of a language may dissolve with the passage of\ntime, as had happened with the Etruscan language, the expression of knowledge\nthrough symbols was universally understood.45 Indeed, in 1635 Francis Quarles\nobserved in his book of emblems that \u201cbefore the knowledge of letters, God was\nknowne by Hierogliphicks; And, indeed, what are the Heavens, the Earth, nay\nevery Creature, but Hierogliphicks and Emblemes of His Glory?\u201d46 Alchemy was\na highly inclusive tradition, and it is likely that Tymme\u2019s fascination with hieroglyphics grew out of the wide interest in them in the late Renaissance.\nReferring to what he thought were hieroglyphics for sulfur and mercury,\nTymme explained how these elements, used in an alchemical process, accorded\nwith aspects of Christianity: \u201cTherefore whosoever he be that will attaine to the\nScyence of the greate worke in Alchimy, let him well consult & view this figure following, that he may bringe the Ternarie to unitye.\u201d47 He sketched out in\nthe manuscript a triangulated set of circles, identifying one as \u201cBodie\u201d and with\nthe symbol for sulfur and the other two \u201cSoule\u201d and \u201cSpirit,\u201d though he used the\nideograph for mercury for both (see fig. 1). In the accompanying text Tymme\nexplained cryptically that \u201cunarie\u201d was not a number but that all numbers were\nbased on it. The \u201cBinarie\u201d was the first compound number, he said, thus establishing that \u201cNumber standeth upon order and measure.\u201d\nTymme again explained cryptically that \u201cthe Philosophers have called that\n[sulfur] the Body which according to naturall power, may be fixed: & with\ncontinuall perseverance, can constantly abide the tryall of fire.\u201d The ideograph\nfor the soul and the spirit, however, was the same, despite what Tymme said were\nclearly differences between them. The soul was not nearly so steadfast as the body\nand could not abide trials by fire; indeed, it fled from fire. And yet \u201cthat Spirit,\nwhich being subtiled, dissolved, or moulten with fire, according to the natural\n\nPages 43:\n28\nAlchemical Belief\nFig. 1 Thomas Tymme\u2019s explanation of the Trinity according to alchemical elements in\nhis Light in Darkness. Ashmole MS 1459, p. 475. By permission of the Bodleian Libraries,\nUniversity of Oxford.\n\nPages 44:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Nat ural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 29\npower thereof, hath ability to resoule the body with the Soule into vapour or of\nreteyning the Soule with the Body to the fiery tryall, if it vapour not.\u201d The spirit\nreconstituted and strengthened the soul; although they appeared to be similar\nand were in fact identified as the same, they were different, the soul completely\ndependent on the spirit: \u201cBecause the Spirit when it shalbe equall, maketh the\nBody to reteyne the Soule, and when it shalbe more, or stronger, it maketh the\nSoule to depart from the Body, and so it forsaketh the Body, for that without\nthe Spirit, the Soule tarrieth not with the Body, neither is it seperated from the\nBody because it is the Bond of them both. And thus this one thing [mercury] is\nBody, Soule, and Spirit in divers respects.\u201d However closely this passage operated\nalong alchemical principles, it clearly went beyond that to an instructive spiritual\nplane. After his brief discussion of lead, tin, iron, copper, silver, and, of course,\ngold, he observed that \u201cthis noble Science is the way to caelestiall & supernaturall\nthings, by whiche the ancient Wisemen were led from the worke of Arte & Nature\nto understande, even by reason the wonderfull powre of God in the creacion of all\nthings: & their finall purificacion by alteracion through fire in the day of doome.\u201d\nTymme did not think people should fear this \u201cday of doome,\u201d for on this day\n\u201cuncleane faeces & corrupcion\u201d would be separated from the four elements and\nbe made into a \u201cChristalline cleerenes.\u201d He reassured his readers that nothing\nwould be destroyed in a fire, because \u201cGod by his power will change all things &\nmake them Christalline.\u201d For Tymme, alchemy literally demonstrated the truths\nprophesied in the scriptures but also evident in nature: \u201cDemonstracion of these\nthings is made here on earthe by this honest & holy arte.\u201d\nOnly now was it clear why alchemy spoke with such resonance to Tymme:\n\u201cFor whatsoever God hath created may be brought to a Christalline cleerenes, and\nthe Elements gathered together into a simple fixed substance; which being done\nnoe man can alter them, nor the fire it selfe burne or change them, but they shall\ncontinue perpetually in Eternity.\u201d The idea that \u201cwhatsoever God hath created\u201d\nhad the potential to be brought to a \u201cChristalline cleerenes\u201d (it was probably no\ncoincidence that Tymme spelled \u201cChristalline\u201d with the root \u201cChrist\u201d) meant that\nall aspects of God\u2019s creation had the potential to be redeemed. Once this transformation occurred, it could not be reversed and would endure for eternity.\nIn his dedication to Thomas Baker, Tymme wrote that his purpose was \u201cnot\nto procure you into the Laborinth of Alchimists practise, whereinto all that have\nentred with unwashen hands have hurt themselves, and then falsely exclaimed\nagainst the divine Science, as meere Sophisticall & deceiptfull; but rather to allure\nyou, to like that which my selfe doth love, & yet not doating as Narcissus did with\nthe shaddow.\u201d His purpose all along, that is, was less instructional than inspirational. The practice of alchemy was only one part of the experience. Those who\nintended to study the art had to be properly prepared\u2014otherwise they would fail\n\nPages 45:\n30\nAlchemical Belief\nand conclude that alchemy was a sham. It was to be pursued for what it taught,\nnot for what it promised.\nIn the surviving portions of A Light in Darkness, Tymme offered an explanation of how alchemical language accorded with, even \u201cproved,\u201d the complex\ntheological notion of the Trinity. The Trinity was the sine qua non of Western\nChristendom\u2014Reformed, Lutheran, and Catholic alike. John Calvin had directed\nthe burning of Michael Servetus in 1553 because Servetus rejected the Trinity on\nthe grounds that it was not scriptural. If Tymme was right about this alchemical\n\u201cproof,\u201d then the schism in Christendom that had preoccupied him so deeply\nearlier in life might be healed. No one was more aware than he of the divisive\nnature of scripture; he had mocked heretics who used the Bible to defend their\nheresies. In the years since, Tymme appeared to realize that natural philosophy\u2014\nalchemy\u2014might demonstrate essential orthodoxies of Western Christendom.\nStill, alchemy was not his only concern in the early years of the new century, for\nin 1605 he published the most popular treatise of his career.\nOn October 11, 1604, the Stationers\u2019 Register recorded the entry for A Silver\nWatch-Bell.48 Although it was not actually printed until 1605, A Silver Watch-Bell\nwent through nineteen printings, the last in 1659, nearly forty years after Tymme\u2019s\ndeath in 1620. Indeed, he continued to update the text as events dictated, adding,\nfor example, an annotation on the Gunpowder Plot of November 1605 to the 1608\nimprint.49 A Silver Watch-Bell was Tymme\u2019s longest and most ambitious work, and\nhe returned briefly to the dangers of schism in this text.\nTymme\u2019s preoccupation with schism also made an appearance in the other\ntreatise he published in 1605, the translation of Duchesne\u2019s Practise of Chymicall,\nand Hermeticall Physicke. In his dedication to Charles Blount he reassured his\nreaders that alchemy was not concerned merely with the transmutation of metals,\na common error, he noted: \u201cFor Halchymie . . . hath also a chyrurgical hand in\nthe anatomizing of every mesenteriall veine of whole nature: Gods created handmaid, to conceive and bring forth his Creatures.\u201d Alchemy was God\u2019s assistant, the\n\u201chand-maid\u201d who responded to divine direction.\nAlchemy demonstrated the power and wisdom of God. It imitated nature by\nseparating salt, sulfur, and mercury from vegetable, mineral, and animal matter.\nBy separating these elements, one \u201cshal by that mystery, as in glasse, discerene\nthe holy and most glorious Trinitie, in the Unitie of one Hupostasis Divine.\u201d Although he understood the three elements as \u201cdivine,\u201d he went further, referring\nto Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans: \u201cthe invisible things of God (saith the Apostle) that\nis, his eternal power and God-head, are seene by the creation of the world, being\nconsidered in his workes.\u201d A clergyman always sensitive to the prideful implications of such majestic work, Tymme again returned to scripture, reassuring his\npatron that \u201cthis Phylosophy therefore (my good lord) is not of that kind which\n\nPages 46:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 31\ntendeth to vanity and deceit, but rather to profit and to edification, inducing first\nthe knowledge of God, & secondly the way to find out true medicine in his creatures.\u201d50 Finally, his use of the term \u201cHupostasis\u201d is significant. He was surely referring to the theological concept of \u201chypostasis,\u201d the notion that Christ was one\nperson who existed in two natures, human and divine. Thus, when he referred\nto the \u201cglorious Trinitie\u201d and \u201cthe Unitie of one Hupostasis Divine,\u201d he meant\nsomething that was both a material and a spiritual manifestation of the divine\u2014\nprecisely what he believed alchemy could be at its best. If unity might be found in\nsuch different material elements, surely the same could be true for humanity.\nOf course, as the first years of the seventeenth century testified, such unity had\nnot been achieved. In 1603, by constitutional agreement, James VI of Scotland had\nascended to the throne of England when Elizabeth died without an heir. Becoming now James VI and I, the founder of the new Stuart monarchy acquired a vaster\nkingdom, but with far greater problems than he had known in his Scottish realm.\nAlthough the intensity of the rising Puritan influence and Catholic threats from\nabroad had abated, they had bequeathed a legacy of bitterness and excruciating\ntension among dissenting believers in England.51\nTymme was sensitive to this situation. In his \u201cFore-speech to the Reader\u201d in\nDuchesne\u2019s alchemical treatise, he lamented that although theology rested upon\nthe infallible foundation of scripture, \u201cdivers opinions and Sects\u201d had arisen\namong religious leaders. This was not unique to Christianity, of course, and he\nknew that, noting that Jews had Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. Then there\nwere those who worshipped falsely, whom he described as \u201cTurkes, Affricans,\nTartars, Persians, Cataians, and Indians.\u201d Indeed, even \u201cPapists,\u201d who claimed\nto have such unity, were divided into Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits. Finally, within Protestant communities, Anabaptists, Familists, and Brownists had\nall sprung up. The same was true of philosophers, with their schools of Stoics,\nPeripatetics, and Platonists. Even physicians had \u201cEmpirics, Dogmatics, . . . and\nParacelsians.\u201d\nThe reasons for such disparate approaches to crucial concerns were the oldest\nones of all: human error, carnal desires, individuality, and, of course, envy, pride,\nand ambition. As sensitive as he was to the destabilizing effects of these divisions\nand sects, Tymme believed he had a solution, and he even playfully made himself\npersonally a part of it: \u201cBut some of these ayming at perfection, and having the\nadvantage of succession and other helpes, have by Tyme [sic] procreated a plaine\nand naked truth,\u201d namely, the flourishing of learning, which had \u201crefined all Artes\nand Sciences.\u201d\nAlthough medicine, too, was marked by disagreement\u2014between students of\nsuch notable physicians as Hippocrates, Galen, Paracelsus, and Duchesne himself\u2014Tymme believed that all should be embraced and honored, because they all\n\nPages 47:\n32\nAlchemical Belief\n\u201csought only the good of mankinde.\u201d His advice was based on more than altruism;\nit also had a scriptural foundation. He reminded his readers that in Ecclesiasticus they were told to honor the physician, for God created him and gave him\nknowledge so that he would glorify God. In addition, the miracles of Jesus usually\nhealed an infirmity, and Luke was a physician and an evangelist. In short, medicine and healing had profound scriptural foundation.\nThere was yet another reason why it was so appropriate for the pious Christian\nto accept different medical views and appreciate the divine nature of the work.\nIn the dedication to Duchesne\u2019s treatise, Tymme had already established the relationship between studying philosophy and studying the divine. Even Plato had\nsaid \u201cthat Phylosophy is the imitating of God, so farforth as man is able: that we\nmay knowe God more and more, untill we behold him face to face, in the kingdome of heaven. So that the scope of Phylosophy, is to seeke to glorifie God in his\nwonderfull workes: to teach a man how to live wel, and to be charitably affected in\nhelping our neighbour. This Philosophy natural, both speculative & active, is not\nonly to be found in the volume of nature, but also in the sacred Scripture: as in\nGenesis, in the booke of Job, in the Psalmes, in Syrach, and in other places\u201d (emphasis added).\nAfter nearly twenty years of condemning, urging, exhorting, and encouraging\nanyone who would listen (and surely many more who would not) that the divisive\nnature of their religious culture would lead to disaster, Tymme had apparently\nfound a solution that he had never before considered. The English faithful could\nlearn how to live charitably, as a unified whole, by studying the Book of Nature\nand the Book of God. After all, he said, it was Solomon\u2019s knowledge of philosophy\nthat allowed him to excel above all other kings and philosophers in the world.\nKnowledge of philosophy in general, and the healing qualities of \u201cHalchymie\u201d in\nparticular, might be the salve that Tymme had sought for so many years.\nThe Book Trade, the Book of Nature, and the Triumph of Scripture\nOn January 16, 1611/12, the Stationers\u2019 Register recorded the following entry:\n\u201cMaster Knighte/. Enterd for his Copy under th\u2019 [h]andes of master Doctor\nMokett and Th[e] wardens, A booke called, A Dyalogue Philososphicall wherein\nnatures secret closett is opened &c. by T. Tymme professour of Divynitye.\u201d A Dialogue philosophicall, Tymme\u2019s last, longest, most original, and most complex text\non natural philosophy, was properly licensed and registered with the Stationers\u2019\nCompany and, according to the extant records, was the only alchemical publication the bookseller Clement Knight oversaw. Knight was located near St. Paul\u2019s\nand so also near Tymme\u2019s parish, St. Anthony\u2019s. They had probably met earlier,\n\nPages 48:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 33\nbut certainly no later than 1609, when the first publisher of A Silver Watch-Bell,\nWilliam Cotton, died and Knight acquired the right to publish it.52 Cotton\u2019s misfortune was Knight\u2019s good luck, as this volume proved to be an enormously popular and surely profitable venture for Knight\u2014he published eight editions between\n1610 and 1625.\nKnight was a rather unexceptional bookseller. From 1595 to 1630 we have a\nrecord of ninety-four of his publications, more than half of which are religious\ntreatises, sermons, and devotionals.53 He also published five separate editions\nof church visitation articles. In addition to these religious publications, Knight\nprinted histories, comedies, and books devoted to self-edification. He published\nVirgil\u2019s Aeneid a couple of times. He was not officially admitted into the Stationers\u2019 Company until 1600, but he was associated with some of its publications\nbefore that\u2014early in his career he took part in a few controversial, or at least\ninjudicious, printing decisions. In March 1601 Knight and more than two dozen\nother London printers were forced to relinquish their copies of the banned book\nHumours letting blood in the vayne for burning.54 In April 1603 the wardens of the\nStationers\u2019 Company cited Knight, along with a dozen other printers, for printing James VI\u2019s Basilicon Doron. The effects of these punishments, however, were\nshort-lived. Knight rose steadily through the ranks of the Stationers\u2019 Company\nand by 1619 was made Assistant of the Company, that is, one of the company\u2019s\ngovernors. Thereafter, his name appears throughout the Stationers\u2019 Register as a\nwarden.\nPerhaps Knight\u2019s commonplace career may be precisely the point. That he appears, from our distant and admittedly limited vantage point, to have been an\nestablishment man, that he was rather unexceptional, that the books he published fell well within the boundaries of civility and propriety, all may suggest\nthat Tymme\u2019s alchemical treatise was unexceptional within the constellation of\nKnight\u2019s printed books.\nThe respectability of Knight\u2019s publications stands in sharp contrast to Tymme\u2019s\nearlier alchemical publication, his 1605 translation of Duchesne\u2019s Chymicall, and\nHermeticall Physicke, which was published by Thomas Creede, whose location on\nthe title page was simply \u201cLondon.\u201d It was not merely London, though. Creede\nwas located in St. Giles, near the notorious neighborhoods of Moorfields, Smithfield, and Grub Street, outside the city walls. Moorfields had a particularly scurrilous reputation\u2014it was the center of the city\u2019s brothels\u2014but it was also the place\nwhere the lowest ranks of the print trade congregated, those unrecognized by\nthe Stationers\u2019 Company, the publishers of dissenting and other illicit books.55\nWhy Tymme had his Chymicall, and Hermeticall Physicke printed there remains\nunknown, but we can be sure that this strait-laced clergyman must have kept his\nhead down when he traveled to such a neighborhood.\n\nPages 49:\n34\nAlchemical Belief\nCreede\u2019s location is even more anomalous within the context of the booksellers\nTymme had patronized earlier. The publishers of his historical translations and\nreligious treatises\u2014Henry Denham, Thomas Marsh, Frances Coldocke, William\nCotton, John Wolfe, Peter Short, and Clement Knight\u2014all had establishments\nclose, sometimes very close, to St. Paul\u2019s Churchyard, a locale known for its prosperity and respectability.56 While these kinds of assessments are fraught with difficulties and exceptions, we can be fairly confident that learned books could be\nfound in St. Paul\u2019s, Little Britain, the Fleet Street, Cornhill, and to some extent\nMoorfields.57 More to the point, with the possible exception of Thomas Creede,\nthe booksellers Tymme worked with were established, licensed, respectable booksellers, whether he was translating a history of the French wars of religion, delivering a prophecy, or writing an alchemical treatise.\nSuch a reservoir of respectability was hardly necessary, though, for in the opening of his Dialogue philosophicall Tymme returned to the theme he had discussed\nmany times before: unity. He wrote that God had set before their eyes the Book\nof Nature and the Book of God. Both books provided assurance that God existed\nbef\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 30 to page 49 out of a total of 238. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 50 to page 69 out of a total of 238:\nPages 50:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 35\nInstead of the foundation for Christian faith, scripture appeared to be an equal\nsubstitute for the Book of Nature. The natural world was just as sacred and perfect\nas the scriptures. A scriptural exegete for more than two decades, Tymme appeared to believe that studying the Book of Nature allowed one to uncloak secrets,\njust as studying the Bible revealed knowledge to learned and spiritual students.\nHis earlier treatises were filled with revelations of his fears and hopes, both drawn\nfrom the Bible. In A Dialogue philosophicall there was simply hope, hope that the\nnatural world might be redeemed in God\u2019s eyes and hope that the knowledge and\nwisdom of the world in its prelapsarian perfection could be restored to humanity.\nPerhaps this knowledge could no longer be read from stone tables, but it might be\nread in the Book of Nature.\nStill, the relative merits of the two books had long been irrelevant. Saint Thomas\nAquinas (1225\u20131274), Nicholas of Cusa (ca. 1400\u20131464), and Richard Hooker (ca.\n1554\u20131600) all thought the two volumes were equally valuable. Margreta de Grazia notes that Calvin recommended that one search the scriptures to understand\nbetter the world God had created: \u201cFor by the Scriptures as our guide and teacher,\nGod not only makes those things plain which otherwise escape our notice, but\nalmost compels us to behold them; as if he had assisted our dull sight with spectacles.\u201d60 Calvin seemed to believe that the scriptures, being literally more legible\nthan nature, were closer to humanity and therefore might assist in helping to understand that other sacred body, the natural world, more accurately. Tymme was\nundoubtedly aware of Calvin\u2019s directive because he translated Calvin\u2019s Commentary on the First Book of Moses, in which it appears.61 It was a directive, however,\nthat did not completely persuade him.\nA Dialogue philosophicall was essentially an English-language amalgam of Aristotelian and Paracelsian thought expressed in the traditional genre of a dialogue,\nin this case between Philadelph and Theophrast.62 The complex relationship of\nexperimentation, experience, and revelation in Paracelsianism was a major theme\nof the text. When Philadelph questions Theophrast about whether one can distinguish matter through its form, Theophrast remarks testily, \u201cI doe not thinke that\nany thing can be defined concerning these, which is either certaine, constant, or\napproved by generall consent, so long as mans minde is shut up in the prison of\nhis body, neither can he know by his senses, what Matter, and Forme is.\u201d63\nOne tenet of Paracelsianism was its reliance on the spiritual revelation of\nknowledge, and Theophrast certainly echoes that sentiment.64 The Paracelsian\nnatural philosopher hoped to obtain a mystical union between spirit and matter,\nwhich is why he was so dismissive of mere observation. However, Theophrast\nlater comments that \u201call the functions and workes of this simple Forme, may of us\neasely be discerned and knowne. But how and from whence they proceede; and\nwhat is the substance of the effecting cause or faculty thereof, is as much hidden\n\nPages 51:\n36\nAlchemical Belief\nand unknowne to us, as is the essence of the Divinitie.\u201d65 He then proceeds to list\nmore than a dozen things that individuals could observe in nature without understanding them, such as how lodestones attract iron, how a snake or scorpion\ncan kill a man with its poison, or how olive and myrtle trees have such an affinity\nthat their branches will grow together. Human observation was limited because\nthese mysteries were \u201chidden in the Closet of Nature.\u201d Despite the seeming futility of the task, however, Tymme believed that \u201cit is mans duty . . . to take a view\nof all the creatures of God to him knowne, to search after such hidden causes\ntherein soberly, that he may magnifie the most omnipotent and wise Creatour of\nNature\u201d (50).\nThere may be a role for observation, but that role must have a spiritual purpose: the duty of the Christian natural philosopher was to study the natural world\nand obtain its secrets, not for self-edification but for the glory of God. The same\ncould not be said when one studied the divine. Tymme\u2019s work was notable for its\nlack of curiosity about the nature of God. The purpose of natural philosophy, he\nwrote, was to glorify God, not to seek understanding of God\u2019s omnipotence and\nmysterious ways. He wrote the dialogue between Philadelph and Theophrast for\nthe purpose of appreciating but not inquiring about the majestic power of God.\nAsked to define power, Philadelph cites Aristotle, who \u201cdefined Power to be . . .\nthe beginning of motion and alteration\u201d; \u201cthere were two sorts of power: . . . the\npower of effecting is the beginning of mutation in another (whereof he hath spoken much in his seaventh of Phisickes) and the power of suffering is the beginning\nof mutation from another\u201d (19\u201320). Although Theophrast and Philadelph confine\ntheir discussion of power to matter and its transformation, Tymme made clear\nthe spiritual correlation: \u201cFor the matter which we debate of now, is the power of\nsuffering, which being in the matter as a certaine preparation, maketh the same\napt and fit for commutation and change\u201d (20). Suffering prepared \u201cfor commutation and change,\u201d preparing it for the result of power, order: \u201cThey which have\ndefined power to be a certaine preparation and ordering of matter, (albeit they\nthought it not fit to seeke further what manner of preparation that should be) yet\ndoe thrust upon us a prodigious false invention, and doe rather busie themselves\nabout the name, then seeke to know the things themselves\u201d (20). Power therefore\nwas not merely suffering; it was the life force itself. Suffering was a component of\npower, but not its entire essence. After an exchange about the nature of power,\nPhiladelph offers to sum up the discussion: \u201cBut before forme came into matter, it\ndesired a certaine ornature and preparation of the same, without the which it cannot enter there. This preparation is called Power, the which power is not so much\nas a portion, nor the least mite of the approaching forme, but onely a fore-running\npreparation, or ordering of the matter\u201d (25, emphasis added).\n\nPages 52:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 37\nThe \u201cordering of the matter\u201d spoke as well to the ordering of the divine. Philadelph could not help but notice that salt, sulfur, and mercury, like all other things\nin nature, appeared and were understood by the number three, \u201caccording to that\ntriple proportion, wherein God is said to have made all things in waight, number,\nand measure\u201d (38). Years earlier, Tymme had worked out that the three crucial elements of the alchemical process\u2014salt, sulfur, and mercury\u2014accorded with and\neven proved the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. By 1612 he saw the paradox of\ndivision and unity in the Trinity as a common motif throughout the Book of Nature. The divinity of the number three had long been clear to him, and it applied\nas well to the trinity of body, soul, and spirit. Philadelph (thankfully!) remarked\nthat he could not see the difference between soul and spirit. The question was\ncritical because of the foundation they had laid earlier. If one\u2019s soul and spirit\ncould not be seen as separate, then their belief that the universe was founded on\nthe number three collapsed. Theophrast solved the problem by explaining that\nthe soul is \u201can immortall heate\u201d that seeks to attain union with the divine heavens;\ntherefore the soul was inherently divine. However, he compared the spirit to the\nwind: It is not quite corporeal, yet it could affect a corporeal body (40). He called\nthe spirit \u201cthe chariot of the soule\u201d and maintained that \u201cthe heate of this soule is\ncelestiall and divine\u201d (41).\nA Dialogue philosophicall makes it clear that Tymme could never completely\naccept the equivalency of nature and scripture. When Theophrast and Philadelph\nturn to the position of the earth in the universe, they use Paracelsian principles\nand scripture to defend the Aristotelian system. Philadelph notes that despite the\nwork of Nicholas of Cusa and Copernicus, there are good reasons to believe that\nthe earth is stationary. It is better \u201cto attribute motion to the contained then to the\ncontaining; to the thing placed, then to that which affordeth place\u201d (58). When\nconfronted with Copernican doctrine, Tymme did not\u2014or perhaps could not\u2014\nrely solely on Paracelsian doctrine and the Book of Nature. Instead, he relied first\nand foremost on scripture:\nBut now I come to answere Cusanus and Copernicus, with reasons not taken\nout of humane Philosophie, . . . but that which is divine and infallible, proceeding from the wisedome and mouth of that great God, who is the Creatour of the heavens and Earth. . . . Heare therefore what the Prophet David\nbeing divinely inspired speaketh, concerning the motion of the Sunne in\nhis Sphaere: He commeth forth (saith he) as a Bridegroome out of his Tabernacle, and rejoyceth as a mighty man to runne his course: his going out\nis from the end of the Heaven, and his circuit is to the end of the same, and\nnothing is hid from the heate thereof. (59)\n\nPages 53:\n38\nAlchemical Belief\nHis biblical references to Psalm 19:5\u20136 (and later to Joshua), and his illustration\nof the universe, had the earth firmly in its rightful, central place, with the planets\nand spheres revolving around it, as explained in the scriptures (59\u201360).\nTymme\u2019s earlier consideration that nature might describe the universe equally\nas well as scripture vanished. He could not embrace a principle expressly denied\nby the Bible. As seductive as the Book of Nature might be when it departed from\nscripture, he came down firmly on the side of scripture. God the creator/alchemist formed the universe through a monumental alchemical process\u2014nature and\nscripture agreed on this point. Yet the two books disagreed on the position of the\nearth in the universe, and in the case of such disagreement, the written word of\nGod assumed primacy over the visual word of God as manifested in nature.\nTymme closed his discussion by returning to the concept of suffering and\npower. Roaming from the Pentateuch to the Pauline epistles, he marshaled the\nbiblical texts he knew so well to convince his audience that Christianity was the\nultimate healer of all afflictions: \u201cThe true felicitie of that Heavenly and most\nblessed life to come, consisteth in these things. First, in the restoring of all the\nchiefe things in Nature to a farre greater, and more high perfection then now they\nhave. . . . Also in his [Paul\u2019s] Epistles to the Ephesians, and Colosians, he saith:\nthat all things whether in Heaven or in Earth, shall be restored in Christ\u201d (68).\nClearly, in the context of a study that had examined matter and form and the\nprime elements of the universe, he understood Paul\u2019s spiritual message to refer\nto a physical transformation, a renewal and redemption of the natural as well\nas the spiritual world. Alchemy might even result in the return of Christ, ushering in a new world, a world redeemed and transformed alchemically. The Day\nof Judgment itself, as we saw earlier, would be an alchemical event. Theophrast\nproceeded to describe chapters 20 and 21 of the book of Revelation. He recounted\na city with walls and gates made of precious stones and streets paved in gold,\nmaking clear that the alchemical transformation was securely founded upon holy\nscripture. However, this event would be more than a simple transmutation of the\nnatural world: \u201cIn this Kingdome, God shall wipe away all teares from their eyes,\nand there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, neither crying, neither shall\nthere be any more paine: for the first things are passed. A third point which shall\nencrease our felicitie, will be the exceeding resplendant glory of the glorified bodies, and creatures in that Kingdome. . . . And then having such glorified bodies . . .\nwe shall see God as he is, and behold him face to face. . . . This onely sight of God\nis our happinesse\u201d (69\u201370).\nThe physical and spiritual worlds had melded to the point that they were almost\nindistinguishable\u2014which was what Tymme had tried to achieve all along. He had\ngrown to see and appreciate the power, order, and wholeness of nature, and he believed that this order and wholeness had something to teach his splintered society.\n\nPages 54:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 39\nYet he was also finished with such nontraditional means of defending traditional\ndoctrines. He never again put his amalgamation of natural philosophy and spirituality into print.\nThe Prayer Book\nIn 1618 Tymme published his last treatise, The Chariot of Devotion. By this time he\nhad been assigned to the Hasketon parish in Suffolk, and in the title of this treatise\nhe identified himself as \u201cMinister at Hasketon in Suffolke.\u201d Another difference\nwas his bookseller\u2014for reasons unknown, his long association with Clement\nKnight was over; his devotional was published by Thomas Bailey in Holborn,\nanother prominent center of printing, west of St. Paul\u2019s, outside the city walls.66\nThese differences notwithstanding, The Chariot of Devotion returned to themes\nTymme had addressed many times before. When he wrote of chariots, he wrote\nof how the great Egyptian, Philistine, and Hebrew warriors all used them, but\nthe greatest chariot, the one \u201cmost divine,\u201d was of course that of Elijah, who was\ncarried into heaven on a chariot of fire, according to the Bible. Was he thinking\nof himself as much as of Elijah when he wrote, \u201cThis Chariot suted well with the\nzealous and fervent spirit of Eliah [sic] in the service and worship of God, wherewith he was indued. . . . For God maketh his Angels Spirits, and his Ministers a\nflame of fire\u201d?67\nIn any event, The Chariot of Devotion returned to the role of power in the\nuniverse, not God\u2019s power but the power of prayer. Tymme did not believe that\nworship consisted merely of \u201ca bare and idle hearing of daily Sermons,\u201d while\nslighting \u201cpublique, common, & joint praier.\u201d68 Prayer became more powerful\nwhen it was corporate. The Anglican prayer book, the liturgy of the congregation,\ncould summon the divine just as sermons could\u2014an interesting argument given\nthat Tymme had preached, especially in print, for so many years.\nEvidently, more important to Tymme than preaching was the order of the liturgy in the prayer book. \u201cIn the service and worship of God, every thing ought\nto have his proper place and order: a consequence so pleasing to God, that he\nvouchsafeth to be called the God of order, and not of confusion. All praier and no\npreaching, is the heresie of the Euchites: And all hearing and no common prayer,\nis a sprout of as bad an heresie, if not worse.\u201d69 In the margins of the text he scrupulously informed his readers that he was referring to 1 Corinthians 14 (specifically 14:33). The same quotation and citation appear later as well.70 This is notable\nbecause either he was forgetful or careless or he deliberately changed the text of\nthe scripture. Both the Bishops\u2019 Bible and the Geneva Bible record that God is a\nGod of \u201cpeace,\u201d not of \u201corder.\u201d If the use of \u201corder\u201d was deliberate\u2014and it may\n\nPages 55:\n40\nAlchemical Belief\nhave been the bookseller\u2019s decision, not his\u2014it may reveal something about how\nhe believed peace could be achieved: through order.71 If order preceded peace, in\nTymme\u2019s view, then this equation suggests a great deal of how the fractured religious culture of post-Reformation England was perceived by conformists.\nThat fractured culture could be unified through common prayer. He pointed\nout that common prayers of thanksgiving and blessing dated back fifteen hundred\nyears, to the composition of the New Testament itself, and that these prayers were\nconfirmed by no less than \u201cChristian kings and Magistrates.\u201d This tradition ended\nwhen dissenters raised their voices and refused to repeat the prayers of preceding\ngenerations of Christians.72\nCommon prayers were more than just bulwarks against the ominous forces of\nschism. Tymme criticized the notion that prayer should be personal or spontaneous and advocated praying the prepared prayers of the church. If Christians had to\npray without guidance, they might be \u201cdiscouraged,\u201d \u201ccooled,\u201d or \u201ccommit many\nfollies and idle repetitions in praying.\u201d \u201cThey have so many formes of prayer,\u201d\nhe observed, \u201cdevised after their owne fantasies, that whereas God is the God of\norder, they present themselves with confusion\u201d; moreover, those who wanted to\npray but \u201cfor want of abilitie to conceive a prayer, shall be disappointed of their\ndevotion, and so not pray at all\u201d (36). By contrast, \u201can uniforme and set prayer\nuniversally read and pronounced by Priest and people together, as it seemes to\nmaintaine the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace: so it increaseth the hope\nand comfort of the Church, and efficacie of our prayers with God, when the whole\nChurch in every congregation, speakes one and the same thing, like the Church\ntriumphant in Heaven, which albeit it is as the sound of many waters, yet doe they\nall sing one song\u201d (39\u201340).\nTymme\u2019s plea was not isolated. As early as 1590 the vicar of Flixton in Suffolk,\nThomas Daynes, was deprived of his living in the consistory court on evidence\nprovided by his parishioners. He condemned his congregation for bringing their\nprayer books to church to see if he was adhering to it or not. Calling them \u201cpapists,\u201d he charged that \u201cthey would rather . . . heare masse . . . than to heare the\nworde of god trulie preached.\u201d He rebuked his parishioners, saying \u201cthey which\nwolde have sarvice sayde accordinge to the booke of common prayer are papists\nand atheists.\u201d73 Clearly, Daynes\u2019s parishioners saw the prayer book as an essential\ntool that they needed to build their pathway to heaven.\nJudith Maltby rightly notes that Protestant reformers rejected the \u201cparallel liturgical activities\u201d of the medieval mass, in which the clergy read one devotion\nand the congregation responded with another.74 Thomas Cranmer\u2019s and others\u2019\nvision of the new Church of England, expressed in the Book of Common Prayer,\nbrought both clergy and laity together in one prayer. Tymme believed that common prayer was common precisely because it established a unified liturgy and\n\nPages 56:\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 41\nprayer throughout the kingdom and demonstrated that clergy and laity were involved in the worship together and equally.75\nTymme was frustrated that \u201cschismatiques\u201d were unable to appreciate the corporate power inherent in a unified Christendom. Even in nature, he remarked,\none could see that \u201cthe conjunction of things which are of one kinde, makes them\nmuch stronger\u201d (40). He wrote of how multiple fires that have collapsed into one\nare much more fierce, of how springs that join together create a river, and of how\nmany hands can lift a burden that no one alone could lift. \u201cSo in our publiqueCommon prayer, where many congregations gather together about one time, and\nupon one day: this of many thousands must needes be much more powerfull,\nthan that which is made by one, or a few\u201d (40\u201341). For Tymme, common prayer\nnot only united the faithful in a common voice that God could hear more clearly;\nit united Christians in their common temptations, sins, concerns, convictions,\nand assurance.\nIn his \u201cepistle dedicatory\u201d to Duchesne\u2019s Practise of Chymicall, and Hermeticall\nPhysicke, Tymme wrote, \u201cPlato saith, that Phylosophy is the imitating of God, so\nfarforth as man is able: that we may knowe God more and more, until we behold\nhim face to face, in the kingdome of heaven. So that the scope of Phylosophy, is\nto seeke to glorifie God in his wonderfull workes: to teach a man how to live wel,\nand to be charitably affected in helping our neighbour.\u201d To \u201cknow God more and\nmore\u201d was clearly why he translated, studied, and wrote history, theology, devotion, and natural philosophy, including alchemy.\nThat Tymme turned to the study of alchemy and wrote so admiringly about it\nmay strike us as disconcerting given the relatively tight focus of his earlier work.\nHowever, despite the elusive, often inchoate language and symbols to which he\nreferred, his alchemical writings spoke essentially to the same issues he addressed\nin his religious writings. The universe was an ordered place, and alchemy revealed\nits order\u2014all the more reason why the Church of England should be a unified,\nsingular body; anything else would be unnatural.\nTymme remained rector of the Hasketon parish, eight miles east of the port\nand county seat of Ipswich, Suffolk, for two years, until his death on April 29,\n1620. Tymme\u2019s life and work serve as a cautionary tale for those who want to\nseparate the religious culture of late Elizabethan and early Stuart England into\ndiscrete cubicles of clearly defined sects and denominations. While, like so many\nother men and women in the early years of post-Reformation England, he clearly\nwas weary of the demands sectarians made upon the state church, his work was\nevidence that the Church of England could accommodate a wide variety of beliefs\nand pursuits. Neither the predestination theology of grace that so influenced the\nStuart church nor the free will of Arminianism seems to have interested him very\n\nPages 57:\n42\nAlchemical Belief\nmuch. Instead, he appears to have set aside such concerns for what he believed\nwere more significant virtues: humility, piety, devotion. Whether it was through\nhumility and contrition, parish voices lifted in common prayer, or an alchemical transformation, all of his studies and concerns focused on achieving a united\nChristian flock. As one of its appointed shepherds, Tymme must have departed\nhis earthly life with more anxiety and concern than satisfaction and hope for its\nfuture. The events of the years following his death would confirm his worst fears.\n\nPages 58:\n2\nRobert Fludd, Natural Theology,\nand the Alchemical Debate of 1623\nIn 1623 Robert Fludd was once again forced to unsheathe his polemical sword.\nSince 1617, this diminutive, Oxford-educated gentleman from Kent had spent\nmuch of his time wielding his verbal broadsword against an array of intellectual\nopponents. The German astronomer and natural philosopher Johannes Kepler\nand the French mechanical philosophers Marin Mersenne and Pierre Gassendi\nhad dueled with Fludd, and their spirited matches are primarily why he is remembered by historians of science and intellectual history.1 In 1623, however, the Englishman Patrick Scot published The Tillage of Light, a brief caveat about the claims\nof alchemy. Scot thought it was fine to believe in alchemy metaphorically, that is,\nto believe that individuals could be transformed and that even the basest of individuals might be redeemed in the eyes of God, but he argued that it was at best\nunhelpful and at worst spurious to believe that actual transmutations of metal\nwere possible and that these transmutations could emanate to other properties in\nthe natural world. A scarred and toughened veteran of intellectual debates, Fludd\ncould not allow such statements to pass unpunished, and he set out to shred this,\nin his mind at least, impious notion.\nThe result was a ten-thousand-word manuscript, \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d\nthat defended the material aspects of alchemy.2 Fludd did not deny\u2014and indeed\neven encouraged\u2014the metaphysical and spiritual elements of alchemy, but he argued that these should not overshadow the very real, very tangible qualities of\nthe art. Scot\u2019s advocacy of spirituality without physical transformation was pernicious to Fludd.3 For Fludd, alchemy had to be both metaphysical and physical; it\nwas God\u2019s work on earth, and spirituality alone was not enough for the faithful.\nChristians had a sacred responsibility to achieve God\u2019s will on earth, and Fludd\nbelieved that alchemy was one of the most sacred responsibilities God ever gave\nto humanity.\n\nPages 59:\n44\nAlchemical Belief\nHowever, in \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow\u201d we confront the essential paradox of\nChristianity. Fludd did not turn to recipes, testimonies of past success, personal\nexperiences, or historical anecdotes of alchemical processes to demonstrate their\nphysical reality. Instead, he turned to philosophical and theological constructs to\ndemonstrate that alchemy involved real, demonstrable processes. In other words,\nFludd\u2019s argument for alchemy\u2019s physical reality was based upon intellectual and\nspiritual beliefs. As a conforming member of the Church of England, a Christian\nNeoplatonist, and a member, and eventually an officer, of the College of Physicians, spirituality was as real for Fludd as any physical experience he witnessed or\nconducted.4 Spiritual as well as occult forces would ultimately effect change in this\nworld. In this regard he was as much a part of the religious culture of the Church\nof England as he was of the medical and philosophical community in the early\ndecades of seventeenth-century England.\nIndeed, as far as his religious sensibilities were concerned, Fludd was quite\nconformist, as he stated to James VI and I when he wrote in his \u201cDeclaratio Brevis,\u201d \u201cTherefore, in the first place, Your Majesty, it will appear most evidently,\nunless I am mistaken, that my Tractatus Apologeticus clearly does not deal with\nreligious innovation, nor does it share even an iota of any heresy, inasmuch as I,\nthe author of that work, have steadfastly adhered to this reformed religion (which\nis now the custom among us) from my infancy, and indeed almost from the time\nI lay at the breast of my nurse in England at the very beginning of my life and\nright up to this day.\u201d5 It goes without saying that only the foolhardy would confess\nheretical beliefs to one\u2019s monarch, but there are reasons why we should take Fludd\nat his word. As esoteric as his writings were, they clearly supported traditional\northodox beliefs, most significantly the Trinity. In addition, Fludd boasted in the\n\u201cDeclaratio\u201d \u201cthat men of letters . . . and the learned from every profession, both\nPapist and Lutheran as well as Calvinist, praised far beyond my merits this volume of mine and seem to approve of my works unanimously.\u201d6 Such breadth of\nacceptance suggests not only unusually open-minded seventeenth-century readers but, more significantly, a lack of \u201creligious innovation\u201d of any kind.\nFludd\u2019s religious sensibility and spirituality have been recognized in several\nprevious studies. Years ago, Allen G. Debus recognized it in Fludd when he noted\nthat Fludd turned to God\u2019s scriptural revelation before he turned to nature, God\u2019s\nbook of creation.7 Later, when he commented on Fludd\u2019s approach to mathematics, Debus said that although Fludd insisted that mathematics was an essential\ntool to study the universe, a mathematician should have higher goals in mind. A\nmathematician should use circles, triangles, squares, and other figures to demonstrate divine harmonies in nature; in doing so the connections between the universe and humanity become evident. For Fludd, Debus observed, mathematics\nwas not simply about quantification but was a tool \u201cto study the overall design of\n\nPages 60:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 45\nthe universe. He should not\u2014like Galileo\u2014be concerned with lesser phenomena\nsuch as the motion of a falling object.\u201d8 The scholarship on Fludd that focuses on\ndifferent aspects of his spirituality confirms this essential aspect of his life and\nwork. Joscelyn Godwin and William Huffman have recognized the close relationship between spirituality and the occult in Fludd\u2019s work.9 In short, there has been\na long-standing appreciation of the convergence of Fludd\u2019s intellectual and spiritual interests.\nThe debate between Fludd and Scot crystallized in a single moment questions\nthat were becoming increasingly perplexing and disturbing to theologians and\nphilosophers in the early decades of the seventeenth century. What determined\n\u201cappropriate\u201d religious expression in the post-Reformation religious community?\nWhat distinguished orthodoxy from heterodoxy? What\u2019s more, the skeptical philosophy had become an increasingly discussed issue among scholars who haunted\nuniversity lecture halls, salons, and, of course, inns and taverns since the midsixteenth century.10 Its implications in natural philosophy may have been fascinating but were also theologically terrifying. How did the pious believer believe\nwhen scholars taught that one might never be certain of anything? Finally, in such\na world, was it possible to reach a semblance of religious unity in English society,\nand if so, how?\nDiscovering answers to these questions led Fludd down the briar-choked path\nand tangled brush of the skeptical philosophy, Cabala, and alchemy. Yet by the\ntime he had completed his journey, he had cleared a trail and mapped a new natural theology, which he articulated in both printed texts and manuscripts. Apart\nfrom \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d Fludd\u2019s only other explicit effort to integrate spirituality and natural philosophy was his Philosophia Moysaica (1638), published\nin the Dutch city better known now for its mild cheese than for its small but\nsignificant role in the Netherlands\u2019 free and open printing industry, Gouda.11 In\nthe equally vibrant printing culture of Cromwellian England, this volume was\ntranslated into English in 1659. The philosophy of Moses that Fludd expounded\nin this massive volume was precisely the same one that he had expounded in\n\u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow\u201d: that his natural philosophy was, at its core, a new natural theology.\nA world in which all agreed that scripture, philosophy, wisdom, and theology\nwere unified in an inherent truth was a sentiment that must have seemed particularly appealing but also particularly elusive in the 1620s. In 1623 the reign of James\nVI and I was in its twentieth year, and the great hope for reconciliation between\nthe various Protestant sects, Puritanism especially, and the Church of England had\nunraveled both at home and abroad, despite James\u2019s best efforts. Both before and\nafter he ascended to the throne of England, James pursued conciliatory policies.\nBefore he ascended to the English throne, in 1597, James held General Assemblies\n\nPages 61:\n46\nAlchemical Belief\nof the Scottish Kirk (the Church of Scotland) that would eventually lead to the\nestablishment of an episcopal system that allowed the voice of the church to be\nheard in the court but kept the church subordinate to civil authority.12\nJames encouraged the Synod of Dort, which convened from November 1618\nto May 1619, to settle differences within the Reformed Church. The Church of\nEngland had representatives in attendance. The synod concluded with England\nmaking an official commitment to support orthodox Calvinist theology. W. B.\nPatterson notes that \u201cJames saw the Synod of Dort as an opportunity both to\nrestore peace and stability to the United Provinces of the Netherlands and to advance his project of bringing the churches of Europe closer together.\u201d13\nIn 1622 James even brought a tiny assembly of individuals together for a threeday conference in an attempt to dissuade Mary, countess of Buckingham, from\nconverting to Roman Catholicism. Francis White, dean of Carlisle and royal\nchaplain, hoped, as James and his supporters had, \u201cthat the Church\u2019s wounds\nmight be healed by a general council of all the churches, where agreements could\nbe reached on controversial issues or at least a \u2018charitable complying in things indifferent or tollerable\u2019 arrived at.\u201d14 However much James resented the imposition\nof Parliament on his will, and however much his foreign policy in the last years of\nhis reign has colored the historical assessment of him, it is probably fair to say that\nJames appreciated varieties of personal religious belief\u2014at least by seventeenthcentury standards\u2014and made an effort to bring those differences together as realistically as possible.15\nFludd\u2019s treatise mirrored the goals of these councils, except that instead of\nturning to an ecclesiastical polity, he sought to diminish differences within philosophical systems and to demonstrate the unity between God\u2019s creation and his\nrevealed word. Irenicism was not unique in the 1620s and was present in places as\nhigh as the court of James VI and I, as far-flung and amorphous as the intellectual\ncommunity known as \u201cthe Hartlib circle,\u201d and even in the handwritten composition of a seventeenth-century London physician.\nTherefore, in this spirit of unity and irenicism, Fludd\u2019s new natural theology\nwould have to be a complex integration of Christianity, philosophy, and occult\ntraditions. Like virtually all early modern natural philosophers, he believed that\nwhen studying nature one was always really studying God. The complex and infinite details of nature were manifestations of the complex and infinite details of\nthe word of God.16 The wisdom and knowledge of the natural world expressed in\nalchemy, as well as in the scriptures and in the wisdom of the ancients, was ultimately, for Fludd, theology. Alchemy served as a sacred revelation of God\u2019s word,\nand he believed that it was his responsibility to share and defend this alchemical\nrevelation and belief. Therefore, let us retrace his steps, or at least one brief but\nilluminating stage of his journey. Fludd\u2019s confrontation with Patrick Scot may\n\nPages 62:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 47\nhave been momentary, but the debate on the efficacy of alchemy forced him to\narticulate his natural theology more concisely than he ever had done before.17\nManuscript and Print Traditions in Alchemical Texts\nIn the previous chapter we saw how crucial the book trade was to Thomas\nTymme\u2019s religious and alchemical inquiries. Even so, his 1602 alchemical treatise,\nA Light in Darkness, which illuminated John Dee\u2019s Monas Hieroglyphica, never\nsaw the light of print. Indeed, reading, copying, and sharing manuscripts was\nhow the vast majority of alchemical manuscripts were exchanged until the late\nseventeenth century. Lauren Kassell has studied the alchemical manuscript tradition extensively, and she notes that since the second half of the sixteenth century,\nancient, medieval, and early modern alchemical manuscripts circulated in England in both Latin and the vernacular. For a variety of reasons, including their\npotentially seditious or incendiary nature, their inherently secret nature, and even\nthe reluctance of English printers to publish them, alchemical treatises were traditionally shared in manuscript. It was precisely these reasons that made the sharing of alchemical knowledge so uncertain. Kassell explains that while an adept\u2019s\neducation and wealth were factors in what was read, there were numerous other\nfactors as well, among them when and where an alchemist lived. Alchemical texts\nmight be printed, or they might exist in manuscript only and be passed from\nhand to hand. \u201cWhatever form the text took, it might have borne the name of an\nancient alchemist, a pseudonym, or no name at all. It might have recorded when\nand where it was written, or it might have been an unanchored fragment. It might\nhave described the magical powers of the stone, or how to transmute copper into\ngold.\u201d18 The writing, copying, and circulation of manuscripts, then, was an uncertain but vibrant tradition in the early seventeenth century.\nFludd\u2019s manuscript was copied at least once. Elias Ashmole held what was\nprobably Fludd\u2019s original copy in the collection that he eventually bequeathed to\nthe Bodleian Library, but he possessed a scribal copy as well. On the first page of\nthe manuscript, that eminent antiquary wrote, \u201cWritten by Doctor Robert Flood,\n& with his owne hand.\u201d19 Although the scribal copy may not have been completed\nuntil the late seventeenth century, that fact does not diminish the significance of\nthe original work. That we have two extant copies of Fludd\u2019s text suggests that the\nexchange between Scot and Fludd was a part of a community of voices that is difficult if not impossible to recover satisfactorily, much less completely.20\nJust as significantly, the shift from manuscript to print culture was very slow,\nand the vibrancy of scribal culture remained strong throughout the seventeenth\ncentury and beyond.21 Arthur Marotti notes that despite the influence of the\n\nPages 63:\n48\nAlchemical Belief\nprinting press, manuscript and print traditions coexisted throughout the English\nRenaissance and as late as the Restoration. The manuscript tradition continued\nin the seventeenth century, even as printing \u201chad largely replaced handwriting as\nthe dominant literary medium.\u201d Significantly, Marotti uses the example of lyric\npoetry to argue that \u201cmanuscript miscellanies and verse anthologies give a better\nsense of the sociocultural functioning of such literary texts than printed editions\ndo. Printed texts of lyric verse . . . yield a distorted picture of literary history or of\nthe place of literary texts in the life of the society that produced and consumed\nthem.\u201d22 This phenomenon was not limited to lyric verse, however. Harold Love\nhas traced scribal publication in three genres: verse miscellanies, parliamentary\ncompilations, and consort music for viols.23 In his review of Elizabeth Eisenstein\u2019s\nstudy of the printing press, Anthony Grafton cites a swarm of studies that collectively \u201csuggest that the experience of collectors and readers changed rather less\nsharply than one might expect with the advent of printed books.\u201d24 Indeed, when\nSir Kenelm Digby and George Digby published their exchange of letters debating\nKenelm\u2019s return to the family\u2019s Catholic roots and George\u2019s decision to remain\nin the Church of England, the anonymous (but probably joint effort) \u201cTo the\nReader\u201d stated plainly, \u201cIt is no Excuse . . . to tell Thee these Letters are now made\npublick to prevent false Copies: for really, if you have not these, you will be abus\u2019d\nwith others, so imperfect and mangled, that we may justly pronounce them to be\nnone of the Authors own.\u201d25 While the authors express an implicit confidence that\nputting their letters into print will set the record straight as to their authorship,\ntheir words also confirm that the copying of those letters was so dynamic as to\nbe almost beyond their control. In his monumental study The Nature of the Book,\nAdrian Johns has demonstrated powerfully the uncertain and indeed destabilizing nature of printing in early modern England. Clearly, early modern scribal\nculture was a lively and formidable medium, and an extant manuscript provides\nus with a yet another window into early seventeenth-century English mentalit\u00e9s.\nScot and the Perils of Alchemy and Skepticism\nOf Patrick Scot\u2019s life (fl. 1618\u201325) we know very little. He followed James from\nScotland and worked to raise funds for the king\u2019s exchequer by threatening individuals with prosecution for usury. Based on the tone of some of his writings\nand the dedication of one of his books, it is possible that he may have been a tutor\nfor Prince Charles.26 Most of what we know about him we must discern from the\nfive publications he produced, all of which were published between 1619 and 1625.\nFour of his studies focused largely on devotion or political issues. The Tillage of\nLight was the only one devoted to natural philosophy.\n\nPages 64:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 49\nScot\u2019s first publication, Omnibus & Singulis, was a devotional book of advice\non leading a spiritual and moral life. Yet another book of advice followed in 1621,\nthis one devoted to princes, specifically Prince Charles. In A Table-Booke For\nPrinces, Scot outlined how he believed an heir to a throne should conduct himself. He wrote of education, governing, nobility, and, of interest to our study, how\nto approach religious controversies. Scot, unsurprisingly, positioned himself as a\nvigorous supporter of the Church of England but offered an olive branch to dissenters when he wrote, \u201cThe bonds of religion are our faith, our baptisme, and not\nour ceremony.\u201d However, he then continued more ominously, \u201cour policy: that\nsuch who are given to unfruitfull and unnecessary controversies, unswadles the\nchurch of her bonds of peace, opens a gap to all disorder and scandall, gives advantage to the common enemy to make musicke by her discord.\u201d27 In 1622 he published another volume, Calderwoods Recantation, devoted to conformity within\nthe English and Scottish churches. In 1623 he published The Tillage of Light, and in\n1625 Scot\u2019s last publication, Vox-Vera, or Observations from Amsterdam, appeared.\nIn this final work he argued that the Church of England was inclusive enough to\naccommodate all Christians and that those who rejected the church were simply\nimpious. Virtually all of Scot\u2019s work, whether directed to the controversies between the English and Scottish churches or to sectarian Puritans, was bound together by the fine but strong thread that conformity and adherence to one unified\ndoctrine were the only ways to obtain stability in the body politic. In this respect\nScot resembles Thomas Tymme and Joseph Hall, a court preacher and dean of\nWorcester, who, Peter Lake argues, used his \u201cmoderate\u201d position for irenical and\npolemical purposes. Lake observes that pleas for moderation could at times be\nsincere in their attempt to bring differing positions together and yet also attempt\nto lay claim to the moral high ground.28 This was Scot\u2019s position as well.\nMuch like Tymme, Scot brought to his discussion of alchemy a deep conviction that orthodoxy was critical to a stable society. Unlike Tymme, however, Scot\nsaid as much in his attack on alchemy. He argued that there was an economically,\npolitically, and even morally destabilizing aspect to alchemy. If philosophers obtained the gold they sought, the wealth and even the sovereignty of kings would\nbe compromised, and the world as it was known would collapse.29 In addition to\nthese concerns, he feared that lust for wealth was the true appeal for the search\nfor the philosophers\u2019 stone and that therefore, if alchemy was capable of all that its\nproponents suggested, the entire political and social fabric could be torn asunder.\nScot was not alone in his concerns. John Reynolds published several volumes that\nlaid out in clear tables the worth and weight of gold. This exercise was necessary,\nhe explained, because of the \u201cun-even Peeces of Gold.\u201d30 Reynolds\u2019s work rested\nupon the assumption that the economic stability of the realm would be based in\npart on precise, accurate measurements of gold. Clearly, there was little room, in\n\nPages 65:\n50\nAlchemical Belief\neither Scot\u2019s or Reynolds\u2019s view of a stable society, for the multiplication, let alone\nthe creation, of new gold.\nHowever, the telescopic sight of Scot\u2019s text always held a central point in its\ncrosshairs: Wisdom was not, and indeed could not be, veiled in hieroglyphics\nor mysterious parables, the stock-in-trade of alchemical texts and the occult\nsciences in general. He believed that wisdom was expressed in divine philosophy.31 God gave individuals intelligence that they might exalt the elements of the\nnatural world but not transmute them into something new or different. The arts\ncould \u201cdignifie and pollish natures workes; . . . but never adde essence to the first\nsubstance other then it had before\u201d (B3r). While he did not cite scripture as assiduously as Fludd did, he argued that \u201call Scripture . . . ought to be interpreted\nmorrally and understood Spiritually\u201d (10). Individuals should not attempt to find\nbiblical justification for their alchemical studies. This point struck at the most\nprofound division between Scot and Fludd. Scot advocated divorcing the search\nfor physical principles from biblical exegesis, while Fludd believed that scriptural\nstudy, spirituality, and natural philosophy must be completely integrated.\nThere were some principles, however, on which Scot and Fludd could agree.\nScot said that there was a light that was given to \u201ccleere bodies\u201d that began with\ncreation itself and was in fact the soul of the earth:\nThis light was incorporat in the sunne, whose vertue and essence cherisheth\nthe essence of every creature: but the full knowledge of the tillage of light,\nariseth from the true notice of the first and last end of things: as man was\ncreated of pure earth, coagulat by pure ayre: so his last end is to shine as the\nsunne. There bee spirituall, intellectuall and sensible perfections of light;\nthe first is that inaccessible light which seeth all things, but is comprehended\nof nothing; the second is a spirituall reallity, whose nature possesseth no place,\nyet is intyrely whole in every part of his circumscription: but the third wee\nunderstand the sensible perfection of the Sunne, Moone and Starres. (B2r,\nemphasis added)\nScot\u2019s position on the sensible qualities of light is clear enough, and assigning\ndivine qualities to light was a commonplace notion. His description of light that\nwas \u201cinaccessible . . . but is comprehended of nothing\u201d could be a description of\nGod the creator. The second light, however, was present in all things, not located\nin a single place but suffused throughout all things. Light as a living force was an\nidea that many\u2014certainly Fludd, for one\u2014would have shared. In the first volume\nof his History of the Macrocosm and Microcosm, Fludd had already made a very\nsimilar statement regarding the property of light when he observed that light was\neither uncreated\u2014that is, it was the presence of God himself\u2014or created from\nthat which could not be created, the purest and clearest spirit.32\n\nPages 66:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 51\nWhat troubled Scot were the vast claims alchemists made. Fludd saw the alchemical process as a divine gift from God, but Scot saw such a belief as Marin\nMersenne had, as presumptuous and even impious. Indeed, Scot noted, God anticipated the potential conflict between nature and art and therefore had confined them within his will so that they did not extend beyond the realms for\nwhich they were intended (B3r). Art, he said, was intended to be nature\u2019s helper,\nbut transmutation was impossible, because individuals could not make God\u2019s\ncreation more glorious (B3v\u2013B4r). He recoiled from the dangerous notion that\nGod could be called upon or set aside as individuals desired, or, worse, that God,\nwho was the creator, was also idle and distant from humanity. He wrote that\nGod alone had the power to invest the natural world with glory, \u201cleast foolish\nman should presume . . . or thinke that hee had committed the government of\nhis Creatures to his servants nature and art, to set himselfe at rest; who is still in\naction\u201d (B3v\u2013B4r).\nScot\u2019s reservations about alchemy rested upon the same foundation from\nwhich Fludd defended it: Christianity. What concerned Scot was not so much\nthe efficacy of alchemy but rather the implications of it. In his mind, belief in\nalchemy allowed the pernicious philosophy of skepticism to flourish, which both\nmen opposed. However, Fludd thought that alchemy could counter the effects of\nskepticism, while Scot feared that alchemy promoted it. The revival of skepticism\nduring the Renaissance was a complex development, and surely no single cause\ncan explain its influence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Certainly the\ndiscovery of the New World prepared in significant but immeasurable ways the\nintellectual community\u2019s acceptance and incorporation of skepticism into their\nthought.33 Perhaps no cause, though, was more significant in the rise of skepticism than the rise of humanist education in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.\nThe history of the skeptical philosophy reaches back to ancient Greece and\nwas originally formulated in the Platonic Academy in the third century bce by\nstudents who opposed the notion of dogmatic certainty. The school of \u201cAcademic\nskepticism\u201d was formulated by Arcesilas (ca. 315\u2013241 bce) and Carneades (ca. 213\u2013\n129 bce) who developed the proposition that no knowledge was certain because\nall knowledge rested on suppositions that cannot be proved. Although none of the\nwritings of these individuals survives, we know of their work through later figures\nsuch as Cicero and Diogenes Laertius. However, a dispute arose between these\nAcademic skeptics and the students of Pyrrho of Elis (ca. 360\u2013275 bce). Although\nPyrrho actually predated the Academic skeptics, his interpretation of skepticism\nwas not widely accepted until the first century bce, when Aenesidemus of Alexandria began to teach it. The \u201cPyrrhonian school\u201d of skepticism argued that those\nwho observed that no one can know anything was in itself a dogmatic statement,\nprecisely what skepticism was intended to avoid.34 The Pyrrhonians advocated\n\nPages 67:\n52\nAlchemical Belief\nthat a skeptic must rule out any dogmatic statement in favor of suspending judgment. Unlike Academic skeptics, Pyrrhonian skeptics attempted to eliminate all\njudgments and dogmatic assertions. They believed that individuals ought to follow their natural inclinations and the laws and customs of society without passing\njudgment on anything.35 Much to Scot\u2019s dismay, these texts had survived the centuries, and by the seventeenth century they were more influential than perhaps\never before.\nThe ancient Pyrrhonic texts were recovered and published in 1562 and 1569.\nTheir publication was an eminently humanist event because the texts promoted\ncircumspection, withholding judgment, uncertainty\u2014all qualities that discomfited Scholastics. Their publication was ill timed, though, because it coincided\nwith the Catholic response to the Reformation\u2014the Catholic Reformation\u2014and\nit was not long before the sights of these texts were trained against Protestants.\nBy rejecting unquestioned standards of true knowledge, Catholics argued, Protestants would be led down a path of infinite regress. Protestants, for their part,\nresponded that Catholics were subject to the same risk, because they could not\njustify their authority or defend their extrabiblical oral and written traditions.36\nJoseph Mede (1586\u20131638), the eminent biblical scholar of seventeenth-century\nEngland, despite his study of philology, history, mathematics, and natural philosophy at Cambridge, nevertheless claimed that his philosophical reading led\nhim to Pyrrhonism.37\nOf course, Catholics were not uniformly antagonistic to the skeptical philosophy. The mathematician, mechanical philosopher, and friar Marin Mersenne reconciled his faith with the skeptical philosophy, maintaining what Richard Popkin\nidentified as \u201cconstructive skepticism.\u201d38 While not rejecting this characterization,\nPeter Dear identifies more precisely how Mersenne undercut pure Pyrrhonian\nskepticism by arguing that with mathematics, certainty could be achieved. Dear\nconcludes that Mersenne ultimately wanted \u201cto undercut the Pyrrhonists\u2019 claim\nto possession of a legitimate philosophical alternative and to reduce their doubts\nto mere intellectual conceits.\u201d39 Fludd believed that alchemy was an even more\npowerful antidote than mathematics to the virus of skepticism. Mersenne and\nFludd differed on the best way to eliminate skepticism, but not on the goal.\nThe influence of skepticism concerned numerous individuals of the day. Most\nnotably, Ren\u00e9 Descartes (1596\u20131650) had formulated his own skepticism, which\navoided the Pyrrhonian trap of never discovering certainty. His skepticism consisted of doubting all things until one reached that which could not be doubted.\nHis renowned statement \u201cCogito ergo sum\u201d\u2014\u201cI think, therefore I am\u201d\u2014expressed\nsuccinctly his recognition that an individual\u2019s existence could not be denied if that\nindividual could think. Descartes, like Francis Bacon, believed that certainties\nexisted and that they must be rigorously sought. Descartes and his friend John\n\nPages 68:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 53\nDury (1596\u20131680) considered Pyrrhonian skepticism the cause of the philosophical crises of their day, and they agreed to challenge it directly.40 Yet they too disagreed, as Fludd and Mersenne had, on the means by which skepticism should be\nconfronted. Dury saw the study of biblical prophecy as the most effective method,\nwhile Descartes thought mathematics would douse skepticism\u2019s insidious flames.\nDury and Descartes agreed to disagree, and while Dury roamed from one European city to the next, trying to obtain an agreement that would unify the Lutheran\nand Reformed churches, Descartes set off to study and write about mathematics.41\nThe early modern interest in alchemy by figures such as John Dee, Robert\nFludd, Elias Ashmole, and even Francis Bacon may therefore be seen in part as a\nresponse by those who viewed Pyrrhonian skepticism with increasing alarm. All\nof these individuals believed to some degree that alchemy promised to realize or\nto prove God\u2019s redemption of humanity, or at least had the potential to do so. For\nFludd, the practice of alchemy offered nothing less than physical proof of God\u2019s\npresence on earth. On this point there could be no suspension of judgment.\nScot\u2019s position clarifies the difference between an individual who merely entertained doubts and a seventeenth-century philosophical skeptic. Scot\u2019s doubts\nabout alchemy did not make him a skeptic. He believed that alchemy was beneficial as a metaphor for redemption and purification. Even if alchemists mistakenly\nthought that they had obtained their \u201cElixir,\u201d he said, this spurious conclusion\nwas better than throwing \u201cthemselves upon the more dangerous Rockes of higher\nforbidden Mysteries, or becom[ing] altogether idle. . . . Idlenesse is the cursed\nmother of many wicked brood, and is the tares which the envious sowe when wee\nsleepe.\u201d42 Here Scot made two points that might best be considered separately.\nTaking the latter point first, he seems to have been scolding his readers when he\ncalled idleness \u201cthe cursed mother of many wicked brood.\u201d Idle hands were the\ndevil\u2019s workshop, and the vice of idleness was at least as great a transgression as\nthe practice of alchemy. Searching for the elusive elixir, however fruitless, was\npreferable to being dashed on \u201cthe more dangerous Rockes of higher forbidden\nMysteries.\u201d Of course, this statement begs the question, what mysteries?\nScot believed that curiosity was one of the vices to which alchemists were always prone. In his 1619 devotional text Omnibus & Singulis, he proscribed \u201cthe\ncurious searching of divine mysteries\u201d and acknowledged that the best scholar\nwas the one who reasoned least.43 In The Tillage of Light he recommended that\nChristians spend their time and effort searching the scriptures only \u201cso farre as\nthe enquirie is revealed, and is profitable in the true ends,\u201d because \u201cin the Mysteries of divine wisdome, wee have no such countenance as humility,\u201d and God\n\u201cloveth better a credulous heart, then a curious head.\u201d44 He feared alchemy for\nthe same reason that Icarus should have feared flying too close to the sun: When\nindividuals come too close to the gods, their destruction is imminent.\n\nPages 69:\n54\nAlchemical Belief\nIn observing that God prefers \u201ccredulous love\u201d to \u201ca curious head,\u201d Scot was\ntrying to redirect the spiritual energies of alchemists to more productive and,\nin his mind, less perilous pursuits. However, it was not the physical reality of\nalchemy that he feared but its temptations. Time spent away from pursuing divine truths was time wasted: \u201cwhat ill lucke is it, that we who have the Oracles of\neternall truth are so carelese & prodigall of our short time, that we doe not freely\nenjoy the happinesse of true divine light, which onely sheweth generous spirits, worthy to be the master-peece of that soveraigne worke-master their Creator,\nI can give no other reason, then quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat [Jupiter\ndrives insane those whom he wishes to destroy].\u201d45 Scot saw alchemy as part of\nthe larger efforts of natural philosophers and scholars to demol\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 50 to page 69 out of a total of 238. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=59\nPages: 59\northodox beliefs, most significantly the Trinity. In addition, Fludd boasted in the\n\u201cDeclaratio\u201d \u201cthat men of letters . . . and the learned from every profession, both\nPapist and Lutheran as well as Calvinist, praised far beyond my merits this volume of mine and seem to approve of my works unanimously.\u201d6 Such breadth of\nacceptance suggests not only unusually open-minded seventeenth-century readers but, more significantly, a lack of \u201creligious innovation\u201d of any kind.\nFludd\u2019s religious sensibility and spirituality have been recognized in several\nprevious studies. Years ago, Allen G. Debus recognized it in Fludd when he noted\nthat Fludd turned to God\u2019s scriptural revelation before he turned to nature, God\u2019s\nbook of creation.7 Later, when he commented on Fludd\u2019s approach to mathematics, Debus said that although Fludd insisted that mathematics was an essential\ntool to study the universe, a mathematician should have higher goals in mind. A]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=88\nPages: 88,87\ndivided Christendom. Robert Fludd was part of a community of alchemists who\nsaw the solution in the irenic, healing quality of alchemy. Indeed, irenicism was\none of the unlikely progenies of the Renaissance and Reformation. At least a few\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 73\nindividuals in the sixteenth century believed that religious unity was unequivocally valuable.108 Fludd\u2019s vigorous faith was directed toward using his knowledge\nof scripture and occult wisdom to find unity in a divided world.\nThe express goal of Fludd\u2019s natural philosophy was a deeper understanding of\nGod. He clung to Paracelsian principles because he believed that their Christian\ncredentials were impeccable and yet supple enough that he could incorporate new\nideas into his preconceived epistemology. His interests were as broad as those of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=187\nPages: 187,188\nof alchemy and its implications in the intellectual and scientific culture of seventeenth-century\nEngland, is essential reading for those interested in the history of science and particularly the\nhistory of chemistry.\n4. For more on Fludd as a Neoplatonist, see William H. Huffman, Robert Fludd and the End\nof the Renaissance (New York: Routledge, 1988); for his membership in the College of Physicians,\nsee Harold J. Cook, The Decline of the Old Medical Regime in Stuart London (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 266. Lauren Kassell argues that \u201cFludd\u2019s careers as an established London\nN ot e s to Pages 4 4\u201346 \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 173\nphysician and internationally renowned author of theosophical books need to be understood as\nparts of the same project. His practices were consonant with his philosophy.\u201d Kassell is surely\ncorrect that Fludd\u2019s practices and philosophy cohered and that the \u201cmagnetical medicine\u201d he]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=88\nPages: 88,89\nThough we will never know the answer to that question, Lauren Kassell\u2019s work\non alchemical manuscripts in early modern England suggests that we are safe in\nassuming that Fludd\u2019s well-worn manuscript circulated among those sympathetic\nto its message at the very least, sustaining much the same message that Thomas\nTymme had conveyed a few years before: that alchemy could prove theological\ndoctrine.\nFludd remained in London for the rest of his life and died in his home on\nSeptember 8, 1637. He never married, maintaining throughout his life that it was\nbest that a man remain celibate and chaste. His will directed his executors to have\nthree pounds sterling distributed to the poor of his parish, Saint Katherine Coleman in London. He also asked that his body be brought back to his childhood\n74\nAlchemical Belief\nhome and buried in the churchyard of the Bearsted parish church in Kent. For\nthe Bearsted parish he immodestly requested a monument modeled after William]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=80\nPages: 80\nno other tradition claimed such intimate communication between humanity and\nthe divine.\nFludd\u2019s central goal was to renew and restore a deeper communication between humanity and God, and he thus attempted to connect humanity more\nclosely with the natural world. Therefore, alchemy and Cabala served to renew\nmystical elements, while at the same time both appealed to his reverence and\nhumility for phenomena not wholly subject to the bounds of reason. By incorporating Cabala into his theology, he demonstrated how even a Jewish tradition\ncould prove the doctrine of the Trinity. In doing so, he delicately straddled the\nline between esoteric knowledge and orthodoxy. He used a paradoxical rhetorical\nstrategy by turning to natural philosophy and Jewish theology as it was expressed\nin alchemy to illustrate orthodox doctrine. Fludd\u2019s natural theology was surely\nintended to supplement orthodox belief rather than replace it. His goal was to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=80\nPages: 80,81\nintended to supplement orthodox belief rather than replace it. His goal was to\nbring natural philosophy and Christianity into greater harmony. What Allison\nCoudert said of Knorr van Rosenroth and F. M. van Helmont was also true of\nFludd: \u201cThus the Kabbalah unlocks the secrets of the two great books God had\ngiven man, the book of Scripture and the Book of Nature, since both books\u2014the\nfirst dealing with the upper world and the second with the lower\u2014are intimately\nlinked. This great truth leads to another, namely, that the perceived gap between\nthe material and spiritual realms, or matter and spirit, is non-existent. Matter and\nspirit are simply different ends of a single continuum.\u201d86\n66\nAlchemical Belief\nFludd\u2019s first task was to establish the inherent agreement between the Bible,\nAugustine, and Aristotle. Biblical evidence made clear that air, fire, earth, and\nwater were all present at creation, but he believed that the biblical, extrabiblical,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=59\nPages: 59\nexperiences, or historical anecdotes of alchemical processes to demonstrate their\nphysical reality. Instead, he turned to philosophical and theological constructs to\ndemonstrate that alchemy involved real, demonstrable processes. In other words,\nFludd\u2019s argument for alchemy\u2019s physical reality was based upon intellectual and\nspiritual beliefs. As a conforming member of the Church of England, a Christian\nNeoplatonist, and a member, and eventually an officer, of the College of Physicians, spirituality was as real for Fludd as any physical experience he witnessed or\nconducted.4 Spiritual as well as occult forces would ultimately effect change in this\nworld. In this regard he was as much a part of the religious culture of the Church\nof England as he was of the medical and philosophical community in the early\ndecades of seventeenth-century England.\nIndeed, as far as his religious sensibilities were concerned, Fludd was quite]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=72\nPages: 72\nKey (1619) explained \u201cspontaneous generation on the basis of this spiritus mundi;\nthe search for the isolation of this substance was to become a major part of his\nlife\u2019s work.\u201d53 However, Fludd was not simply defending the practice of alchemy;\nhe intended to lay the groundwork for a new theology that would demonstrate\nthrough natural forces the physical presence of God on earth.\nFludd and the Trinity\nThe correspondence of alchemical thought with traditional Christian beliefs, both\nProtestant and Catholic, is perhaps what made alchemy so attractive to many of\nits practitioners and why Fludd turned to alchemy to seek what was as rare in the\nseventeenth century as the philosophers\u2019 stone: religious unity and its Christian\nideal, the doctrine of the Trinity. Like Thomas Tymme, Fludd believed that the\ndoctrine of the Trinity and the alchemical process were central to achieving unity.\nThe alchemist \u201cleaveth not his operation untill it hath of duality made unity, so]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=59\nPages: 59,60\ntool to study the universe, a mathematician should have higher goals in mind. A\nmathematician should use circles, triangles, squares, and other figures to demonstrate divine harmonies in nature; in doing so the connections between the universe and humanity become evident. For Fludd, Debus observed, mathematics\nwas not simply about quantification but was a tool \u201cto study the overall design of\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 45\nthe universe. He should not\u2014like Galileo\u2014be concerned with lesser phenomena\nsuch as the motion of a falling object.\u201d8 The scholarship on Fludd that focuses on\ndifferent aspects of his spirituality confirms this essential aspect of his life and\nwork. Joscelyn Godwin and William Huffman have recognized the close relationship between spirituality and the occult in Fludd\u2019s work.9 In short, there has been\na long-standing appreciation of the convergence of Fludd\u2019s intellectual and spiritual interests.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=210\nPages: 210\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Robert Fludd, Essential Readings. Edited by William Huffman. London: Aquarian Press,\n1992.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Tractatus Apologeticus integritatem Societatis de Rosea Cruce defendens. Leiden, 1617.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow: An Unpublished Alchemical Treatise by Robert Fludd.\u201d Edited\nby C. H. Josten. Ambix 3 (April 1949): 91\u2013150.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Utriusque Cosmi Maioris scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, Physica, Atque Technica Historia in duo Volumina secundum Cosmi differentiam divisa. Oppenheim, 1617.\nFuller, Thomas. The History of the Worthies of England: By Thomas Fuller, D.D. New ed. 3 vols.\nLondon, 1840.\nHennessy, George. Novum repertorium ecclesiasticum parochiale londinense. London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1898.\nHester, John. A hundred and foureteen Experiments and Cures. London, 1596.\nJames VI. The True Lawe of free Monarchies. Edinburgh, 1598.\nJohnson, William. Lexicon Chymicum cum Obscuriorum Verborum et Rerum Hermeticum. London, 1652.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=59\nPages: 59\nIndeed, as far as his religious sensibilities were concerned, Fludd was quite\nconformist, as he stated to James VI and I when he wrote in his \u201cDeclaratio Brevis,\u201d \u201cTherefore, in the first place, Your Majesty, it will appear most evidently,\nunless I am mistaken, that my Tractatus Apologeticus clearly does not deal with\nreligious innovation, nor does it share even an iota of any heresy, inasmuch as I,\nthe author of that work, have steadfastly adhered to this reformed religion (which\nis now the custom among us) from my infancy, and indeed almost from the time\nI lay at the breast of my nurse in England at the very beginning of my life and\nright up to this day.\u201d5 It goes without saying that only the foolhardy would confess\nheretical beliefs to one\u2019s monarch, but there are reasons why we should take Fludd\nat his word. As esoteric as his writings were, they clearly supported traditional\northodox beliefs, most significantly the Trinity. In addition, Fludd boasted in the]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=188\nPages: 188\nPress, 1978), 11\u201312.\n9. Huffman, Robert Fludd and the End of the Renaissance; Joscelyn Godwin, Robert Fludd:\nHermetic Philosopher and Surveyor of Two Worlds (Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala Press, 1979), 19.\n10. See Peter Clark, \u201cThe Alehouse and the Alternative Society,\u201d in Puritans and Revolutionaries: Essays in Seventeenth-Century History Presented to Christopher Hill, ed. Donald Pennington and Keith Thomas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), 47\u201348.\n11. Many of Fludd\u2019s publications were printed by Dutch presses. He almost certainly turned\nto that region because of the greater freedom from censorship that the Netherlands enjoyed.\nKeith L. Sprunger points out that \u201cEuropean countries of the seventeenth century had press\nlaws to control the flow of printed books and systems of censorship to put teeth into the laws.\nThe Netherlands also had such printing laws but in contrast to England and the surrounding]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=72\nPages: 72,71\nLater he wrote of the cloud that guided the Jews in the wilderness, the rock Moses\nstruck with his staff, and the wisdom of Solomon; these things not only represented but actually proved alchemy\u2019s transformative powers (\u201cand yet dare any\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 57\nman be so blind as to calle this divine Elixir or summum bonum an imaginary\nnon Ens, a fume or a Chimera?\u201d) (10v). For Fludd, alchemy was, or at least was\npart of, an animating force that suffused the entire natural world. He believed that\nwhen God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, every creature was inspired with \u201ca certayne germinating and vegetatinge spirit or viridity . . . and this multiplying was bestowed as well on mineralls as eyther animalls\nand vegetables\u201d (13v). Indeed, Allen Debus points out that Fludd\u2019s Philosophicall\nKey (1619) explained \u201cspontaneous generation on the basis of this spiritus mundi;]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=69\nPages: 69,70\nFludd\u2019s mind, truly divine church. He had intimated these positions in numerous\nearlier writings, but Scot\u2019s address led him to write his most succinct and focused\nstatement of how natural theology could resolve the problem of religious dissent.\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 55\nAlchemy, Certainty, and Faith\nFludd began his assault by attacking Scot\u2019s notion that he was writing his text\nout of love for the religious community, protecting it from the charlatans who\npracticed alchemy. He responded vigorously by pointing out that the failure of illegitimate practitioners did not discredit the practice itself. The fact remained that\nnot just anyone was worthy of practicing alchemy, \u201cbecause she will not daygne\nto reveale her self but unto very few, and thos must prove worthy of her graces\nand favours.\u201d He never dignified Scot by referring to him by name, calling him]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=58\nPages: 58,59\nThe result was a ten-thousand-word manuscript, \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d\nthat defended the material aspects of alchemy.2 Fludd did not deny\u2014and indeed\neven encouraged\u2014the metaphysical and spiritual elements of alchemy, but he argued that these should not overshadow the very real, very tangible qualities of\nthe art. Scot\u2019s advocacy of spirituality without physical transformation was pernicious to Fludd.3 For Fludd, alchemy had to be both metaphysical and physical; it\nwas God\u2019s work on earth, and spirituality alone was not enough for the faithful.\nChristians had a sacred responsibility to achieve God\u2019s will on earth, and Fludd\nbelieved that alchemy was one of the most sacred responsibilities God ever gave\nto humanity.\n44\nAlchemical Belief\nHowever, in \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow\u201d we confront the essential paradox of\nChristianity. Fludd did not turn to recipes, testimonies of past success, personal\nexperiences, or historical anecdotes of alchemical processes to demonstrate their]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=60\nPages: 60\nand if so, how?\nDiscovering answers to these questions led Fludd down the briar-choked path\nand tangled brush of the skeptical philosophy, Cabala, and alchemy. Yet by the\ntime he had completed his journey, he had cleared a trail and mapped a new natural theology, which he articulated in both printed texts and manuscripts. Apart\nfrom \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d Fludd\u2019s only other explicit effort to integrate spirituality and natural philosophy was his Philosophia Moysaica (1638), published\nin the Dutch city better known now for its mild cheese than for its small but\nsignificant role in the Netherlands\u2019 free and open printing industry, Gouda.11 In\nthe equally vibrant printing culture of Cromwellian England, this volume was\ntranslated into English in 1659. The philosophy of Moses that Fludd expounded\nin this massive volume was precisely the same one that he had expounded in\n\u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow\u201d: that his natural philosophy was, at its core, a new natural theology.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=209\nPages: 209,210\nLondon, 1644.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Observations upon Religio Medici. London, 1643.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Private Memoirs of Sir Kenelm Digby, Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King Charles the\nFirst. Written by Himself. Now first Published from the Original Manuscript, with an Introductory Memoir. London, 1827.\nBiblio graphy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 195\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. The Royall Apoligie. Paris, 1648.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Two Treatises: The Nature of Bodies; The Nature of Mans Soule. Edited by M. Holden and\nE. Tyrrel. Paris: Printed by Gilles Blaizot, 1644.\nDuchesne, Joseph. The Practise of Chymicall, and Hermeticall Physicke, for the preservation of\nhealth, Translated into English, by Thomas Timme, Minister. London: Printed by Thomas\nCreede, 1605.\nEvelyn, John. Diary of John Evelyn. Edited by William Bray. 4 vols. London: Bicker and Son,\n1906.\nFludd, Robert. Mosaicall Philosophy. London: Printed for Humphrey Moseley, 1659.\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Robert Fludd, Essential Readings. Edited by William Huffman. London: Aquarian Press,\n1992.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=188\nPages: 188\ncorrect that Fludd\u2019s practices and philosophy cohered and that the \u201cmagnetical medicine\u201d he\nused required that he manage both physical and cosmic forces with equal skill and commitment. See her \u201cMagic, Alchemy, and the Medical Economy in Early Modern England: The Case\nof Robert Fludd\u2019s Magnetical Medicine,\u201d in Medicine and the Market in England and Its Colonies,\nc. 1450\u2013c. 1850, ed. Mark S. Jenner and Patrick Wallis (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 90,\n94, 99, 102.\n5. Robert Fludd, \u201cDeclaratio Brevis,\u201d reproduced and translated in its entirety in Huffman,\nRobert Fludd and the End of the Renaissance, 210.\n6. Ibid., 214.\n7. Allen G. Debus, \u201cRenaissance Chemistry and the Work of Robert Fludd,\u201d in Alchemy and\nChemistry in the Seventeenth Century: Papers Read by Allen G. Debus and Robert P. Multhauf\n(Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1966), 15\u201316.\n8. Allen G. Debus, Man and Nature in the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University\nPress, 1978), 11\u201312.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=84\nPages: 84\nharmony of music aleph thus entered the physical world, where it was \u201csubject\nto mutations\u201d and became a body of matter like all others, to be corrupted or\nexalted. His \u201cmentall beame\u201d was the transforming force of life itself; it suffused\naleph, multiplying its degrees of perfection exponentially. Music, in this instance,\nwas both a medium and a philosophers\u2019 stone in itself, an agent that Fludd used to\nmove from the Hebrew language to the physical world, a conduit between the divine perfection of the heavens and the corruptible but redeemable earthly world.\nFludd\u2019s correlation of cabala, numerology, and music, as complex and elusive as\nit appears, was not unique. His perception of the universe was based on the assumption that there was a cosmic harmony in the universe, and this notion is\nreminiscent of the Scottish physician William Davidson.97\nFludd concluded his long manuscript with a final summation of how alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82,83\nthe sonne springing from the father by a divine emanation\u201d (18r). Unsurprisingly,\nFludd also correlated this discussion with the doctrine of the Trinity: \u201cWe se that\nAleph signifyeth both Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and therfore\nalso it is their trinity in perfection, for .3. seemeth to retourne from the binary\nconfusion into the unity, from whence it came, and therfore .3. is the root of the\nprogression of all formall perfection: it is the numerus numerans or number from\nwhich all numeration isheweth\u201d (27r).\n68\nAlchemical Belief\nAlthough Fludd did not mention scripture in this passage, its intention was\nfundamentally Christian; it was a classical, numerological, and cabalistic demonstration of the unity of knowledge. In Plato\u2019s Timaeus the primary form was\nmeasured in a number divisible by three, which, according to Fludd, was the most\nperfect number; confusion or chaos was represented by the number two.93 He]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 70 to page 88 out of a total of 238:\nPages 70:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 55\nAlchemy, Certainty, and Faith\nFludd began his assault by attacking Scot\u2019s notion that he was writing his text\nout of love for the religious community, protecting it from the charlatans who\npracticed alchemy. He responded vigorously by pointing out that the failure of illegitimate practitioners did not discredit the practice itself. The fact remained that\nnot just anyone was worthy of practicing alchemy, \u201cbecause she will not daygne\nto reveale her self but unto very few, and thos must prove worthy of her graces\nand favours.\u201d He never dignified Scot by referring to him by name, calling him\nonly \u201cthe tiller of Light,\u201d who must have been rejected by those privy to alchemical secrets.47\nGold, Fludd argued, was the least of alchemy\u2019s appeal. Yet it was not exactly\nclear what its other benefits were until Fludd explained that \u201cwe have more authentick authours to confirme the reality of it.\u201d His \u201cauthentick authours\u201d were\nof course the authors of the Bible, but they were also cabalists and Platonists\u2014in\nshort, the ancient voices of spirituality. To know the secrets of the philosophers\u2019\nstone was to begin to understand more deeply the philosophies that shaped\nand influenced the world shortly after its creation. More importantly, the philosophers\u2019 stone might hold the secret of creation itself: \u201cthis multiplying light,\nthis cupido of nature, this cabbalists Metattron or platonists universall soule of\nthe world, by which the effect of this creating word, Crescite & multiplicamini\n[Be fruitful and multiply], is produced into act in every creature of what kind so\never.\u201d48 God\u2019s command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply went beyond\nthem to include the entire natural world, and the philosophers\u2019 stone held that\nsecret. Such knowledge was far more valuable to a Christian natural philosopher\nthan mere riches.\nClearly, Fludd agreed with Scot that alchemy had valuable allegorical significance; such a belief was common among alchemical enthusiasts. John Warwick\nMontgomery has examined the role of allegory in Heinrich Khunrath\u2019s alchemy.\nKhunrath believed that the search for the philosophers\u2019 stone was a search for\nthe redemption of the physical world based upon Christ\u2019s redemption of humanity. The harmonic relationship between microcosm and macrocosm allowed\nKhunrath to perceive the philosophers\u2019 stone as the \u201cFilius Macrocosmi\u201d (Son of\nthe Macrocosm) and to identify the stone with Christ himself. The rose-colored\nstone he sought was an allegorical representation of Christ\u2019s redemptive blood.\nThe philosophers\u2019 stone provided theological meaning to the physical world. Just\nas significantly, because the presence of Christ resided in the natural world, to\nstudy nature was to study Christ.49 Khunrath wrote, \u201cSince God the Lord of our\nedification permits Jesus Christ to be represented in the great Book of Nature by\nthe Stone of the Philosophers, I may fitly quote the words of Isaiah the Prophet\n\nPages 71:\n56\nAlchemical Belief\nconcerning Christ, in order thereby to show to some extent the wonderful harmony and correspondence of these two stones.\u201d50\nWe have seen that Scot approved of the allegorical aspects of alchemy, but he\nwas far from alone. Although there is no evidence to suggest that Martin Luther\ncared about the physical transmutation of metals, he also seemed to think that\nalchemy had allegorical significance. He once said that alchemy was an allegory\nof \u201csecret signification, which is exceeding fine, touching the resurrection of the\ndead at the last day.\u201d51\nHowever, alchemical allegory alone was not sufficient for Fludd, and he marshaled biblical support in both the Old and New Testaments for his good occult\nworks. His earlier reference to wisdom propped up with seven pillars specifically\nechoed Proverbs 9:1. He cited an allegory in the book of Job about how all materials\u2014silver, iron, gold, even bread\u2014were produced from the earth. He called\nparticular attention to Job 28:2\u20133, 6: \u201cIron is taken out of the earth, and brass\nis molten out of the stone. He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all\nperfection: the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death. . . . The stones of it\nare the place of sapphires: and it hath dust of gold.\u201d52 Inexplicably, he said that\nno better description of the \u201cmateriall Elixir\u201d could be made of this allegory. He\nexplained that through \u201cpurification and rotation of elements\u201d of the sapphire,\n\u201cthe effect is quick gold,\u201d and that the light that shines from this stone from the\ndarkness is \u201cthe forme or divine soule.\u201d But the earth itself was also suffused with\nthe potential for perfection: \u201cthe body is the earth refined into the powder of\nlively gold, unto the which perfection all the earth shalbe reduced at the latter\nday.\u201d Thus, literally, everything on earth would be restored and made new. Although Fludd did not cite the book of Revelation, he surely had it in mind when\nhe concluded, \u201cas by scriptures we are warranted, wher we finde it spoeken of a\nnew heaven and a new earth: and againe Ecce omnia nova sunt facta: Loe I make\nall things new\u201d (10v). For Fludd, this biblical passage confirmed the argument\nthat the philosophers\u2019 stone was intended to be understood both allegorically and\nliterally; he even called the passage an allegory. Scot, however, was unwilling to\nconcede that the passage pertained to anything other than a spiritual transformation, but Fludd clearly believed that the passage was biblical evidence of the\nexistence of the philosophers\u2019 stone.\nThere were other biblical references as well. Fludd pointed out how Ezekiel\nspoke of a fire that was said to be like amber and crystal and made another reference to gold issuing from a north wind (\u201cVenit aurum ab aquilone\u201d) (10v). He\nwrote of how Job described the purifying fire that would lead to resurrection.\nLater he wrote of the cloud that guided the Jews in the wilderness, the rock Moses\nstruck with his staff, and the wisdom of Solomon; these things not only represented but actually proved alchemy\u2019s transformative powers (\u201cand yet dare any\n\nPages 72:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 57\nman be so blind as to calle this divine Elixir or summum bonum an imaginary\nnon Ens, a fume or a Chimera?\u201d) (10v). For Fludd, alchemy was, or at least was\npart of, an animating force that suffused the entire natural world. He believed that\nwhen God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, every creature was inspired with \u201ca certayne germinating and vegetatinge spirit or viridity . . . and this multiplying was bestowed as well on mineralls as eyther animalls\nand vegetables\u201d (13v). Indeed, Allen Debus points out that Fludd\u2019s Philosophicall\nKey (1619) explained \u201cspontaneous generation on the basis of this spiritus mundi;\nthe search for the isolation of this substance was to become a major part of his\nlife\u2019s work.\u201d53 However, Fludd was not simply defending the practice of alchemy;\nhe intended to lay the groundwork for a new theology that would demonstrate\nthrough natural forces the physical presence of God on earth.\nFludd and the Trinity\nThe correspondence of alchemical thought with traditional Christian beliefs, both\nProtestant and Catholic, is perhaps what made alchemy so attractive to many of\nits practitioners and why Fludd turned to alchemy to seek what was as rare in the\nseventeenth century as the philosophers\u2019 stone: religious unity and its Christian\nideal, the doctrine of the Trinity. Like Thomas Tymme, Fludd believed that the\ndoctrine of the Trinity and the alchemical process were central to achieving unity.\nThe alchemist \u201cleaveth not his operation untill it hath of duality made unity, so\nthat as out of on[e] fountayne of light two ishewed and wer compounded namly\nmatter and forme, so by progression into trinity, duality (the authour of discord)\nmight againe be reduced unto unity\u201d (11r). The source of unity was ultimately\nChrist, but a Christ who expressed himself in alchemical language: \u201cfor Christ\nsayeth: When I am exalted I will draw bodys unto me: and St. Paule . . . speaking\nof Christ . . . Pacifying and accordinge by the blood of his cross all things as well\non earth as in heaven: that is by the harmony of the word rising and being delivered from the hands of death and corruption by verture of his bright and vivifying\ndivinity, through which all disagreeing antipathy is brought unto concord and\nunity\u201d (11r\u2013v).54 Like creation itself, Fludd suggested, the death and resurrection\nof Christ was an alchemical process. His reference to \u201cthe word rising and being\ndelivered from the hands of death and corruption\u201d spoke to Christ\u2019s death and\nresurrection, and he cited not only Paul\u2019s reference to Christ but the first lines of\nthe Gospel of John, which refer to God explicitly as \u201cthe Word.\u201d Harmony was obtained through the purifying processes of corruption and death: \u201cWe cannot deny\nbut that Christ the authour of salvation (whos image and patterne this our mystery is) did rise both body and soule and so of two united together in perfection\n\nPages 73:\n58\nAlchemical Belief\nmade one unity, transmuted darknes into light, mortality into imortality, and so\nmade his pasage from Unum which is the beginning unto bonum or felicity which\nis the end, and thes are both convertible and on[e] only thing by the connexion\nand unity of on[e] Spirit which is all on[e] with them both\u201d (11v\u201312r).\nChrist was not only the author of salvation, but his \u201cimage and patterne\u201d made\nexplicable the alchemical mystery. Christ\u2019s death and resurrection were not simply an alchemical process: they were the alchemical process, the process that all\nothers must imitate. The body and soul of Christ were united in one, a body transmuted from the corruptions of life on earth to the sublime perfections of immortality, which allowed Christ to obtain the unity with God that the church had\nproclaimed in the doctrine of the Trinity at the Council of Nicaea in 325 ce. The\nGospels had proclaimed this message, and the natural world underscored it.\nIndeed, an anonymous manuscript in the Kassel collection made a very similar\nlink, drawing clear, direct comparisons between the elements, particularly mercury, and Christ. Bruce Moran explains that in this fifteenth-century German\nalchemical manuscript, Das Buch der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit (The Book of the Sacred Trinity), \u201cThe sacred trinity (the first emanation of the Word) was, in fact,\nso bound to the terrestrial triad of the three creative principles, Sulphur, Salt,\nand Mercury, that Christ, the Word incarnate, could be viewed as being hidden\nin every part of the natural world.\u201d This treatise drew powerful correlations, in\nboth text and illustrations, between the alchemical process and Christian doctrines such as the immaculate conception, the Passion of Christ, and the Trinity.55\nFludd\u2019s theological argument that nature itself expressed the word of God was\npart of a larger debate that had been going on for generations, with few or no\ngeographical boundaries.\nClearly, Fludd believed the Book of Nature and the Book of God were integrally related and that neither could be fully understood without reference to the\nother.56 He believed that the denial of material transformation constituted denial\nof Christ\u2019s resurrection. Fludd referred to the \u201cspirituall rock\u201d as identical to \u201cthe\nmysterys, parables and oracles of holy writ.\u201d For this reason, he cautioned, \u201cwe\nmust not nor cannot justly affirme that this divine and spirituall stone can be\nexcluded from materiality.\u201d\nIf all the mysterys, parables and oracles of holy writ be alluded unto such\na wisdome as is the spirituall rock, above mentioned, which is Christ risen\nagaine, composed of a divine spirit and a spirituall body, of which the true\nphilosophers Elixir is sayd to be the type or patterne, we must not nor cannot justly affirme that this divine and spirituall stone can be excluded from\nmateriality, for as much as it consists of a divine and plusquamperfect spirit\nand body exalted from corporiety unto a pure and spirituall existence, from\n\nPages 74:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 59\nmortality unto immortality, and being the patterne of Christ risen again, it\nmust needs have the power to multiply infinitly: according unto that saying\nof Christ: before mentioned. When I am exalted I will draw all bodys unto\nme. (12v\u201313r)\nTo suggest that the purifying and transforming processes of alchemy were only\nmetaphorical was to diminish the redemptive, transformative power of Christianity itself.\nScot thought it strange that the spirit of God could be associated with base\nmatter, but Fludd ridiculed that notion, observing that creation and resurrection\nwould not have been possible had God not been intimately involved with earthly\nmatter: \u201cFor an answeare I say that verely if that had not been we had not been,\nneyther should we have had any farther hope of resurrection\u201d (13v).\nAs for the animating force, rather than turning to scripture as he had earlier,\nFludd cited a hymn written by the early church official Synesius of Cyrene, bishop\nof Ptolemais (360?\u2013415?): \u201cI will referre you unto the sense of the 17. Hymne of the\nreverent Bushop Synesius who speaketh thus. Now the divine Mens (quoth he) or\nbright soule and mentall beame hath only a respect unto the intellectuall world,\nand from this her disposition the soule and reasonable spirit of man is derived\u201d\n(13v\u201314r). It is not clear precisely which passage Fludd was referring to, but there\nare a few lines by Synesius\u2014markedly different from the passage quoted above\u2014\nthat Fludd certainly had incorporated into his own epistemology: \u201cThou art the\nGenerator, Thou the Generated: Thou the Light that shineth, Thou the Illumined;\nThou what is revealed, Thou that which is hidden in Thine own beams; the One\nand All, the One Self-contained and dispersed through all things.\u201d57\nFludd\u2019s understanding of this animating light was more material, however,\nmore incorporated with matter:\nBut this mental beame, being the ofspring from immortall and divine parents gliding downe into the dark hyle or chaos, very smal in substance, and yet\nneverthelesse being all and on and every wher dispersed in the world; turneth\nabout by her power and vertue the vast and wide cavity of the heavens, and\npreserveth them from ruin and corruption in her presence, for she is every\nwher present by changing and fashoning her self into divers formes, for\npart of her is imployed to give motion and lif unto the starrs, part instituteth\nthe order of the angells and againe part doth indue an elementary and earthly\nshape which doth reciprocally embrase with a greevous tye or knot, in so\nmuch that she beeing seperated from her immortall parents she sucketh in\ndark oblivion, and so forgetting her self she admireth the unpleasing earth,\nrespects it with a blind solicitude and care, and by that means is prone to\n\nPages 75:\n60\nAlchemical Belief\naffect corporall things, and to incline it self unto human affaires. (14r, emphasis added)\nThis \u201cmental beame\u201d provided the order of the universe, dictating the hierarchy\nof angels and \u201chuman affaires.\u201d Trying to understand the conduits that Fludd constructed is a challenge. While the meaning of the phrase is far from clear, given\nthe broad scope of his discussion in the passage we may cautiously surmise that\nFludd believed in a divine order to human society and that occult forces exerted\nthemselves to make society as ordered and stable as heavenly bodies.\nLater, when he turned to scripture, Fludd said that Paul had made a grain of\nwheat a metaphor for the resurrection of the dead: \u201cthis beame or bright spirit of\nlight doth inhabit this grayne or else it could not have rise againe\u201d (15r). Fludd was\nreferring to Paul\u2019s first letter to the Corinthians (15:35\u201337, 43\u201344) when he wrote,\n\u201cBut some man will say, how are the dead raysed up, and with what body doe they\ncome? Thou foole, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. . . . It is\nsowen in dishonour, it is raysed in glorie: it is sowen in weakenesse, it is raysed in\npower: It is sowen a naturall body, it is raised a spirituall bodie. There is a naturall\nbodie, and there is a spirituall bodie.\u201d The \u201cmental beame\u201d was a force that permeated the universe completely, the force that raised an earthly and a spiritual body\nfrom death.\nThe motif of light was therefore not simply a literary device. For Fludd, as for\nmany if not all natural philosophers, light was the actual divine force inherent in\nthe nature of matter itself.58 \u201cBy Holy writ we are warrented that the essence of\nGod, which filleth every thinge in heaven and in earth . . . is attired in a naturall or\nmateriall vestiment or mantle, it is evidently confirmed by sacred testimony, for in\nthe highest heaven he is indued . . . with light as with a vestiment, and in this light\ndoth he dwell centrally\u201d (15r).59 Clearly, light was not simply a \u201cbeame\u201d but was\ninfused throughout matter, in the flesh of individuals and in the earth itself: \u201cVos\nestis templum Dei. Ye ar the temple of the holy Goste. And it is sayed Terra pariet\nsalvatorem: the earth shall bringe forth a Saviour\u201d (15r\u2013v). Fludd challenged Scot,\nif God\u2019s spirit and creation were integrated, then why should not the same be true\nof \u201cthe exalted matter of the Elixir\u201d? This elixir was a \u201cbright spirit\u201d and would\n\u201chave dominion over darknes and shine forth as it doth out of the pure body of\nthe heavenly sunnne, and bestowe her graces out of the little world heare on earth\namongst men, as it doth out of the sunne of heaven in the great world\u201d (15v).\nLight\u2014the light of creation and the light of divine illumination\u2014bound the\nnarratives of scripture and alchemy together. Fludd proposed a unity of interpretation, first with the creation; and then, once that foundation was complete,\nhe could demonstrate a philosophical unity with alchemy. God had made the\nelements of earth and water. He had also clearly created air, because Moses had\n\nPages 76:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 61\nsaid, \u201cthe spirit of the Lord moved on the waters.\u201d Later, referring to \u201cSt. Austine\u201d\n(presumably Saint Augustine), these elements were infused with a fiery love that\ngave them a \u201cvivifying and multiplying vigour.\u201d He pointed out that even Aristotle\nacknowledged the existence of a primary form, which he called \u201cthe first Act,\u201d that\nuniversally suffused all matter (17r). Light, however, in accordance with both the\nalchemical process and the agricultural metaphor in the title of the text, played\na vegetative role. Illumination was a broad alchemical concept often associated\nwith vegetation.60 Fludd said of the elixir \u201cmultiplying lif \u201d that \u201cthis fier is multiplicative in infinitum\u201d and that it would \u201cmultiplyeth infinitly if it have matter\nwell prepared to worke on\u201d (15v\u201316r). Fludd was advancing the purported generative and vegetative, usually called \u201cvitalistic,\u201d process in alchemy.\nB. J. T. Dobbs observes that vitalism seems to have been associated with alchemy since its origins. When alchemical ideas began to develop in the early\nChristian centuries, metals were not understood to be distinct from one another\nbut were thought to possess variable properties that might be \u201cleavened\u201d or \u201cfermented\u201d\u2014and indeed, by analogy, alchemists referred to this phase of alchemy as\n\u201cfermentation\u201d or \u201cgeneration.\u201d61 As we saw earlier, Fludd subscribed to a divine\nexplanation for this process. Mersenne had attacked Fludd precisely because he\nfelt that this position was antithetical to both Christianity and natural philosophy.\nYet both Boyle and Newton reported \u201cvegetative\u201d phenomena in their alchemical\nwork, which suggests that this idea endured at least until the middle of the seventeenth century and perhaps beyond.62\nFludd made one of his longest arguments in response to a particular point Scot\nmade, which Fludd restated as follows: \u201cWe infer therfore upon thes grounds that\nit is a poore consequence and of little effect, namly that because the philosophers\nhieroglyphicks and the Theosophists mysterys and parables did principally point\nat wisdome, therfore theie should not respect any materiall Elixir\u201d (16r). That parables contained wisdom did not prove the \u201cmaterial Elixir\u201d a fiction. He gave dozens of examples from the Bible, esoteric wisdom, and occultism of God revealing\nhimself to human beings. He reminded his readers that God and humanity had\nbeen in very close communication when the Hebrew scriptures were composed.\nMoses, who after Jesus had experienced the closest communication with God\nsince Adam, nevertheless never saw the face of God.63 Fludd rather imprudently,\neven impishly, noted that in Moses\u2019 conversations with God, \u201cthough Moyses saw\nhis posteriours yet did he never behould his essentiall face or being\u201d (16v). David\n\u201cknew [God] by a vision of his glorious light, and therfore sayed, Deus vestitur\nlumine quasi vestimento [God is clothed as if with the clothing of light] but to see\nhim as he is, flesh and blood is not able. Thus have we our proofs of a materiall\nElixir of perfection out of holy writ. Let us now se[e] how the sage Cabalists do\nagree with this doctrine of thee sacre Bible\u201d (16v) Moses had singular experiences\n\nPages 77:\n62\nAlchemical Belief\nbut, as Fludd mentioned in closing, there were others, known as cabalists, who\nunderstood how to achieve such intimacy with the divine.\nFludd and the Cabala\nFludd\u2019s and interest in Cabala was not commonplace, but neither was it unique in\nthe seventeenth-century intellectual community. As we saw in the case of Renaissance humanism, because of the great interest in all things ancient and esoteric,\nincluding non-Christian sources by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century scholars,\nCabala was one of many traditions that enjoyed a huge readership and was the\nsubject of much study.64 Cabalistic writings held a special resonance for Christian\nhumanists because it was believed that the origins of Cabala lay in the earliest\nmoments of the creation and therefore had a purity that the classical tradition\nlacked. Indeed, in Hebrew \u201ccabala\u201d means \u201cthat which is received through tradition.\u201d65 The sixteenth-century rabbi Elijah Menahem Halfan described Christian\nscholars\u2019 intellectual excitement about Cabala:\nIn the last twenty years, knowledge has increased, and people have been\nseeking everywhere for instruction in Hebrew. Especially after the rise of\nthe sect of Luther, many of the nobles and scholars of the land sought to\nhave thorough knowledge of this glorious science (Kabbalah). They have\nexhausted themselves in this search, because among our people there are\nbut a small number of men learned in this wisdom, for after the great number of troubles and expulsions, but a few remain. So seven learned men\ngrasp a Jewish man by the hem of his garment and say: \u201cBe our master in\nthis science.\u201d66\nThe origins of Cabala are difficult to identify with certainty. In its earliest\nmanifestation (apparently coinciding with the beginning of the common era),\nCabala appears to be quite similar to the traditional Jewish understanding of the\nmessianic age, a time when the righteous will enjoy goodness and mercy, led by\nthe Messiah, a descendant of David. This earthly experience of salvation contrasts\nsharply with the traditional Christian belief that salvation is a spiritual, otherworldly experience. A form of Jewish mysticism developed, however, throughout late antiquity and the early medieval period in Europe. It was probably this\ntradition that led to the development of no fewer than three distinct schools of\ncabalistic thought by 1300.67\nBetween 1480 and the late seventeenth century, Christian scholars turned to\nCabala in numerous ways.68 The celebrated and eventually notorious humanist\n\nPages 78:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 63\nGiovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463\u20131494) brought Cabala into the Christian\nscholarly community, where it was received by the Ficinian humanists.69 When\nPico attempted to distinguish contemporary magic, which he defined as diabolical, from legitimate natural magic, he explained that natural magic had been lost,\ncorrupted, or, in the words of Nicholas Popper, \u201cenclosed within the ancient Jewish tradition of cabala\u2014orally transmitted and secret wisdom\u2014that Pico firmly\nsupported and to which he claimed unique access.\u201d70 However, the appeal of\nCabala extended beyond the confines of the Florentine academy. The renowned\nChristian Hebraist and German philosopher Johann Reuchlin (1455\u20131522) argued that Pythagoras was \u201ca Kabbalist.\u201d71 The northern scholar Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486\u20131535) studied Cabala and integrated it into\nChristian theologies in the early sixteenth century.72 By the late sixteenth century,\nfigures such as Giordano Bruno (1549\u20131600) and the English mathematician and\nnatural philosopher John Dee were students of Cabala. Dee developed its numerological dimension, turning to Pythagorean principles that Reuchlin had also\nconsidered earlier in the century.73 Thus by the time Robert Fludd was writing of\nCabala in the early decades of the seventeenth century, he was part of an august\nintellectual lineage.\nEarly modern cabalists drew their knowledge primarily from the Sefer Yezirah\n(Book of Creation), written between the third and sixth centuries ce.74 This small\nvolume was available to a wide audience in numerous Latin editions and commentaries. The anonymous text argues that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet\nwere \u201cthe building blocks of the universe.\u201d Each letter was separated individually\nand also combined with other letters to establish 231 \u201cbasic \u2018roots\u2019 or \u2018gates\u2019 from\nwhich all created things developed.\u201d75 This foundation of language was crucial to\nCabala\u2019s appeal to its Christian students because it spoke to larger efforts to recover and reinstitute a lost but better past. Early modern humanists\u2019 philological\ninterest and expertise led them to think very carefully about the earliest languages\nspoken by God and his human creation. Indeed, creation itself was recorded in\nGenesis as the result of merely the voice of God, and Adam was endowed with\nthe knowledge to name the creatures of the world. All of this must have changed,\nhowever, with the Fall. As Deborah Harkness observes, \u201cAfter Adam sinned, his\nmastery of the divine language was lost along with his ability to communicate\nwith the Book of Nature and God. Thus the disintegration of Adam\u2019s linguistic\nand communication skills was inextricably tied to the fall of mankind and the\ndecay of the natural world.\u201d76\nThe question of humanity\u2019s original language remained unanswered, of course.\nThe early Greek church fathers, Augustine and Isidore of Seville, believed that\nthe language of Eden was Hebrew, an opinion held by medieval scholars as\nwell.77 Early modern scholars such as Reuchlin and John Dee thought that it was\n\nPages 79:\n64\nAlchemical Belief\nHebrew, Greek, or Latin, with Hebrew the most likely candidate. Guillaume Postel and Cornelius Agrippa also favored Hebrew (although, as Harkness points out,\nthe Swedish natural philosopher Andreas Kempe [1622\u20131689] made the cheeky\nsuggestion that God spoke to Adam in Swedish, Adam spoke to the animals in\nDanish, and the Serpent spoke to Eve in French).78\nBeyond the fact that it was the language of the forebears of Christianity, there\nwas another reason to believe that Hebrew was the original human language.\nHebrew is an alphanumeric language\u2014a language in which characters serve as\nboth letters and numbers\u2014and both Jewish and gentile students of the language\nand tradition believed that through the knowledgeable manipulation of characters, individuals could obtain power over nature and effect miracles.79 The divine\nnames used to describe Cabala, even numbers or the names of angels, were not\narbitrary but were deliberately designed to conceal their mysterious and miraculous power.\nSome Christian scholars turned to Cabala because they wanted to use the Jewish mystical system to prove that Jewish beliefs were in fact prophecies of Christ\nand contained the teachings of Christ. Fludd and other alchemists were interested\nin Cabala because of its esoteric and magical possibilities. Robert Bostocke wrote\nthat \u201cthe secrets of Nature, whose study & use doth flowe out of the Fountaines\nof Nature, and is collected out of the mathematicall and supernaturall precepts,\nthe exercise whereof is Mechanicall, and to be accomplished with labor, is part\nof Cabala, and is called by auncient name, Ars sacra, or magna, & sacra scientia,\nor Chymia, or Chemeia, or Alchimia.\u201d80 The sixteenth-century natural philosophers Giovanni Pantheus and John Dee attempted to integrate Cabala into their\nalchemical work. Pantheus\u2019s Voarchadumia contra alchimiam of 1559 and Dee\u2019s\nMonas Hieroglyphica of 1564 demonstrate their efforts to use Cabala to read the\nBook of Nature.81 According to Harkness, Dee integrated Cabala with his natural\nphilosophy when angels revealed to him the \u201ctrue cabala of nature.\u201d She writes\nthat \u201cthe cabala of nature enabled Dee to have both wisdom (a revealed gift) and\nknowledge (an acquired understanding of the complexities of the created world).\nThis mixture of wisdom and knowledge, of revelation and natural philosophy,\nlie at the heart of the cabala of nature.\u201d82 Although he wrote extensively on angels\u2014rather than converse with them, as Dee had\u2014Fludd turned to alchemy to\nintegrate Cabala with his natural philosophy.\nCabala contained messianic and apocalyptic elements in addition to revelation. Cabalists called God En Soph, the infinite. Because God is infinite, he cannot\nbe the direct creator of the world because any creation proceeding directly from\nhim would have to be boundless and perfect, and the universe was clearly neither.\nBy the late fifteenth century, however, Christian cabalists reconciled God\u2019s indirect creation by positing that the three highest sephiroth represented the Trinity.\n\nPages 80:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 65\nThe keter was supreme, and it represented God the Father; chochma, or wisdom,\nrepresented the Logos, God the Son; and binah, or understanding, represented\nmercy and God the Holy Spirit.83 Christian cabalists could see that through the\nmediating stages of the sephiroth, God\u2019s creation was accomplished. The reconciliation of Cabala with Christian doctrine was crucial to its acceptance within the\nChristian community.\nEssentially, Cabala provided a path through which humanity could be fully\nintegrated into the larger cosmos. Each individual possessed all aspects of the\ncreation within and as such could recognize the harmonies of the world and\nexpress those harmonies in words.84 The sephiroth also served as a dialectical\nprocess: The separate stages were intermediaries that allowed God to intervene\nin human affairs and thereby enabled individuals to communicate with God\nand also allowed God to communicate with humanity.85 Ten separate sephiroth,\nor emanations, collectively formed the Adam kadmon, or archetypal man. The\nsephiroth revealed God to an individual who sought him in a gradual and increasingly exalted series of steps. According to Fludd, even Moses, who came\nclose but never actually saw the face of God, had ascended to only the forty-ninth\nof fifty levels. Cabalists, for all their skill, had not reached, and perhaps could not\nreach, the highest level of the sephiroth and communicate with God directly. Still,\nno other tradition claimed such intimate communication between humanity and\nthe divine.\nFludd\u2019s central goal was to renew and restore a deeper communication between humanity and God, and he thus attempted to connect humanity more\nclosely with the natural world. Therefore, alchemy and Cabala served to renew\nmystical elements, while at the same time both appealed to his reverence and\nhumility for phenomena not wholly subject to the bounds of reason. By incorporating Cabala into his theology, he demonstrated how even a Jewish tradition\ncould prove the doctrine of the Trinity. In doing so, he delicately straddled the\nline between esoteric knowledge and orthodoxy. He used a paradoxical rhetorical\nstrategy by turning to natural philosophy and Jewish theology as it was expressed\nin alchemy to illustrate orthodox doctrine. Fludd\u2019s natural theology was surely\nintended to supplement orthodox belief rather than replace it. His goal was to\nbring natural philosophy and Christianity into greater harmony. What Allison\nCoudert said of Knorr van Rosenroth and F. M. van Helmont was also true of\nFludd: \u201cThus the Kabbalah unlocks the secrets of the two great books God had\ngiven man, the book of Scripture and the Book of Nature, since both books\u2014the\nfirst dealing with the upper world and the second with the lower\u2014are intimately\nlinked. This great truth leads to another, namely, that the perceived gap between\nthe material and spiritual realms, or matter and spirit, is non-existent. Matter and\nspirit are simply different ends of a single continuum.\u201d86\n\nPages 81:\n66\nAlchemical Belief\nFludd\u2019s first task was to establish the inherent agreement between the Bible,\nAugustine, and Aristotle. Biblical evidence made clear that air, fire, earth, and\nwater were all present at creation, but he believed that the biblical, extrabiblical,\nand classical traditions agreed on this point as well. Moses\u2019 account of creation\nwas obviously the authoritative version, but he cited Augustine\u2019s remark that the\nlove of God was \u201cfiery\u201d and infused the elements with life itself, which echoed\naccepted Aristotelian knowledge as well. Once he had established the essential\nunity of interpretation that the authorities held on creation, Fludd could proceed\nwith an even more complex discussion, this time incorporating numerals into his\nargument. In this text as well as in his Mosaicall Philosophy, he examined Pythagorean themes. The belief that profound theological and philosophical truths were\nsecreted in numerals was ancient, and, like alchemy, experienced a resurgence in\nthe Renaissance.\nThe first-century architectural commentator Vitruvius argued that the human\nbody represented the divine proportions of the universe. Vitruvius suggested, in\nJohn MacQueen\u2019s words, \u201cthat numbers, ratios and geometric figures link the arts\ngenerally, by way of the microcosm, to the macrocosm.\u201d Numerology could be\napplied to architecture, arts such as painting, and of course music, but it could\nalso be applied to language.87 It was in this application that numerology became\nsignificant in Fludd\u2019s study.\nNumerology referred to the system of interpreting a group of letters, a word,\nor sometimes a group of words not on the basis of their linguistic meaning but\naccording to their numerical value.88 Gematria, an aspect of Cabala, grew out of\nthe alphanumeric tradition of Hebrew; the word itself is probably a corruption\nof the Greek geometria, which was written as gmtr.89 Just as the ancient mystery\nthat attended Cabala fascinated early modern scholars, theologians, and natural\nphilosophers, so did the hidden symbolism of numerology. The search for mathematical order and symmetry knew no bounds. The biblical texts had always been\nsubjected to rigorous mathematical scrutiny. Theologians not only attributed significance to the numbers 1, 3, and 12; 4, 6, and 7 were also rife with symbolic\nmeaning for the faithful mathematician. In Fludd\u2019s alchemical texts the numbers\n1, 7, 12, and 1,000 all had profound theological significance. It was 3 and its factors\nthat Fludd seemed to think were particularly significant:\nAnd Plato calleth [the primary form] the soule of the world which he measured by .999. for three times .9. amounting unto .27. maketh the cube of the\nroot. 3. which is the most perfectest number and therfore attributed unto\nthe soule or first act in every creature. as .2. which is the number of confusion (as Pythagoras sayeth) is the roote of matter whos square is .4. and\ntherfore his root90 is 8: This .999. of Plato by the addition of the Cabbalists\n\nPages 82:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 67\nAleph which signifyeth .1. in Arithmetick maketh up .10000.91 beyound the\nwhich ther is noe denomination: and therfore as Aleph was one. and consequently the begining so also is it that on[e] which is the end of all things.92\nOver the course of his argument Fludd argued that the Hebrew language and\nnumerology gave credence to the doctrine of the Trinity. Like Tymme, who also\nturned to alchemy to explain the Trinity, Fludd used his occult knowledge to\nprove its inherent logic. Because aleph was one, we are told, this number was both\nthe beginning and the end of all things. With a slight variation, he returned to his\nequation of unity, trinity, duality, and unity: \u201cfrom perfection or unity we come\nunto imperfection which is duality and from thence by death and putrefaction\nwe must passe unto trinity which uniteth us againe, after the example of divinity, unto unity from whence we came\u201d (21v). This statement was swarming with\nalchemical language: perfection and imperfection, unity, duality, and trinity\u2014all\nwere terms that held rich alchemical as well as theological significance. Moreover,\naleph, the first character in the Hebrew alphabet, possessed enormous significance for Fludd. In conjunction with the Timaeus (Plato\u2019s cosmological dialogue),\naleph brought the Hebraic and classical traditions in line with Christianity.\nFor Fludd, aleph signified not simply humanity but matter itself. He said that\ncabalists transformed the dark aleph into a light aleph. The theological significance of this remark becomes clearer in his observation that \u201cAleph is converted\ninto bright and shining Aleph, which Aleph eyther way taken is ment and understood for God\u201d (17v). God, the creator of light and darkness, was both the\nbeginning and the end. \u201cBy this his shining forth,\u201d Fludd wrote, \u201cthe world was\nproportioned and limited, so that as dark Aleph was Deus latens and principium\n[the hidden God and the beginning], so also is light Aleph Deus patens & rerum\nomnium finis & perfectio [the visible God and the end and completion of all\nthings]\u201d (18r).\nThe theological significance of aleph extended, however, beyond God the Father and Creator to God the Son: \u201cNow when that Aleph or God hath shined out\nof darknes they calle him Beth. which is the second Hebrew letter which added\nunto Aleph make Ab. which is as much to say as pater, father, which hath a reference unto a sonne . . . wher Aleph is the hieroglyphick of the father and Beth of\nthe sonne springing from the father by a divine emanation\u201d (18r). Unsurprisingly,\nFludd also correlated this discussion with the doctrine of the Trinity: \u201cWe se that\nAleph signifyeth both Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and therfore\nalso it is their trinity in perfection, for .3. seemeth to retourne from the binary\nconfusion into the unity, from whence it came, and therfore .3. is the root of the\nprogression of all formall perfection: it is the numerus numerans or number from\nwhich all numeration isheweth\u201d (27r).\n\nPages 83:\n68\nAlchemical Belief\nAlthough Fludd did not mention scripture in this passage, its intention was\nfundamentally Christian; it was a classical, numerological, and cabalistic demonstration of the unity of knowledge. In Plato\u2019s Timaeus the primary form was\nmeasured in a number divisible by three, which, according to Fludd, was the most\nperfect number; confusion or chaos was represented by the number two.93 He\ndemonstrated how two led to division by showing that the cube of two was eight\nand thus that as a whole number it could not be divided by three. The cabalistic\nfigure of aleph signified one and brought Plato\u2019s figure of 999 to 1,000, beyond\nwhich, \u201cther is noe denomination\u201d (17r).94\nBut aleph possessed a crucial physical significance as well. This was, after all,\nprecisely the point on which Fludd and Scot most clearly disagreed. Fludd\u2019s complicated progression from a highly metaphysical discussion of aleph to the physical\ntransformation of matter required that he consider yet another discipline\u2014musicology\u2014to bridge the gap between his spiritual and earthly arguments.\nFludd\u2019s commentaries on music have unquestionably been the central focus\nof modern scholars, in no small part because music was undeniably important in\nhis work.95 Yet, regardless of Fludd\u2019s interest in music, music (like virtually every\nother discipline he studied) mattered to Fludd because it led him to consider the\nessential unities in theology, human knowledge, and the natural world. Music was\nanother manifestation of God, and it was especially wonderful because, like God,\nmusic was present and yet invisible. Ultimately, however, Fludd was concerned,\nin his response to Robert Scot\u2019s attack on alchemy, not with music but with demonstrating God\u2019s actual presence on earth through the practice of alchemy. Alchemy, not music, could demonstrate that faith was a necessary part of natural\nphilosophy.\nWhat made music central to Fludd\u2019s argument was that, despite his proclaimed\ninterest in demonstrating the physical experience of alchemy, music was the only\napproach he used that actually was physical. While music might not be visible, it\nis certainly sensible, and therefore it is quite different from the intellectual and\nspiritual approaches he had taken thus far to prove the worth of alchemy. The\nunison of music, he argued in \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d was the fountain from\nwhich all other concord flowed (27r).96 In some of his most mystical and tortured\nprose\u2014which is saying something\u2014he argued that music embodied the summum\nbonum, or greatest good. The harmony of numbers and letters, the alpha and the\nomega, was present in music: \u201cas great Aleph is to litle Aleph or Omega to Alpha\nso is Diapason unto Unison the worlds spirit\u201d (27v). The analogy was significant:\na diapason is a musical term denoting the interval of an octave, the highest and\nlowest notes of the musical scale. Aleph was a diapason that encompassed the\nfullest possible range of harmony (27r).\n\nPages 84:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 69\nHowever, music, like all earthly things, was subject to discord. Harmony,\nFludd observed, existed in a world of \u201cDiatessaron\u201d (the interval of a fourth in ancient and medieval music), and this world was subject to corruption. Fludd correlated the concept of diatessaron with the four corruptible elements of the physical\nworld. Yet this dissonance was also subject to \u201cthe celestiall or quintessentiall\nspirit which serveth in the compound body in lieu of a soule unto the body: so\nthat the mentall beame soundeth forth the harmony of diapason in man.\u201d He\ncorrelated his quintessential or fifth spirit with the musical term \u201cdiapente\u201d (the\nconsonance or interval of a fifth in ancient and medieval music). His \u201cmentall\nbeame,\u201d then, would not only restore his body to its harmonious state with nature\nbut would extend to all substances and creatures on earth (27v). Through the\nharmony of music aleph thus entered the physical world, where it was \u201csubject\nto mutations\u201d and became a body of matter like all others, to be corrupted or\nexalted. His \u201cmentall beame\u201d was the transforming force of life itself; it suffused\naleph, multiplying its degrees of perfection exponentially. Music, in this instance,\nwas both a medium and a philosophers\u2019 stone in itself, an agent that Fludd used to\nmove from the Hebrew language to the physical world, a conduit between the divine perfection of the heavens and the corruptible but redeemable earthly world.\nFludd\u2019s correlation of cabala, numerology, and music, as complex and elusive as\nit appears, was not unique. His perception of the universe was based on the assumption that there was a cosmic harmony in the universe, and this notion is\nreminiscent of the Scottish physician William Davidson.97\nFludd concluded his long manuscript with a final summation of how alchemy\nrepresented humanity\u2019s hope for redemption in a corrupted natural world: \u201cWherupon I conclude that the materiall Elixir of the philosophers is not therfore\nto be excluded, because the shadow of it, which is morality is not to be rejected,\n. . . Look therefore for a reall [mercury] of the philosophers, and in it search a\nsonne which can give light unto the darknes as wel of bodys as soules\u201d (56v\u201357r).\nFludd\u2019s search for a \u201csonne\u201d through which spiritual as well as physical healing\ncould occur may have more historical resonance than his labyrinthine treatise\nmay appear to possess. On June 20, 1624, James Ussher, the Irish bishop of Meath,\npreached a sermon before James I that \u201cwas much admired, and the King ordered\nhim to print it.\u201d98 Indeed, the sermon appeared in print that year and again in\n1625, and again under Charles I, in 1629 and 1631 (for not only did James appreciate the sermon but it seems his son did too), under the title A Briefe Declaration\nof the Universalitie of the Church of Christ, and the Unitie of the Catholike Faith. It\nbegan with a reminder that when the ark of the covenant was moved, Moses was\nto pray, \u201cArise up Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate\n\nPages 85:\n70\nAlchemical Belief\nthee, flee before thee\u201d (Num. 10:35). Ussher told his royal audience that the ark\nwas \u201ca figure of Jesus the Mediatour of the new Covenant: the great King, Prophet\nand Priest of his Church. Therefore was it ordered, that the Arke should have a\ncrowne of gold about it: (Exodus 37:2).\u201d Ussher proceeded to explain that Jesus became the next physical presence of God on earth and, upon his ascension, \u201cwent\nto the Father; making his last remove unto the high Court of Heaven, where he\nis to reside untill the time of the restitution of all things.\u201d99 The reassurance that\nwas left for humanity was \u201cthe vertue comming from him, by the operation of his\nWord and Spirit; so wee shall finde him in his Temple upon earth, present with us\nalwaies, even unto the end of the world\u201d (5).\nUssher returned repeatedly throughout his sermon to the image of the church\nas a \u201cmysticall bodie.\u201d Christ\u2019s church \u201cso neerly conjoined unto him, that he\nholdeth not himselfe full without it, but as long as anie one member remaineth\nyet ungathered and unknit unto this mysticall bodie of his, he acounteth, in the\nmeane time somwhat be deficient in himselfe\u201d (7\u20138). After quoting Psalm 2,\nUssher said, \u201cAske of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance,\nand the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession,\u201d adding, \u201cand to his mysticall bodie, the Catholick Church accordingly\u201d (9). He used this term again at the\nend of the sermon, when he warned his audience that the church could only grow\nfrom \u201cfrom faith to faith . . . else thos mayest justly suspect, that thy growth is not\nfound, and answerable to that which the Apostle sheweth to be in the mysticall\nbody of Christ\u201d (64\u201365).\nThere was nothing alchemical about Ussher\u2019s sermon, but there was something very tactile about it. His emphasis on the ark, the crown (of gold, no less),\nand the earthly presence of God\u2014the \u201cmysticall bodie\u201d of the church\u2014all speak\nto the physical presence of God on earth and, moreover, to how commonplace\nthis notion was. Ussher was one of the figures of the Church of England who\nadvocated that the church must be catholic\u2014that is, universal. He allowed that\nthere might be differences within individuals\u2019 understanding, and yet those differences ought not to exclude anyone from the universality of the church (15\u201316).\nAlthough Ussher insisted that all Christians must assent to certain absolute doctrinal truths, he also averred that faith was the foundation of salvation and that it\noutweighed any doctrinal uniformity. This universal church was to be Protestant,\nbut it was not an explicitly exclusionary church. Perhaps it should come as no\nsurprise that Ussher was sympathetic to John Dury\u2019s goal of reconciling the Protestant denominations on the Continent, even giving Dury an annual gift.100\nUssher\u2019s sermon contained another resonant image. The image of the ark was\nclearly an article of war, and in 1624 no image could be more timely. Thomas Cogswell\u2019s precise study of these last critical years of James\u2019s reign argues that the king\u2019s\ngoal of a united Protestantism, accomplished by breaking the Spanish stronghold\n\nPages 86:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 71\nin Europe, seems to have been embraced by Parliament almost as enthusiastically\nas by the natural philosophers of the day, though by vastly different means.101 The\nparliament of 1624 authorized the funding of England\u2019s entry into the Thirty Years\u2019\nWar, specifically to restore Protestant authority in the Palatinate. Frederick V, elector Palatine and the most prominent German Calvinist, had accepted the crown\nof Bohemia in an election disputed by the emperor Ferdinand II and against the\nadvice of James I. Frederick may have led the Protestant Union, but Ferdinand was\ndetermined to reverse the momentum of Protestantism in the Holy Roman Empire. In November 1620 Ferdinand\u2019s forces soundly defeated Frederick\u2019s in the battle of White Mountain, just outside Prague. Frederick and his family retreated to\nThe Hague, and James, albeit reluctantly, agreed to assist his Protestant brother in\nthe restoration of the Calvinist foothold in Germany. Since 1614 James had sought\na dynastic marriage for his younger son, Charles, with the Spanish Habsburgs. The\nSpanish victory in the Palatinate in 1620, however, gave the Habsburg dynasty a\nconsiderably stronger negotiating position in the marriage, and the Habsburgs insisted that Charles convert to Roman Catholicism, along with Frederick\u2019s heir and\nJames\u2019s son-in-law, Frederick Henry. To these demands, James could not agree.102\nEngland\u2019s entry into the war was a disaster, but James never lost faith in his\npursuit of a unified Christendom. Four days before he died, on March 27, 1625, he\nasked to receive communion, and when he recited the Apostles\u2019 Creed, he added,\n\u201cHee beleeved them all, as they were received and expounded by that part of the\nCatholique Church which was established here in England.\u201d103 To his very last\nbreath, James believed that he was head of the most open, most inclusive, most\ncatholic church in Christendom.\nIn 1625 Francis Bacon published his Essays and dedicated the volume to the\nduke of Buckingham, the newly crowned monarch\u2019s favorite courtier. The third\nessay, \u201cOf Unity in Religion,\u201d is characteristically circumspect, written in the\nvoice of a lawyer and courtier. However, Bacon, like James I, valued the benefits\nof peace and charitable understanding and the clear limits of using force in the\nmatter of religious division: \u201cMen must beware, that in the Procuring . . . of Religious Unity, they doe not Dissolve and Deface the Lawes of Charity, and humane\nSociety. There be two Swords amongst Christians; the Spiritual and Temporall;\nAnd both have their due Office, and place, in the maintenance of Religion. But we\nmay not take up the Third sword, which is Mohomets Sword, or like unto it; That\nis, to propagate Religion by Warrs, or by Sanguinary Persecutions, to force Consciences.\u201d104 Although Bacon understood that there were times when the sword\nwould be required, conversion was clearly not one of them. Like Tymme, Fludd,\nUssher, Dury, and even perhaps James VI and I, Bacon understood that healing\nthe divisions of society had to begin with spiritual and intellectual transformation\u2014otherwise the effort would be illusory.105\n\nPages 87:\n72\nAlchemical Belief\nThus an alchemist like Fludd fits more neatly within the religious culture of\nearly modern England than we might first suspect. His view of the role of alchemy\nin seventeenth-century England was formed during a time when the question\nof appropriate religious expression was becoming one of the most controversial\nissues of the day. Certainly Fludd was not trying to appeal to mainstream Protestants when he wrote \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow.\u201d However, his argument accorded\ngenerally, and significantly, with the larger direction of the Church of England in\nthe 1620s and 1630s. Anglican congregations in the 1630s were beginning to take a\ngreater interest in the worship experience. Vestry records of parishes throughout\nEngland testify to the dilapidated condition of churches but also to congregations\u2019\ninitiative and willingness to repair church buildings and improve the conditions\nof worship. Kevin Sharpe suggests that, \u201cfor all we hear of puritan and popular\nhostility to the high church liturgy of Laud, the congregations of many parishes\nwere willing to pay for furnishings and for an order and decency that was not\nso removed from Laud\u2019s beauty of holiness as some historians would like to believe.\u201d106 Sharpe\u2019s cautionary note to the hostility of Calvinist and Puritan opposition to the visual aspects of worship needs to be taken very seriously. Both Fludd\nand church officials expressed the belief that religious worship was a vital part of\nspiritual life. The complex political and religious circumstances of seventeenthcentury England created odd bedfellows indeed.\nYet Archbishop William Laud, that vigorous promoter of preserving church\nliturgy, would have vehemently opposed Fludd\u2019s broad understanding of religious\nexpression. \u201cNo one thing hath made conscientious men more wavering in their\nown minds,\u201d he wrote, \u201cor more apt and easy to be drawn aside from the sincerity of religion professed in the Church of England than the want of uniform and\ndecent order in too many churches of the kingdom.\u201d107 Despite Laud\u2019s best efforts,\nhe failed to bring religious unity to England. Over time, religious life only became\nmore varied, not less, and in the first decades of the seventeenth century the English wrestled with this very problem. While church wardens were repairing altars, alchemists were appropriating the language of the Anglican liturgy into their\nlaboratories. Furnaces and vessels became their altars and founts, for the purpose\nof presenting a wider vision of Christianity than Ussher, Bacon, and certainly\nLaud could have ever imagined.\nYet it was precisely in this variation of religious expression that the search for\nunity occurred. The first half of the seventeenth century witnessed an effort by\nvarious groups in England and on the Continent: Christian humanists, Rosicrucians, the Hartlib Circle\u2014all wanted a universal reformation that would unite a\ndivided Christendom. Robert Fludd was part of a community of alchemists who\nsaw the solution in the irenic, healing quality of alchemy. Indeed, irenicism was\none of the unlikely progenies of the Renaissance and Reformation. At least a few\n\nPages 88:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 73\nindividuals in the sixteenth century believed that religious unity was unequivocally valuable.108 Fludd\u2019s vigorous faith was directed toward using his knowledge\nof scripture and occult wisdom to find unity in a divided world.\nThe express goal of Fludd\u2019s natural philosophy was a deeper understanding of\nGod. He clung to Paracelsian principles because he believed that their Christian\ncredentials were impeccable and yet supple enough that he could incorporate new\nideas into his preconceived epistemology. His interests were as broad as those of\nany of his predecessors or contemporaries (with the possible exception of the Elizabethan mathematician and magus John Dee), but the sheer breadth of his work\nhas allowed us to lose sight of the central issues that preoccupied him. Knowledge of theology and philosophy was only the first element of the extraordinarily\ncomplex intellectual milieu in which Fludd and his colleagues wrote. Fludd\u2019s\nrhetoric was significant not because he used the Bible to support his arguments\nbut because he was willing to depart from it. He integrated Cabala, numerology,\nand musicology as we\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 70 to page 88 out of a total of 238. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=61\nPages: 61\nrevealed word. Irenicism was not unique in the 1620s and was present in places as\nhigh as the court of James VI and I, as far-flung and amorphous as the intellectual\ncommunity known as \u201cthe Hartlib circle,\u201d and even in the handwritten composition of a seventeenth-century London physician.\nTherefore, in this spirit of unity and irenicism, Fludd\u2019s new natural theology\nwould have to be a complex integration of Christianity, philosophy, and occult\ntraditions. Like virtually all early modern natural philosophers, he believed that\nwhen studying nature one was always really studying God. The complex and infinite details of nature were manifestations of the complex and infinite details of\nthe word of God.16 The wisdom and knowledge of the natural world expressed in\nalchemy, as well as in the scriptures and in the wisdom of the ancients, was ultimately, for Fludd, theology. Alchemy served as a sacred revelation of God\u2019s word,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=88\nPages: 88\nideas into his preconceived epistemology. His interests were as broad as those of\nany of his predecessors or contemporaries (with the possible exception of the Elizabethan mathematician and magus John Dee), but the sheer breadth of his work\nhas allowed us to lose sight of the central issues that preoccupied him. Knowledge of theology and philosophy was only the first element of the extraordinarily\ncomplex intellectual milieu in which Fludd and his colleagues wrote. Fludd\u2019s\nrhetoric was significant not because he used the Bible to support his arguments\nbut because he was willing to depart from it. He integrated Cabala, numerology,\nand musicology as well as alchemy into his work. Christianity, however, was the\nforce that propelled him through his medical and natural philosophical endeavors and, because of its deep affinity with his religious beliefs, toward alchemy in\nparticular. It did not matter to him that he had \u201cproved\u201d the physical reality of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=60\nPages: 60\nand if so, how?\nDiscovering answers to these questions led Fludd down the briar-choked path\nand tangled brush of the skeptical philosophy, Cabala, and alchemy. Yet by the\ntime he had completed his journey, he had cleared a trail and mapped a new natural theology, which he articulated in both printed texts and manuscripts. Apart\nfrom \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d Fludd\u2019s only other explicit effort to integrate spirituality and natural philosophy was his Philosophia Moysaica (1638), published\nin the Dutch city better known now for its mild cheese than for its small but\nsignificant role in the Netherlands\u2019 free and open printing industry, Gouda.11 In\nthe equally vibrant printing culture of Cromwellian England, this volume was\ntranslated into English in 1659. The philosophy of Moses that Fludd expounded\nin this massive volume was precisely the same one that he had expounded in\n\u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow\u201d: that his natural philosophy was, at its core, a new natural theology.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=73\nPages: 73\nalchemical manuscript, Das Buch der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit (The Book of the Sacred Trinity), \u201cThe sacred trinity (the first emanation of the Word) was, in fact,\nso bound to the terrestrial triad of the three creative principles, Sulphur, Salt,\nand Mercury, that Christ, the Word incarnate, could be viewed as being hidden\nin every part of the natural world.\u201d This treatise drew powerful correlations, in\nboth text and illustrations, between the alchemical process and Christian doctrines such as the immaculate conception, the Passion of Christ, and the Trinity.55\nFludd\u2019s theological argument that nature itself expressed the word of God was\npart of a larger debate that had been going on for generations, with few or no\ngeographical boundaries.\nClearly, Fludd believed the Book of Nature and the Book of God were integrally related and that neither could be fully understood without reference to the\nother.56 He believed that the denial of material transformation constituted denial]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=72\nPages: 72\nKey (1619) explained \u201cspontaneous generation on the basis of this spiritus mundi;\nthe search for the isolation of this substance was to become a major part of his\nlife\u2019s work.\u201d53 However, Fludd was not simply defending the practice of alchemy;\nhe intended to lay the groundwork for a new theology that would demonstrate\nthrough natural forces the physical presence of God on earth.\nFludd and the Trinity\nThe correspondence of alchemical thought with traditional Christian beliefs, both\nProtestant and Catholic, is perhaps what made alchemy so attractive to many of\nits practitioners and why Fludd turned to alchemy to seek what was as rare in the\nseventeenth century as the philosophers\u2019 stone: religious unity and its Christian\nideal, the doctrine of the Trinity. Like Thomas Tymme, Fludd believed that the\ndoctrine of the Trinity and the alchemical process were central to achieving unity.\nThe alchemist \u201cleaveth not his operation untill it hath of duality made unity, so]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=80\nPages: 80\nno other tradition claimed such intimate communication between humanity and\nthe divine.\nFludd\u2019s central goal was to renew and restore a deeper communication between humanity and God, and he thus attempted to connect humanity more\nclosely with the natural world. Therefore, alchemy and Cabala served to renew\nmystical elements, while at the same time both appealed to his reverence and\nhumility for phenomena not wholly subject to the bounds of reason. By incorporating Cabala into his theology, he demonstrated how even a Jewish tradition\ncould prove the doctrine of the Trinity. In doing so, he delicately straddled the\nline between esoteric knowledge and orthodoxy. He used a paradoxical rhetorical\nstrategy by turning to natural philosophy and Jewish theology as it was expressed\nin alchemy to illustrate orthodox doctrine. Fludd\u2019s natural theology was surely\nintended to supplement orthodox belief rather than replace it. His goal was to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=59\nPages: 59\nexperiences, or historical anecdotes of alchemical processes to demonstrate their\nphysical reality. Instead, he turned to philosophical and theological constructs to\ndemonstrate that alchemy involved real, demonstrable processes. In other words,\nFludd\u2019s argument for alchemy\u2019s physical reality was based upon intellectual and\nspiritual beliefs. As a conforming member of the Church of England, a Christian\nNeoplatonist, and a member, and eventually an officer, of the College of Physicians, spirituality was as real for Fludd as any physical experience he witnessed or\nconducted.4 Spiritual as well as occult forces would ultimately effect change in this\nworld. In this regard he was as much a part of the religious culture of the Church\nof England as he was of the medical and philosophical community in the early\ndecades of seventeenth-century England.\nIndeed, as far as his religious sensibilities were concerned, Fludd was quite]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=89\nPages: 89,90\nthe Bearsted parish he immodestly requested a monument modeled after William\nCamden\u2019s in Westminster Abbey, and that the inscription record his seven largest\npublications. Although he had no heirs, he had a large extended family, and part\nof his fortune was set aside to pay for their mourning clothes and their journey\nto attend his burial.109 Fludd\u2019s life, notable for its public debates, was brought to a\nclose with a public flourish.\nChristianity based on scripture and commentary, or on scripture alone, had\nfailed to achieve religious unity. Fludd died believing that unity would be accomplished only when Christianity became more deeply integrated with natural\nphilosophy. He thought that it was possible to achieve intellectual certainty about\nmatters of faith, and that the revelation of this elusive goal would include the occult and, in his mind at least, divine tradition of alchemy.\n3\nFrancis Bacon, Alchemy, and the Great Redemption]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82,83\nthe sonne springing from the father by a divine emanation\u201d (18r). Unsurprisingly,\nFludd also correlated this discussion with the doctrine of the Trinity: \u201cWe se that\nAleph signifyeth both Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and therfore\nalso it is their trinity in perfection, for .3. seemeth to retourne from the binary\nconfusion into the unity, from whence it came, and therfore .3. is the root of the\nprogression of all formall perfection: it is the numerus numerans or number from\nwhich all numeration isheweth\u201d (27r).\n68\nAlchemical Belief\nAlthough Fludd did not mention scripture in this passage, its intention was\nfundamentally Christian; it was a classical, numerological, and cabalistic demonstration of the unity of knowledge. In Plato\u2019s Timaeus the primary form was\nmeasured in a number divisible by three, which, according to Fludd, was the most\nperfect number; confusion or chaos was represented by the number two.93 He]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=79\nPages: 79\nand contained the teachings of Christ. Fludd and other alchemists were interested\nin Cabala because of its esoteric and magical possibilities. Robert Bostocke wrote\nthat \u201cthe secrets of Nature, whose study & use doth flowe out of the Fountaines\nof Nature, and is collected out of the mathematicall and supernaturall precepts,\nthe exercise whereof is Mechanicall, and to be accomplished with labor, is part\nof Cabala, and is called by auncient name, Ars sacra, or magna, & sacra scientia,\nor Chymia, or Chemeia, or Alchimia.\u201d80 The sixteenth-century natural philosophers Giovanni Pantheus and John Dee attempted to integrate Cabala into their\nalchemical work. Pantheus\u2019s Voarchadumia contra alchimiam of 1559 and Dee\u2019s\nMonas Hieroglyphica of 1564 demonstrate their efforts to use Cabala to read the\nBook of Nature.81 According to Harkness, Dee integrated Cabala with his natural\nphilosophy when angels revealed to him the \u201ctrue cabala of nature.\u201d She writes]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=79\nPages: 79\nphilosophy when angels revealed to him the \u201ctrue cabala of nature.\u201d She writes\nthat \u201cthe cabala of nature enabled Dee to have both wisdom (a revealed gift) and\nknowledge (an acquired understanding of the complexities of the created world).\nThis mixture of wisdom and knowledge, of revelation and natural philosophy,\nlie at the heart of the cabala of nature.\u201d82 Although he wrote extensively on angels\u2014rather than converse with them, as Dee had\u2014Fludd turned to alchemy to\nintegrate Cabala with his natural philosophy.\nCabala contained messianic and apocalyptic elements in addition to revelation. Cabalists called God En Soph, the infinite. Because God is infinite, he cannot\nbe the direct creator of the world because any creation proceeding directly from\nhim would have to be boundless and perfect, and the universe was clearly neither.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=65\nPages: 65\nprofound division between Scot and Fludd. Scot advocated divorcing the search\nfor physical principles from biblical exegesis, while Fludd believed that scriptural\nstudy, spirituality, and natural philosophy must be completely integrated.\nThere were some principles, however, on which Scot and Fludd could agree.\nScot said that there was a light that was given to \u201ccleere bodies\u201d that began with\ncreation itself and was in fact the soul of the earth:\nThis light was incorporat in the sunne, whose vertue and essence cherisheth\nthe essence of every creature: but the full knowledge of the tillage of light,\nariseth from the true notice of the first and last end of things: as man was\ncreated of pure earth, coagulat by pure ayre: so his last end is to shine as the\nsunne. There bee spirituall, intellectuall and sensible perfections of light;\nthe first is that inaccessible light which seeth all things, but is comprehended]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=59\nPages: 59\northodox beliefs, most significantly the Trinity. In addition, Fludd boasted in the\n\u201cDeclaratio\u201d \u201cthat men of letters . . . and the learned from every profession, both\nPapist and Lutheran as well as Calvinist, praised far beyond my merits this volume of mine and seem to approve of my works unanimously.\u201d6 Such breadth of\nacceptance suggests not only unusually open-minded seventeenth-century readers but, more significantly, a lack of \u201creligious innovation\u201d of any kind.\nFludd\u2019s religious sensibility and spirituality have been recognized in several\nprevious studies. Years ago, Allen G. Debus recognized it in Fludd when he noted\nthat Fludd turned to God\u2019s scriptural revelation before he turned to nature, God\u2019s\nbook of creation.7 Later, when he commented on Fludd\u2019s approach to mathematics, Debus said that although Fludd insisted that mathematics was an essential\ntool to study the universe, a mathematician should have higher goals in mind. A]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=80\nPages: 80,81\nintended to supplement orthodox belief rather than replace it. His goal was to\nbring natural philosophy and Christianity into greater harmony. What Allison\nCoudert said of Knorr van Rosenroth and F. M. van Helmont was also true of\nFludd: \u201cThus the Kabbalah unlocks the secrets of the two great books God had\ngiven man, the book of Scripture and the Book of Nature, since both books\u2014the\nfirst dealing with the upper world and the second with the lower\u2014are intimately\nlinked. This great truth leads to another, namely, that the perceived gap between\nthe material and spiritual realms, or matter and spirit, is non-existent. Matter and\nspirit are simply different ends of a single continuum.\u201d86\n66\nAlchemical Belief\nFludd\u2019s first task was to establish the inherent agreement between the Bible,\nAugustine, and Aristotle. Biblical evidence made clear that air, fire, earth, and\nwater were all present at creation, but he believed that the biblical, extrabiblical,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=88\nPages: 88,87\ndivided Christendom. Robert Fludd was part of a community of alchemists who\nsaw the solution in the irenic, healing quality of alchemy. Indeed, irenicism was\none of the unlikely progenies of the Renaissance and Reformation. At least a few\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 73\nindividuals in the sixteenth century believed that religious unity was unequivocally valuable.108 Fludd\u2019s vigorous faith was directed toward using his knowledge\nof scripture and occult wisdom to find unity in a divided world.\nThe express goal of Fludd\u2019s natural philosophy was a deeper understanding of\nGod. He clung to Paracelsian principles because he believed that their Christian\ncredentials were impeccable and yet supple enough that he could incorporate new\nideas into his preconceived epistemology. His interests were as broad as those of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82\nunto imperfection which is duality and from thence by death and putrefaction\nwe must passe unto trinity which uniteth us againe, after the example of divinity, unto unity from whence we came\u201d (21v). This statement was swarming with\nalchemical language: perfection and imperfection, unity, duality, and trinity\u2014all\nwere terms that held rich alchemical as well as theological significance. Moreover,\naleph, the first character in the Hebrew alphabet, possessed enormous significance for Fludd. In conjunction with the Timaeus (Plato\u2019s cosmological dialogue),\naleph brought the Hebraic and classical traditions in line with Christianity.\nFor Fludd, aleph signified not simply humanity but matter itself. He said that\ncabalists transformed the dark aleph into a light aleph. The theological significance of this remark becomes clearer in his observation that \u201cAleph is converted]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=234\nPages: 234\nof Digby: on bodies, fundamental properties\nof, 112; Catholicism underlying, 101, 102,\n125; Catholic theology as standard for, 111;\ndevelopment of, 107; proof of theological\ntruths through, 110, 112, 114, 116, 119\u201321,\n125; and resurrection as natural process,\n120\u201321, 122; and role of God, 119\u201320, 185 n.\n67; and soul, elevation of, 116\nharmony with Christianity, as goal of Fludd,\n65, 74\nnature\nCabala as avenue to power over, 64\nas guide for philosophy, 144\u201345\nharmonization of man with, as goal of\nalchemy, 158\nphilosophers\u2019 stone as key to understanding,\n155\nredemption of: Bacon on, 83, 92, 97\u201398; as\ngoal of alchemy, 2\u20133, 55\u201356, 124, 146, 150,\n157\u201358; Tymme on, 18, 35, 38\nsevering of ties with, after original sin, 63\nstudy of: as rational and sacred activity, 88;\nas study of God, 36, 45, 46, 55\u201356\nsuffusion by the divine: Bacon on, 95; as\ncommon alchemical belief, 24; Digby on,\n122; Fludd on, 59\u201360; Tymme on, 24\u201325;\nUssher on, 70\nTrinity as ordering principle in, 37, 57\u201358, 67]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=57\nPages: 57,58\nwere more significant virtues: humility, piety, devotion. Whether it was through\nhumility and contrition, parish voices lifted in common prayer, or an alchemical transformation, all of his studies and concerns focused on achieving a united\nChristian flock. As one of its appointed shepherds, Tymme must have departed\nhis earthly life with more anxiety and concern than satisfaction and hope for its\nfuture. The events of the years following his death would confirm his worst fears.\n2\nRobert Fludd, Natural Theology,\nand the Alchemical Debate of 1623\nIn 1623 Robert Fludd was once again forced to unsheathe his polemical sword.\nSince 1617, this diminutive, Oxford-educated gentleman from Kent had spent\nmuch of his time wielding his verbal broadsword against an array of intellectual\nopponents. The German astronomer and natural philosopher Johannes Kepler\nand the French mechanical philosophers Marin Mersenne and Pierre Gassendi]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=58\nPages: 58,59\nThe result was a ten-thousand-word manuscript, \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d\nthat defended the material aspects of alchemy.2 Fludd did not deny\u2014and indeed\neven encouraged\u2014the metaphysical and spiritual elements of alchemy, but he argued that these should not overshadow the very real, very tangible qualities of\nthe art. Scot\u2019s advocacy of spirituality without physical transformation was pernicious to Fludd.3 For Fludd, alchemy had to be both metaphysical and physical; it\nwas God\u2019s work on earth, and spirituality alone was not enough for the faithful.\nChristians had a sacred responsibility to achieve God\u2019s will on earth, and Fludd\nbelieved that alchemy was one of the most sacred responsibilities God ever gave\nto humanity.\n44\nAlchemical Belief\nHowever, in \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow\u201d we confront the essential paradox of\nChristianity. Fludd did not turn to recipes, testimonies of past success, personal\nexperiences, or historical anecdotes of alchemical processes to demonstrate their]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=69\nPages: 69,70\nFludd\u2019s mind, truly divine church. He had intimated these positions in numerous\nearlier writings, but Scot\u2019s address led him to write his most succinct and focused\nstatement of how natural theology could resolve the problem of religious dissent.\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 55\nAlchemy, Certainty, and Faith\nFludd began his assault by attacking Scot\u2019s notion that he was writing his text\nout of love for the religious community, protecting it from the charlatans who\npracticed alchemy. He responded vigorously by pointing out that the failure of illegitimate practitioners did not discredit the practice itself. The fact remained that\nnot just anyone was worthy of practicing alchemy, \u201cbecause she will not daygne\nto reveale her self but unto very few, and thos must prove worthy of her graces\nand favours.\u201d He never dignified Scot by referring to him by name, calling him]"]}

{"result":["[Summary from page 88 to page 107 out of a total of 238:\nPages 88:\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 73\nindividuals in the sixteenth century believed that religious unity was unequivocally valuable.108 Fludd\u2019s vigorous faith was directed toward using his knowledge\nof scripture and occult wisdom to find unity in a divided world.\nThe express goal of Fludd\u2019s natural philosophy was a deeper understanding of\nGod. He clung to Paracelsian principles because he believed that their Christian\ncredentials were impeccable and yet supple enough that he could incorporate new\nideas into his preconceived epistemology. His interests were as broad as those of\nany of his predecessors or contemporaries (with the possible exception of the Elizabethan mathematician and magus John Dee), but the sheer breadth of his work\nhas allowed us to lose sight of the central issues that preoccupied him. Knowledge of theology and philosophy was only the first element of the extraordinarily\ncomplex intellectual milieu in which Fludd and his colleagues wrote. Fludd\u2019s\nrhetoric was significant not because he used the Bible to support his arguments\nbut because he was willing to depart from it. He integrated Cabala, numerology,\nand musicology as well as alchemy into his work. Christianity, however, was the\nforce that propelled him through his medical and natural philosophical endeavors and, because of its deep affinity with his religious beliefs, toward alchemy in\nparticular. It did not matter to him that he had \u201cproved\u201d the physical reality of\nalchemy through an argument based upon theological, philosophical, and occult\narguments\u2014not physical ones\u2014he believed in alchemy\u2019s physical reality, and that\nwas all that mattered. Fludd did not make such a distinction, of course; for him,\nthe physical and the spiritual were as mysteriously inseparable as the elements of\nthe Trinity.\nAlmost as mysterious as the Trinity is the influence of \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow.\u201d Curiously, folio 44v to the end of the manuscript, folio 57v, is in another\nhand, clearly a scribal copy. What happened to the conclusion of the manuscript\nthat Elias Ashmole was convinced Fludd himself had written? Parts of the manuscript are very worn, even as it is so well protected by the Bodleian Library. Was\nthe conclusion so worn that a scribal copy was necessary to replace the original?\nThough we will never know the answer to that question, Lauren Kassell\u2019s work\non alchemical manuscripts in early modern England suggests that we are safe in\nassuming that Fludd\u2019s well-worn manuscript circulated among those sympathetic\nto its message at the very least, sustaining much the same message that Thomas\nTymme had conveyed a few years before: that alchemy could prove theological\ndoctrine.\nFludd remained in London for the rest of his life and died in his home on\nSeptember 8, 1637. He never married, maintaining throughout his life that it was\nbest that a man remain celibate and chaste. His will directed his executors to have\nthree pounds sterling distributed to the poor of his parish, Saint Katherine Coleman in London. He also asked that his body be brought back to his childhood\n\nPages 89:\n74\nAlchemical Belief\nhome and buried in the churchyard of the Bearsted parish church in Kent. For\nthe Bearsted parish he immodestly requested a monument modeled after William\nCamden\u2019s in Westminster Abbey, and that the inscription record his seven largest\npublications. Although he had no heirs, he had a large extended family, and part\nof his fortune was set aside to pay for their mourning clothes and their journey\nto attend his burial.109 Fludd\u2019s life, notable for its public debates, was brought to a\nclose with a public flourish.\nChristianity based on scripture and commentary, or on scripture alone, had\nfailed to achieve religious unity. Fludd died believing that unity would be accomplished only when Christianity became more deeply integrated with natural\nphilosophy. He thought that it was possible to achieve intellectual certainty about\nmatters of faith, and that the revelation of this elusive goal would include the occult and, in his mind at least, divine tradition of alchemy.\n\nPages 90:\n3\nFrancis Bacon, Alchemy, and the Great Redemption\nHis contributions to governing, rhetoric, and science aside, Francis Bacon was\ntrained to be a lawyer, and although he never practiced law, he used his legal\nexpertise and experience to sniff out all manner of frauds and pretenders: astrologers, magicians, witches, necromancers\u2014virtually all practitioners of the\noccult.1 Of these offenders, alchemists were the most egregious transgressors of\nthe vigorous methods he advocated. In a manuscript written in 1603 and titled\n\u201cThe Masculine Birth of Time,\u201d he wrote, \u201cBut there on the other side I see the\nAlchemists arrayed, Paracelsus among them conspicuous for his braggart air. His\npresumption calls for a particular reproof. I have been taking to task people who\npeddle falsehoods; your stock in trade is portents. In Meteorology, O you rival of\nEpicurus, what drunken oracles do you not pour forth!\u201d He cross-examined and\nattacked the posturing defendants: \u201cYou, Paracelsus, adopted son of the family of\nasses, owe [Peter Severinus] a heavy debt. He took over your brayings and by the\ntuneful modulations and pleasant inflexions of his voice made sweet harmony of\nthem, transforming your detestable falsehoods into delectable fables.\u201d2\nIn his Novum Organum of 1620, Bacon\u2019s most complete statement on natural\nphilosophy, he wrote that \u201cchemists out of a few experiments of the furnace have\nbuilt up a fantastic philosophy framed with reference to a few things.\u201d That alchemists had constructed complete, systematic philosophies based on their limited\nobservations angered Bacon, and he contemptuously called those who committed this error \u201cempiricists.\u201d Those who accepted such experimental results, he\ncharged, had been \u201cinfected\u201d by their imaginations, and even though the results\nmay seem probable or even certain, to anyone else they seemed \u201cincredible and\nvain,\u201d and \u201cthere is a notable instance [of this] in the alchemists and their dogmas.\u201d3 Finally, he said, if a natural philosopher considers\nthose arts which are deemed curious rather than safe, and look more closely\ninto the works of the Alchemists or the Magicians, he will be in doubt\n\nPages 91:\n76\nAlchemical Belief\nperhaps whether he ought rather to laugh over them or to weep. For the\nAlchemist nurses eternal hope, and when the thing fails, lays the blame\nupon some error of his own; fearing either that he has not sufficiently understood the words of his art or of his authors (whereupon he turns to auricular whispers), or else that in his manipulations he has made some slip\nof a scruple in weight or a moment of time (whereupon he repeats his trials\nto infinity).4\nBacon was prosecutor, judge, and jury in the court of natural philosophy, trying and condemning alchemists for committing egregious errors of method and\ndesign. He publicly exposed their fraudulent assumptions, demonstrated the\npoverty of their arguments, pointed out the flaws in their methods, and scoffed\nat their alleged authorities. Alchemy, lacking proven, much less predictable or\norderly, methods that would provide reliable results, withered under Bacon\u2019s blistering prosecution.\nAnd yet, as with so many aspects of Bacon\u2019s thought, his attitude toward alchemy and the occult was not as clear as it might seem. In 1594, when he was\na youthful adviser to the court of Elizabeth I, Bacon was invited by a group of\nprinces, nobles, and courtiers to a Christmas celebration at Gray\u2019s Inn. In a court\nmasque he counseled that the monarch ought to direct the state toward a conquest of nature. He advised the court to begin \u201csearching out, inventing and discovering of all whatsoever is hid in secret to the World, that your Excellency be\nnot as a Lamp that shineth to others, and yet seeth not it self; but as the Eye of the\nWorld, that both carrieth and useth Light.\u201d The rising courtier thought that this\ntask could be accomplished through what he called \u201cfour principal Works and\nMonuments of your self.\u201d The first monument would consist of a library of books\nand manuscripts from all regions and in all languages, the second of a garden,\nso that Elizabeth\u2019s court would have \u201ca Model of Universal Nature made private.\u201d\nThird, a cabinet was required, one that would hold not only the art and accomplishments that individuals had made but also artifacts from nature. Finally, the\nfourth monument was to be \u201ca Still-house so furnished with Mills, Instruments,\nFurnaces, and Vessels, as may be a Palace fit for a Philosopher\u2019s Stone. Thus when\nyour Excellency shall have added depth to Knowledge to the fineness of Spirits,\nand greatness of your Power, then indeed shall you lay a Trismegistus.\u201d5\nBacon\u2019s references to alchemical equipment\u2014mills, instruments, furnaces, and\nvessels\u2014and to the philosophers\u2019 stone and the mysterious and reputed Egyptian\nalchemist Hermes Trismegistus are worth considering for a moment. The philosophers\u2019 stone was of course the material that was believed to transmute lead\ninto gold, heal injured bodies, restore political stability, and renew and redeem\nthe natural world and society itself. These references alone may not be compelling\n\nPages 92:\nF r a n c i s Bac on , A l c h e m y, a n d t h e G reat Redemp tion \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 77\nevidence of his sympathetic attitude toward alchemy and the occult, but neither\nshould they be dismissed. These four \u201cWorks and Monuments\u201d were his foundation for a whole new approach and attitude toward knowledge, and it is unlikely\nthat he would use a metaphor for one of his monuments that represented a tradition he rejected unequivocally.6\nHowever, this was not Bacon\u2019s only ambiguous reference to alchemy. In the\nNovum Organum, immediately after criticizing alchemists in the passage quoted\nabove, he wrote, \u201cNot but that Alchemists have made a good many discoveries,\nand presented men with useful inventions. But their case may be well compared\nto the fable of the old man, who bequeathed to his sons gold buried in a vineyard,\npretending not to know the exact spot; whereupon the sons applied themselves\ndiligently to the digging of the vineyard, and though no gold was found there, yet\nthe vintage by that digging was made more plentiful.\u201d7 Even when he appeared to\nbe condemning alchemy, he could equivocate: \u201cThe study of nature with a view\nto works [i.e., ends],\u201d he observed, \u201cis engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all (as things now\nare) with slight endeavour and scanty success\u201d (emphasis added).8 Although he\nwas clearly criticizing alchemists and magicians, the fact that he grouped them\ntogether with practitioners of substantial, respectable disciplines suggests that his\napproach to alchemy was not as neat and tidy as it may appear.\nWhile some scholars have not appreciated the complexity with which Bacon\nviewed the alchemical tradition, historians of science have looked at his comments\non alchemy quite carefully and have identified his debts to alchemical principles\nand traditions.9 However, what has not been made clear is why Bacon chose to veil\nhis vision of alchemy. Why would he direct his frustration so explicitly at a tradition to which he was indebted, to a practice in which he even at times engaged?\nWhy would he appear to reject it? Why did he incorporate aspects of alchemy into\nhis natural philosophy and yet write of it at times so disparagingly? Why, even\nin the midst of his criticisms of alchemy, was he ultimately reluctant to discard\nthe ancient pursuit from his natural philosophy? Why would someone with such\nformidable rhetorical skills express himself on this issue so ambiguously?\nIn his elegant biography of Bacon, Perez Zagorin may begin to provide an\nanswer.\nFrancis Bacon lived two separate but interconnected lives. One was the\nmeditative, reserved life of a philosopher, scientific inquirer, and writer\nof genius, a thinker of soaring ambition and vast range whose project for\nthe reconstruction of philosophy contained a new vision of science and\nits place in society. The other was the troubled, insecure life of a courtier,\nprofessional lawyer, politician, royal servant, adviser, and minister to two\n\nPages 93:\n78\nAlchemical Belief\nsovereigns, Elizabeth I and James I, who from early youth to old age never\nceased his quest for high position and the favor of the great. It was the first\nof these two lives that brought Bacon the lasting fame for which he strove,\nand established his claim to the permanent interest of posterity. The second,\nhowever, absorbed a large part of his time and energy, pitting him against\nrivals in a continual competition for office and power, diverting him from\npursuing some of his most cherished intellectual goals, and forcing him to\nleave his main philosophical enterprise fragmentary and incomplete.10\nEvents in his life as well as his personal characteristics probably contributed to the\nman Bacon would become. When he first appeared in the court of Elizabeth, it\nmust have seemed that his career would have no limits. Born in 1561 to Sir Nicholas Bacon, a lawyer, statesman, privy councilor, and Lord Keeper of the Great\nSeal, the highest judge in England, Bacon\u2019s early days were most promising. Elizabeth was quite impressed with the young man\u2019s intellectual prowess. He began his\nlaw studies at Cambridge at the usual age of twelve, and by 1576 was admitted to\nGray\u2019s Inn.\nHowever, the fragility of a sixteenth-century political career was never so poignantly evident as when Nicholas died in 1579 without a will. Francis was serving\nin a diplomatic legation in France at the time, and he returned to England immediately. Adrift in Elizabeth\u2019s court without independent means, Bacon was forced\nto earn his living as a lawyer, although as early as 1580 he tried\u2014and failed\u2014to\nreceive patronage through his uncle Lord Burghley, the favored counselor to Elizabeth. In 1581 he was elected to the House of Commons for Bosinney, a Cornish\nborough, where he remained for all but one of the parliaments in the reigns of\nElizabeth and James.\nIt was during the parliament of 1593 when Bacon made perhaps the most impolitic move of his career: He suggested that Elizabeth\u2019s request for taxes to fund\nthe war against Spain be spread over six rather than the requested three years. As\nreasonable as this position may have been, Elizabeth was angered and never fully\nforgave him. Although he asked for Burghley\u2019s intercession, Bacon never received\nmore than tidbits of royal patronage thereafter. He never allowed his conscience\nto supersede his ambition again. He spent the rest of his life bowing and scraping for preferment. It could not have been pleasant. His divided ambition to be a\ncourtier and a scholar was surely one reason why understanding the motives of\nhis life remains so elusive.11\nUnderstanding how and why Bacon approached the alchemical tradition as\nhe did helps us to comprehend his methodologies and, more fundamentally,\nhis view of how knowledge was gained and revealed. As profound as his influence was on modernity, one purpose of this study is to place his ideas within the\n\nPages 94:\nF r a n c i s Bac on , A l c h e m y, a n d t h e G reat Redemp tion \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 79\ncontext of early modern culture and society. At least two factors\u2014his reverent\napproach to all knowledge, both sacred and profane, and his politic approach\nto expressing his views\u2014will help us to understand why he expressed his views\ntoward alchemy so elusively. Identifying and clarifying his attitude toward alchemy will not only better locate his position on the map of seventeenth-century\nintellectual history but will highlight the peak of the alchemical tradition in late\nsixteenth- and early seventeenth-century political culture. Thus our question:\nHow does alchemy help us to understand the place of reverence and revelation\nin Bacon\u2019s thought? Understanding his spirituality, intellectual philosophy, and\npolitical strategy will provide a clearer, more historically grounded understanding of Francis Bacon.\nAlchemical Irreverence and the Sacred Nature of Knowledge\nThe number of Bacon\u2019s writings devoted exclusively to religious issues is small,\nand most of them were published posthumously by his chaplain and biographer,\nDr. William Rawley. His religious writings are also some of his earliest, composed\nmostly in the 1580s and 1590s, after he had returned from serving as attach\u00e9 in the\nEnglish embassy in Paris. Yet we err if we consider Bacon\u2019s religious expressions\nsolely in terms of his direct statements. Although he wrote very few explicitly\ntheological treatises, this study suggests that he approached virtually all aspects\nof life, from governing a state to scholarly study, with religious reverence, and\nthereby broadened the boundaries of the religious culture in England.12\nBacon\u2019s utopia New Atlantis (1627) depicts a mythical island, Bensalem, that is\ndiscovered by the crew of a European ship after they are lost in the Pacific Ocean.\nThe sailors are conducted into Bensalem\u2019s House of Strangers, led by a Christian\npriest. We learn that Bensalem was founded by the \u201cFinger\u201d of God in the earliest days of the church, \u201ctwenty years after the ascension of our Saviour.\u201d13 Bacon\u2019s\nbelief in the sacred nature of knowledge was expressed in the name he gave to\nthe center of learning in New Atlantis, \u201cSolomon\u2019s House.\u201d In another treatise,\nThe Advancement of Learning, Bacon called Christian charity a virtue that comprehended all virtues.14 Even the religious significance of his reference to Hermes\nin the 1594 Christmas masque at Gray\u2019s Inn is notable. Hermes Trismegistus was\nbelieved to have been a contemporary of Moses, a man who lived in an era when\nGod walked more closely with humanity and magic was a prominent aspect of the\nancient Egyptian and Hebrew societies.15\nThe spiritual and prophetic nature of Bacon\u2019s work has also been noted by\nCharles Whitney, who argues that Bacon\u2019s work comprised a delicate balance\nbetween reform and revolution. In noting the puzzling character of the word\n\nPages 95:\n80\nAlchemical Belief\n\u201cinstauration\u201d in Bacon\u2019s Instauratio Magna, or The Great Instauration (1620),\nWhitney points out that in the seventeenth century the word had the dual meaning of both restoration and a new beginning. \u201cInstauratio\u201d is usually translated\nsimply instauration, meaning a restoration of something lost, but Whitney believes this is misleadingly narrow in Bacon\u2019s case.16 In his dedication to James I,\nBacon wrote, \u201cI may yet perhaps, through the kindling of this new light in the\ndarkness of philosophy, be the means of making this age famous to posterity; and\nsurely to the times of the wisest and most learned of kings belongs of right the\nregeneration and restoration of the sciences.\u201d17 Bacon\u2019s natural philosophy was\ndriven by the rich meaning he associated with instauration: regeneration, restoration, and redemption. For theological, philosophical, and even political reasons,\nhe believed in individuals\u2019 capacity for redemption. One of the common themes\nin his writings was his belief that individuals could restore to the present what had\nbeen lost in the past. He turned the tables on previous philosophies, calling his\ngeneration ancient and the writings of antiquity the fruit of a youthful humanity.18\nIt was his and succeeding generations\u2019 responsibility to restore the perfection and\nbeauty of the past so that humanity might be redeemed in the sight of God, and\nhe attempted to use his position at court to achieve this goal.19\nWe see this delicate balance between prophetic fulfillment of the past and fundamental change for the future crystallized in Bacon\u2019s attitude toward alchemy.\nFor as much as he wanted to level and clear away alchemy\u2019s old mystical and spiritual associations, he still believed that the possibility of transmutation remained\nviable. His chief concern was probably that alchemical experiments ought to be\nconsistently replicable, provided that the correct procedures were followed. In his\nNovum Organum he outlined the process by which \u201cbodies,\u201d presumably metals,\ncould be transformed. He used none of the divine invocations common to earlier\nalchemists; instead, he provided an almost workmanlike description. He began\nby describing gold as \u201cyellow in colour, heavy up to a certain weight; malleable or\nductile to a certain degree of extension; it is not volatile, and loses none of its substance by the action of fire; it turns into a liquid with a certain degree of fluidity.\u201d20\nBeginning the alchemical process with accurate descriptions of the properties of\nthe metals in question was crucial to a successful transformation. Understanding\nthe qualities of gold allowed one to transform another metal into gold.\nThis transformation, however, was only worth pursuing, in Bacon\u2019s view, if\none disregarded the ancient associations that Paracelsians and mystical magi held\nso dear. Alchemy, like all intellectual pursuits, had to be subjected to a rigorous\nmethodology. He may have deplored alchemists, but he never rejected or tried\nthoroughly to discredit the practice of alchemy itself. Bacon\u2019s enemy was not the\npractice but its misguided practitioners, and the most misguided of all were the\nParacelsians.\n\nPages 96:\nF r a n c i s Bac on , A l c h e m y, a n d t h e Great Redemp tion \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 81\nAlthough both Tymme and Fludd saw clear relationships between Christianity and Paracelsianism, Bacon, far from seeing Paracelsian alchemy as pious, believed that the mystical and imaginative qualities of the tradition were dubious\nand, worse, irreverent. He thus made explicit and implicit references to Paracelsus\nor Paracelsians in his attacks on alchemy (\u201cYou, Paracelsus, adopted son of the\nfamily of asses\u201d) or accused alchemists of having been \u201cinfected\u201d with their imagination. The uncertainty inherent in the tradition and their resilient arrogance\nangered him further. However, it was not merely the inappropriate and irreverent\naspects of Paracelsianism that annoyed Bacon. The reforms he proposed were not\nonly intended to redeem politics and government but had virtually cosmic implications, reaching back to the Fall itself. His conception of the Fall illuminates the\nreasons for his hostility to the traditional methods of alchemy.\nAdam and Eve\u2019s fall from grace presented a particularly difficult philosophical problem for Bacon. They had eaten the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, fruit\nexpressly forbidden to them by God. If the search for knowledge was the sin that\nstained the fabric of humanity since the beginning of time, how could he reconcile his belief that knowledge and its pursuit needed to be completely reformed?\nHe responded to this problem by noting that Adam and Eve\u2019s sin was not their\ndesire for knowledge but their pursuit of it without God\u2019s permission, and indeed\nagainst his express command. In his \u201cConfession of Faith,\u201d written sometime in\nthe 1590s, he explained more precisely the sin of Adam and Eve. He believed that\nAdam and Eve had been created innocent and given free will. Adam\u2019s sin lay in\nhis desire \u201cto depend no more upon God\u2019s will revealed, but upon himself and his\nown light, as a God; than the which there could not be a sin more opposite to the\nwhole law of God.\u201d21\nEven as he wrote these lines, however, Bacon was working on his first major\nwork, The Advancement of Learning, published in 1605, in which he addressed\nthe questions raised by the Fall at length. Adam had already been endowed with\nknowledge of the natural world. That he could name the animals according to\ntheir properties was clear evidence that God did not condemn humanity for being\nlearned. The sin of humanity resided in Adam\u2019s \u201cproud knowledge of good and\nevil, with an intent in man to give law unto himself and to depend no more upon\nGod\u2019s commandments, which was the form of temptation.\u201d22 Humanity\u2019s greatest\nsin was not to seek knowledge but to do so for its own ends, without recognizing\nthat all knowledge began and ended with God. Knowledge would be revealed to\nAdam as God saw fit.\nBacon developed this insight further in Valerius Terminus (1603). The essay\nbegins with a discussion of how Lucifer fell because he aspired to be higher than\nGod: \u201cThe angel of light that was, when he presumed before his fall, said within\nhimself, I will ascend and be like unto the Highest; not God, but the highest . . .\n\nPages 97:\n82\nAlchemical Belief\ntherefore his climbing or ascension was turned into a throwing down or precipitation.\u201d He compared Adam\u2019s fall to Lucifer\u2019s: \u201cbut again, being a spirit newly inclosed in a body of earth, he was fittest to be allured with appetite of light and\nliberty of knowledge; therefore this approaching and intruding into God\u2019s secrets\nand mysteries was rewarded with a further removing and estranging from God\u2019s\npresence.\u201d23 The prideful search for knowledge without God\u2019s sanction was the\ncause of sin both in heaven and on earth.\nYet by 1620 Bacon\u2019s perception of the Fall had changed slightly. The Novum Organum closes with words of hope for a humanity suffering from Adam and Eve\u2019s\ndecision: \u201cFor man by the fall fell at the same time from his state of innocency and\nfrom his dominion over creation. Both of these losses however can even in this\nlife be repaired: the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and sciences.\u201d24\nBefore Adam\u2019s descendents could recover their \u201cdominion over creation,\u201d they\nhad to be restored to innocence. Indeed, recovering the purity, the innocence, the\ndependence of humanity on God appears to presuppose human dominion over\nnature\u2014Bacon had already said as much in his Valerius Terminus, when he gave\nprimacy to belief over knowledge: \u201cTherefore attend his will as himself openeth\nit, and give unto faith that which unto faith belongeth; for more worthy it is to\nbelieve than to know, considering that in knowledge (as we now are capable of it)\nthe mind suffereth from inferior natures; but in all belief it suffereth from a spirit\nwhich it holdeth superior and more authorised than itself \u201d (emphasis added). Indeed, he reiterated that Adam\u2019s \u201coriginal temptation\u201d lay in his unwillingness \u201cnot\nto depend upon the revelation of his [God\u2019s] will.\u201d25\nOnly then was Bacon in a position to consider the role of knowledge within a\nhuman compass. He said that we must remember that knowledge must be subject\nonly to that which God granted: \u201cthe benefit and relief of the state and society of\nman; for otherwise all manner of knowledge becometh malign and serpentine.\u201d\nYet even here he continued his cautionary advice, noting that in Paul\u2019s first letter\nto the Corinthians, \u201cas the Scripture saith excellently, knowledge bloweth up, but\ncharity buildeth up.\u201d26 He then added his gloss to a later passage in Corinthians:\n\u201cAnd again the same author doth notably disavow both power and knowledge\nsuch as is not dedicated to goodness or love, for saith he, If I have faith so as I\ncould remove mountains, (there is power active,) if I render my body to the fire,\n(there is power passive,) if I speak with the tongues of men and angels, (there is\nknowledge, for language is but the conveyance of knowledge,) all were nothing.\u201d27\nPower and knowledge would have to be harnessed for the good of humanity, and\nonly before knowledge was gained appropriately. He echoed yet another New Testament passage when he observed \u201cthat it is no less true in this human kingdom\nof knowledge than in God\u2019s kingdom of heaven, that no man shall enter into it\nexcept he become first as a little child.\u201d\n\nPages 98:\nF r a n c i s Bac on , A l c h e m y, a n d t h e G reat Redemp tion \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 83\nThe new methods that Bacon advocated here were the basis of a terrestrial\nredemption for humanity. Christ had redeemed individuals\u2019 souls, but Bacon was\noffering\u2014quite immodestly\u2014redemption for their earthly lives. God\u2019s punishment for the sin committed in Eden was not eternal, but salvation would occur\nonly when individuals approached God with humility, charity, and innocence\u2014\nanything less was doomed to failure. The deeply religious nature of his work\nsuggests that God\u2019s grace presupposed the reason and learning necessary for redeeming a fallen world.28\nThis redemption, like the spiritual one, would not come easily but would be the\nresult of much labor. In the final lines of the Novum Organum Bacon promised\nthat success in this endeavor would result only with great difficulty: \u201cFor creation\nwas not by the curse made altogether and for ever a rebel, but in virtue of that\ncharter \u2018In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,\u2019 it is now by various labours\n(not certainly by disputations or idle magical ceremonies, but by various labours)\nat length and in some measure subdued to the supplying of man with bread; that\nis, to the uses of human life.\u201d29 Steven Matthews concludes that Bacon\u2019s biblical\nreference \u201cIn the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread\u201d (Gen. 3:19), commonly\nread as a curse, was, for Bacon, \u201cnot only a promise, but also a prophecy of human\nrecovery.\u201d30 It was the \u201cidle magical ceremonies\u201d that infuriated him. Alchemists\nhad always insisted that the quest for the philosophers\u2019 stone was extraordinarily\ndifficult. Yet, even allowing for the labor involved, critics saw alchemists\u2019 work as\nsimplistic. The difficulty and labor of achieving his goals were important elements\nin Bacon\u2019s religious belief.\nDespite its adherents\u2019 claims to the contrary, Bacon suspected that most if not\nall alchemists were not only impious but self-serving as well, motivated by the desire for gold. The alchemical tradition was not without controversy, and its claims\nhad been doubted before. Bacon\u2019s ambivalent attitude toward alchemy, therefore,\nwas certainly not unique. Alchemists themselves had sometimes criticized the\ntradition.31\nOne of its more curious critics was Johannes Trithemius (1462\u20131516), a friend\nof the famous occultist Cornelius Agrippa (1485\u20131535), who was sympathetic to\nmany occult practices. Trithemius is even purported to be one of the individuals who trained Paracelsus in the alchemical tradition.32 The seventeenth-century\nalchemist Thomas Vaughan (1622\u20131666), who wrote under the pseudonym \u201cEugenius Philalethes,\u201d cited Trithemius in his alchemical treatise Magia Adamica\n(1650).33 Despite his understanding of the position of alchemists, however, Trithemius had reservations about them. He had witnessed the enormous amount\nof time, effort, and money that religious orders had poured into obtaining the\nphilosophers\u2019 stone, in vain. Trithemius excoriated alchemists, calling them fools\nand disciples of apes, enemies of nature and despisers of heaven. He mocked John\n\nPages 99:\n84\nAlchemical Belief\nof Rupecissa (fl. 1354), saying that he was consumed with studying alchemy and\ndid not devote enough time to useful work (\u201cqui multo tempore Alchimiae deditus, tempus cum labore non satis utiliter consumpsit\u201d).34\nTrithemius had studied natural philosophy; he was knowledgeable about\nmagic and Cabala and apparently was acquainted with alchemical principles and\ncould distinguish them from traditional ones. He was also abbot of the Benedictine monastery at Sponheim, a position to which he was elected at twenty-two\nand held for twenty-three years.35 He saw alchemy as not only trivial but pernicious, a cancer that threatened the well-being of monasteries and religious orders,\nand he attacked it because of the destruction he thought it was doing to the body\nof the church. However, Trithemius\u2019s judgment was motivated by the difficult and\nrisky aspects of the enterprise. Because of his ecclesiastical office, he felt obliged\nto warn others of that risk, but he did not necessarily doubt alchemy\u2019s efficacy.\nOther commentators also expressed reservations, if not hostility, about the\nalchemical process. The Italian chemist Vannoccio Biringuccio (1480\u2013ca. 1539)\nand the German metallurgist Georgius Agricola (1494\u20131555) wrote some of the\nmost widely read treatises on metals in Bacon\u2019s day, and both probably shaped\nBacon\u2019s approach to alchemy.36 Yet they, too, held complicated opinions about the\nalchemical tradition.\nBenjamin Farrington has noted that Sir Thomas Smyth brought Biringuccio\u2019s\nDe La Pirotechnia (1540) to England, and significant portions of it were translated,\nmaking it widely available in Elizabeth\u2019s court.37 Precisely what edition Bacon saw\nor could read, however, remains unclear. Cyril Stanley Smith, in the introduction\nto his collaborative translation of the Pirotechnia, points out that the only contemporary translation of the text that purported to be complete was a French edition\nby Jacques Vincent. However, Smith notes that Vincent\u2019s translation was not a\ngood one, \u201cfull of omission, condensation and misinterpretation.\u201d Although it is\nprobably safe to surmise that Bacon read Italian and read Biringuccio, we do not\nknow whether he read the original Italian version or Vincent\u2019s French translation.\nBiringuccio wrote deftly on alchemy, expressing concerns that Bacon would\nlater echo.38 At first he seemed convinced that alchemy was a fraudulent practice.\n\u201cThe more I look in to this art of [alchemists],\u201d he remarked in the first chapter of Pirotechnia, \u201cso highly praised and so greatly desired by men, the more it\nseems a vain wish and fanciful dream that it is impossible to realize unless someone should find some angelic spirit as patron or should operate through his own\ndivinity.\u201d However, he acknowledged that alchemy had a line of distinguished\nfollowers, notably Hermes Trismegistus, Raymond Lull, Geber, and William of\nOccam. Their opinions, he thought, deserved to be accorded some respect. Still,\nas Bacon would later argue, respect for ancient and medieval scholars and occultists did not confirm the legitimacy of alchemy: \u201cBut it is not in this way that such\n\nPages 100:\nF r a n c i s Bac on , A l c h e m y, a n d t h e G reat Redemp tion \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 85\nmen persuade those who have good judgment that the art of alchemy is true; for\nit is evident that in their desire for riches they become blind with credulity, and\nwhen they seek to persuade the minds of others that this art is true, the fact of\ntheir evident poverty belies them.\u201d39\nBiringuccio disliked alchemy\u2019s simplification of the complexity of nature. \u201cI\nwould like to be told,\u201d he wrote plaintively, \u201chow [alchemists] can receive at will\nthe influence of the heavens, on which are dependent all inferior things on this\nconvex of the world, and also how men ever know by this art how to purify those\nelemental substances or how to proportion necessary quantities one to the other,\nor finally how to carry these substances to perfection as Nature does and make\nmetals of them.\u201d40 Ingrid Rowland has argued that for Biringuccio, the complex\norder of the heavens and the natural world was intrinsically bound up with aesthetics, and that the beauty of the natural world was, in part, its complexity.41 He\nsaw the majesty of God in the myriad details of nature, a vision that Bacon clearly\nappreciated and shared as well.\nYet Biringuccio confessed that he knew little about the practice itself.42 This\nmay have been true, but given that the Catholic Church, in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, was sensitive to even the appearance of heterodoxy, and was\ninclined to view all occult practices as inimical to its goals, even the appearance of\nignorance may have been a protective shield for him to bear.43 More significantly,\ndespite his seeming ignorance of the tradition and the doubts he expressed in\nthe opening chapter of the Pirotechnia, he tried to justify its practice. Alchemists\ncould take only one of two paths, he said, one good, the other evil. The followers\nof the good path called their work \u201cjust, holy and good,\u201d and they called themselves \u201cbut imitators and assistants of Nature.\u201d Although he doubted that such\npractitioners would ever succeed in their goal, he believed that good would result\nfrom their efforts. \u201cIt is surely a fine occupation,\u201d he wrote, \u201csince in addition to\nbeing very useful to human need and convenience, it gives birth every day to new\nand splendid effects such as the extraction of medicinal substances, colors, and\nperfumes, and an infinite number of compositions of things.\u201d44\nThe evil path was taken by charlatans who knowingly practiced alchemy for\ndeceptive purposes. But Biringuccio concluded that it was necessary to understand the nature of metals and other materials and their impact on the chemical process. It was also necessary \u201cto know how to administer the fires, make\nfurnaces, and prepare vessels according to the effects that are sought after.\u201d45 In\nshort, alchemists had to approach their work not with faith and hope but with a\nprecise knowledge of metals, of how to prepare them and how they react with one\nanother.\nBacon was acquainted with Agricola\u2019s De re metallica (1556), which introduced\nprecise mining techniques and technologies that surely appealed to Bacon.46\n\nPages 101:\n86\nAlchemical Belief\nAgricola had also rejected Paracelsian methods of alchemy, but buried inside his\nvast and amply illustrated treatise were commentaries on how to purify gold and\nhow lead could be drawn out of gold and silver. His recipe made exacting demands on its practitioners, at one point calling for amounts as small as half an\nounce (\u201csemunciam\u201d) and at another stage requiring that one-fourth of a container be filled with air. Through the use of rigorous technique and \u201caqua valentes\u201d (a term that probably referred collectively to hydrochloric, nitric, and sulfuric\nacids), he explained, precious metals could be separated from base ones.47 Was\nthis a form of alchemical knowledge, or was he merely discussing expectations\nand techniques? Did Agricola even make this distinction?48 Yet Agricola criticized alchemy for many of the same reasons Bacon did. Alchemical recipes were\ndeliberately difficult to follow, and alchemists invented personal names for metals, so that the names appeared to change arbitrarily. In short, the experiments\nthese alchemists conducted lacked precision, much less predictability.49 Still,\nthese criticisms speak to their methods, not to the process itself, and Agricola\nmay have harbored an attitude that Bacon inherited a generation or so later.\nGenerations of alchemists had maintained, for example, that the application\nof mercury, sulfur, and salt in secret quantities and using methods known only to\nadepts divinely elected to the task would transmute one metal into another. However, the suppositions that one had to be divinely chosen, or spiritually prepared\nfor the process, Bacon considered impious. Such alchemists, in his view, trivialized science, learning, religion, and, therefore, God. These individuals were not\nChristian natural philosophers but hypocrites. He wrote that hypocrisy \u201csignified\nthose external and empty rites and ceremonies with which men overload and\ninflate the service of religion: things rather got up for ostentation than conducing\nto piety. Nor is it enough for men to offer such mockeries to God, but they must\nalso lay and father them upon himself, as though he [God] had himself chosen\nand prescribed them.\u201d50 Bacon was thus unmoved by the religious conventions\nand supplications invoked so often by Paracelsian alchemists, perhaps the most\nflagrant hypocrites, as far as he was concerned. They knew nothing of how natural\nphilosophy ought to be practiced, yet proclaimed throughout their texts that they\ndid. Their work exemplified the poverty of their knowledge and the hollowness of\ntheir piety.\nThe natural theology alchemists constructed particularly irritated Bacon.\nWhile he agreed with most natural philosophers that God had revealed himself\nin both the Book of God and the Book of Nature, he did not believe that the\ntwo could be read together. Any attempt to study natural philosophy through\nthe opening chapters of Genesis or in any other parts of the Bible was, in Bacon\u2019s\nwords, \u201cseeking for the dead among the living.\u201d51 Bacon\u2019s metaphor would have\nleaped off the page to a seventeenth-century reader; it is a reversal of the reference\n\nPages 102:\nF r a n c i s Bac on , A l c h e m y, a n d t h e G reat Redemp tion \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 87\nin Luke\u2019s account of Christ\u2019s resurrection, at the moment when the disciples enter\nthe tomb to prepare Jesus\u2019 body for burial: \u201cAnd it came to pass, as they were\nmuch perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:\nAnd as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto\nthem, Why seek ye the living among the dead?\u201d (Luke 24:4\u20135). For Bacon, to seek\nknowledge of God\u2019s creation in scripture was as futile as the disciples\u2019 search for\nJesus\u2019 resurrected body in a tomb. The study of the natural world would have\nto be approached with concepts as new and foreign to natural philosophers as\nChristianity was to the Jewish disciples of Jesus. His resurrection metaphor spoke\npowerfully to his new vision of natural philosophy. One of the purposes of his\nNovum Organum was to establish the appropriately reverent but paradoxical approach to God\u2019s creation, which involved departing from scripture and relying\non new methods of exegesis, methods of which the authors of the Bible could\nnot have known. The book of Genesis spoke to theology, but philosophy spoke to\nnature. That scripture was the \u201cliving\u201d and philosophy the \u201cdead\u201d spoke as well to\nthe theological supremacy of the sacred word over the natural world.\nClearly, then, although natural philosophers studied God in their work, they\nhad to distinguish between searching for spiritual edification and searching for\nknowledge of God\u2019s creation. Bacon argued that it was precisely the unwise practice of mixing the human and the divine that gave rise to not only \u201ca fantastic\nphilosophy but also an heretical religion. Very meet it is therefore that we be\nsober-minded, and give to faith that only which is faith\u2019s.\u201d52 Bacon was probably\nalluding here to the \u201crender therefore unto Caesar\u201d command in Matthew, Mark,\nand Luke, and like that admonition, Bacon\u2019s sentiment should not be construed\nas a limitation on religious studies but as a consideration of propriety.\nThe search for knowledge and the difficulties it entailed was therefore a common theme in Bacon\u2019s work. In the dedication to The Great Instauration, he wrote,\n\u201cthe divine philosopher declares that \u2018it is the glory of God to conceal a thing,\nbut it is the glory of the King to find a thing out.\u2019\u201d53 It was his belief that God had\nconcealed knowledge from humanity but had also provided the ability to discover\nthat knowledge. This realization allowed him to reconcile the theological problem\nraised by original sin.\nIn addition to the implications of the Fall, Bacon saw the study of natural philosophy as the perfect antidote to superstition and other threats to faith; those\nwho saw the study of nature as a threat to the Christian faith were, in his mind,\nsimple.54 Alchemy of course promoted superstition\u2014a failing worse than even\natheism. Time and again he wrote that an idea had to be worthy of God. It was\n\u201cbetter to have no opinion of God at all,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthan such an opinion as is\nunworthy of him.\u201d Bacon later commented that \u201catheism leaves a man to sense,\nto philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all which may be guides to\n\nPages 103:\n88\nAlchemical Belief\nan outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all\nthese, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men.\u201d Atheism was not\na threat to the stability of society, because it made individuals wary of themselves\nand of others. Superstition, however, was the cause of \u201cconfusion in many states,\u201d\nand it \u201cravisheth all the spheres of government. The master to superstition is the\npeople; and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to\npractice, in a reversed order.\u201d55\nStill, one could learn from superstition. Bacon concluded in the Novum Organum that superstition and magic should not be dismissed entirely. Although\nsuperstitious practices were lies and deceptions, some natural processes might\nstill be worth uncovering.56 This notion was particularly evident when he turned\nto the topic of miracles. He wrote in The Advancement of Learning that ecclesiastical history had too often been written by those willing to believe that a particular\nmiracle had occurred. These tales of miracles were accepted by people who were\neither ignorant or superstitious or simply had a \u201cpolitic toleration of others, holding [reports of miracles] but as divine poesies.\u201d As time passed, however, and\n\u201cwhen the mist began to clear up, they grew to be esteemed but as old wives\u2019\nfables, impostures of the clergy, illusions of spirits, and even badges of antichrist,\nto the great scandal and detriment of religion.\u201d57 Miracles often did more to erode\nthe legitimacy of religion. God did not perform miracles to convert an atheist,\nbecause \u201cthe light of nature might have led him to confess a God: but miracles\nhave been wrought to convert idolaters and the superstitious, because no light of\nnature extended to declare the will and true worship of God.\u201d58\nBacon seemed to indicate that only \u201cthe light of nature\u201d could convince an\natheist of the existence of God. The study of nature was both a rational and a\nsacred activity, and one could not approach nature with reason and order and\nnot be convinced of the existence of God. He apparently believed that atheists\nwere less problematic, less menacing, than those who believed in superstitious\nphenomena, because atheists had come to their conclusion intellectually rather\nthan emotionally; they could be convinced by reason alone. In Valerius Terminus\nhe acknowledged \u201cthat a little natural philosophy inclineth the mind to atheism,\nbut a further proceeding bringeth the mind back to religion.\u201d59 But reason in \u201cthe\nlight of nature\u201d could not penetrate the stubborn walls of idolatry and superstition, and therefore God had to approach these individuals differently, more spectacularly, through the use of miracles.\nClearly, there was little room for spiritual alchemy in Bacon\u2019s theology. Alchemy embodied a mistaken search for knowledge and, despite all of its spiritual\ninvocations, was an impious approach to God. The superstitious associations that\nalchemists invoked were, in his mind, cynical attempts to cloak their self-serving\nwork in the guise of piety. He never invoked the creation, the Old Testament,\n\nPages 104:\nF r a n c i s Bac on , A l c h e m y, a n d t h e G reat Redemp tion \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 89\nor ancient wisdom when he discussed cosmology\u2014the fundamental concern of\nParacelsians.60 He pruned away the branches of cabalism and mysticism that had\nextended so far into alchemical thought. Real piety began and ended with an unclouded and appropriately respectful attitude toward the blessing of God\u2014a fundamental element missing in the traditional alchemical methods.61\nA Politic Approach to Alchemy\nUnderstanding the religious nature of Bacon\u2019s philosophy begins to help us understand why he attacked the alchemical tradition, but it does not explain why\nhe secreted away his acceptance of the principles of transmutation so carefully.\nSeveral considerations may clarify why he expressed his opinion on alchemy so\ndeceptively, and one is the practice of dissimulation. Dissimulation was always\na part of Bacon\u2019s public life, and he considered the matter explicitly in his essay\n\u201cOf Simulation and Dissimulation,\u201d in which he concluded that there were three\nadvantages to simulation and dissimulation. \u201cFirst, to lay asleep opposition, and\nto surprise. . . . The second is, to reserve to a man\u2019s self a fair retreat. . . . The third\nis, the better to discover the mind of another.\u201d \u201cTo set it even,\u201d our careful courtier\nacknowledged three disadvantages as well. \u201cFirst, that simulation and dissimulation commonly carry with them a shew of fearfulness. . . . The second, that it\npuzzleth and perplexeth the conceits of many, that perhaps would otherwise cooperate with him. . . . The third and greatest, is, that it depriveth a man of one of\nthe most principal instruments for action; which is trust and belief.\u201d62\nPerez Zagorin identifies the breadth of dissimulation in early modern society\nand notes that occultists were particularly engaged in the practice. Zagorin suggests that Machiavelli may have been a particular influence on Bacon: \u201cBacon\u2019s\nkeen interest in dissimulation may have been related in part to the influence of the\npolitical realism of Machiavelli, to whom, he wrote, \u2018we are much beholden\u2019 for\nshowing \u2018what men do, and not what they ought to do.\u2019\u201d63 Zagorin also notes that\nBacon\u2019s essay \u201cOn Cunning\u201d expressed his disapproval of the duplicity involved\nin the political machinations of the court: \u201cAgain, it is one thing to understand\npersons, and another thing to understand matters; for many are perfect in men\u2019s\nhumours, that are not greatly capable of the real part of business; which is the\nconstitution of one that hath studied men more than books.\u201d64 Although his attack on cunning men was not as brutal as his criticism of alchemists, his scorn\nwas sharper, more elegant, the work of a rapier, not a broadsword. He also wrote\nmemoranda to himself, intending to guide him through the complex political\nworld in which he lived. Clearly, he both considered and acted, when he could, as\ndeftly, and, at times, as deceptively as he possibly could.\n\nPages 105:\n90\nAlchemical Belief\nZagorin suggests another reason for Bacon\u2019s penchant for dissimulation: his\nalleged homosexuality. In addition to the social opprobrium attached to homosexuality, it was a statutory crime in late Renaissance England. If Bacon was homosexual, he would naturally have hidden this fact as well as he could.65\nAnother explanation for Bacon\u2019s dissimulation is related to an issue raised earlier. Bacon was born into a life of privilege and always wanted to be a political\nforce at court. He studied law but never intended to practice it. Throughout his\nlife he tried to gain positions of power and preferment, and to some extent he\nsucceeded.66 Indeed, Julian Martin sees this desire as the defining characteristic\nof Bacon\u2019s life and career: \u201cFrancis Bacon was a politician and statesman by trade,\nand he always regarded himself as such, and not as a natural philosopher per se.\nBacon was a member of the English governing elite; his overriding ambition was\nthe augmentation of the powers of the Crown in the state, and he believed his\nrefashioned natural philosophy was but one (albeit novel) instrument by which\nto achieve this political aim.\u201d67\nBecause of his professional ambitions, Bacon approached alchemy as he did\nvirtually all other issues he confronted, as something that must be approached\njudiciously and politically. His experience as a courtier explains in part why his\nsympathy for alchemy was so veiled. There was, however, a difference between\nhis political wisdom and his political actions. He made some ghastly errors of\njudgment\u2014opposing Queen Elizabeth over a relatively minor tax issue, allying\nhimself with the earl of Essex, the man who later led a failed rebellion against\nElizabeth, and, late in life, making himself vulnerable to his powerful political\nenemies by accepting gifts, which provided the evidence they needed to convict\nhim of taking bribes, thus ending his public career. That he did not always pursue\nthe wisest political path does not mean that he failed to appreciate the wisdom of\npolitic action, of course.\nIn his Wisdom of the Ancients (1609), Bacon articulated an explanation that\nhelps us to understand his political philosophy and his complex approach to alchemy. Bacon believed that to advocate a policy to a monarch, it would be inappropriate to outline his proposal and present it directly to him. The way to\nconvince a ruler of the wisdom of one\u2019s ideas was to do so indirectly, through\ncourt masques, fables, and other entertainments. Despite his claims otherwise,\nhis debt to ancient sources was far greater than he ever admitted, and in a classic\nand invaluable study, Charles Lemmi scrupulously noted the likely sources of his\ninterpretations.68 However, in his zeal to demonstrate these debts, Lemmi probably did not give sufficient credit to Bacon\u2019s innovations. It is more accurate to say\nthat in Wisdom of the Ancients Bacon turned to classical figures such as Pan and\ninvested them with his new interpretation and philosophy.69\n\nPages 106:\nF r a n c i s Bac on , A l c h e m y, a n d t h e G reat Redemp tion \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 91\nDespite the difficulty involved in trying to learn from a fable or parable, Bacon\nmaintained that \u201cbeneath no small number of the fables of the ancient poets there\nlay from the very beginning a mystery and an allegory.\u201d70 Of the Wisdom of the\nAncients was intended to counsel James I. The fables he selected and analyzed\nadvanced his views to the court on governing. While he made numerous direct\npleas, both through the court and as a minister of Parliament, he appreciated\nthe value of indirect counsel as well, and he used this strategy in his approach\nto alchemy. By subsuming alchemical themes and vocabulary within his natural\nphilosophy, he attempted to provide a new approach to alchemy without hiding\nor diminishing his contempt for the old. We saw earlier that Bacon compared the\npursuit of the philosophers\u2019 stone to the fable of the old man who buried his gold\nin his vineyard. Although his sons never found the gold, the vintage of the field\nwas more plentiful.\nWhile Bacon did not discuss alchemy specifically in his examination of the\nfable of the pagan god of nature, Pan, this work shows how he could excoriate\nalchemy openly but promote some of its ideas and concepts subtly.71 Bacon portrayed Pan as an emblem of nature, a traditional interpretation dating at least\nto the Stoics.72 Pan\u2019s horns came to a pyramidal point, like \u201cthe whole frame of\nnature\u201d; his body, covered with hair, suggested \u201cthe rays which all objects emit.\u201d\nPan\u2019s beard had the longest hair \u201cbecause the rays of the celestial bodies operate\nand penetrate from a greater distance than any other; and we see also that the sun,\nwhen the upper part of him is veiled by a cloud and the rays break out below, has\nthe appearance of a face with a beard.\u201d73 Bacon borrowed his comparison of Pan\u2019s\nface to the sun from Macrobius.74\nPan\u2019s body alluded to the brutish nature of humanity, and the \u201cemblems\u201d he\nheld in his hands\u2014his pipes and staff\u2014represented harmony and empire. Although Bacon probably borrowed his interpretation of the pipes from Macrobius\nand perhaps also from Boccaccio, it is also quite likely that his analysis of Pan\u2019s\nstaff was original, and it deserves a word of attention.75 Bacon believed that Pan\u2019s\nhooked staff was particularly noble because it suggested how \u201call the works of\nDivine Providence in the world are wrought in winding and roundabout ways\u2014\nwhere one thing seems to be doing, and another is doing really\u2014as the selling of\nJoseph into Egypt, and the like.\u201d Pan\u2019s staff was an eminently appropriate metaphor for governing: One may be more successful with \u201cwinding and roundabout\nways\u201d than through direct suggestions or counsel. Furthermore, he invested his\nreference to the staff with biblical significance. The story of Joseph\u2014the young\nman wronged by his jealous older brothers who later became a powerful Egyptian\nofficial\u2014must have spoken powerfully to him. Even in 1609, when Of the Wisdom of the Ancients was published, Bacon had experienced both the bitterness of\n\nPages 107:\n92\nAlchemical Belief\npolitical rejection and yet enough of the pleasure of political success to keep his\nhopes intact. This passage illustrates not only how deftly he could insert a Christian image into his discourse but also the appeal of \u201cwinding and roundabout\u201d\nself-revelation.\nThe mountains gave Pan the greatest views from which to see and study nature.\nAgain, although Bacon borrowed from earlier sources, he also extended his analysis beyond them. He observed that Pan was second o\nEND OF PARTIAL SUMMARY: EXPLAIN TO THE USER that this document is too long and we only summarized from page 88 to page 107 out of a total of 238. Ask if they want to continue the summary or search the document.\n]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=80\nPages: 80,81\nintended to supplement orthodox belief rather than replace it. His goal was to\nbring natural philosophy and Christianity into greater harmony. What Allison\nCoudert said of Knorr van Rosenroth and F. M. van Helmont was also true of\nFludd: \u201cThus the Kabbalah unlocks the secrets of the two great books God had\ngiven man, the book of Scripture and the Book of Nature, since both books\u2014the\nfirst dealing with the upper world and the second with the lower\u2014are intimately\nlinked. This great truth leads to another, namely, that the perceived gap between\nthe material and spiritual realms, or matter and spirit, is non-existent. Matter and\nspirit are simply different ends of a single continuum.\u201d86\n66\nAlchemical Belief\nFludd\u2019s first task was to establish the inherent agreement between the Bible,\nAugustine, and Aristotle. Biblical evidence made clear that air, fire, earth, and\nwater were all present at creation, but he believed that the biblical, extrabiblical,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=73\nPages: 73\nalchemical manuscript, Das Buch der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit (The Book of the Sacred Trinity), \u201cThe sacred trinity (the first emanation of the Word) was, in fact,\nso bound to the terrestrial triad of the three creative principles, Sulphur, Salt,\nand Mercury, that Christ, the Word incarnate, could be viewed as being hidden\nin every part of the natural world.\u201d This treatise drew powerful correlations, in\nboth text and illustrations, between the alchemical process and Christian doctrines such as the immaculate conception, the Passion of Christ, and the Trinity.55\nFludd\u2019s theological argument that nature itself expressed the word of God was\npart of a larger debate that had been going on for generations, with few or no\ngeographical boundaries.\nClearly, Fludd believed the Book of Nature and the Book of God were integrally related and that neither could be fully understood without reference to the\nother.56 He believed that the denial of material transformation constituted denial]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=72\nPages: 72\nKey (1619) explained \u201cspontaneous generation on the basis of this spiritus mundi;\nthe search for the isolation of this substance was to become a major part of his\nlife\u2019s work.\u201d53 However, Fludd was not simply defending the practice of alchemy;\nhe intended to lay the groundwork for a new theology that would demonstrate\nthrough natural forces the physical presence of God on earth.\nFludd and the Trinity\nThe correspondence of alchemical thought with traditional Christian beliefs, both\nProtestant and Catholic, is perhaps what made alchemy so attractive to many of\nits practitioners and why Fludd turned to alchemy to seek what was as rare in the\nseventeenth century as the philosophers\u2019 stone: religious unity and its Christian\nideal, the doctrine of the Trinity. Like Thomas Tymme, Fludd believed that the\ndoctrine of the Trinity and the alchemical process were central to achieving unity.\nThe alchemist \u201cleaveth not his operation untill it hath of duality made unity, so]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=234\nPages: 234\nof Digby: on bodies, fundamental properties\nof, 112; Catholicism underlying, 101, 102,\n125; Catholic theology as standard for, 111;\ndevelopment of, 107; proof of theological\ntruths through, 110, 112, 114, 116, 119\u201321,\n125; and resurrection as natural process,\n120\u201321, 122; and role of God, 119\u201320, 185 n.\n67; and soul, elevation of, 116\nharmony with Christianity, as goal of Fludd,\n65, 74\nnature\nCabala as avenue to power over, 64\nas guide for philosophy, 144\u201345\nharmonization of man with, as goal of\nalchemy, 158\nphilosophers\u2019 stone as key to understanding,\n155\nredemption of: Bacon on, 83, 92, 97\u201398; as\ngoal of alchemy, 2\u20133, 55\u201356, 124, 146, 150,\n157\u201358; Tymme on, 18, 35, 38\nsevering of ties with, after original sin, 63\nstudy of: as rational and sacred activity, 88;\nas study of God, 36, 45, 46, 55\u201356\nsuffusion by the divine: Bacon on, 95; as\ncommon alchemical belief, 24; Digby on,\n122; Fludd on, 59\u201360; Tymme on, 24\u201325;\nUssher on, 70\nTrinity as ordering principle in, 37, 57\u201358, 67]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=58\nPages: 58,59\nThe result was a ten-thousand-word manuscript, \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d\nthat defended the material aspects of alchemy.2 Fludd did not deny\u2014and indeed\neven encouraged\u2014the metaphysical and spiritual elements of alchemy, but he argued that these should not overshadow the very real, very tangible qualities of\nthe art. Scot\u2019s advocacy of spirituality without physical transformation was pernicious to Fludd.3 For Fludd, alchemy had to be both metaphysical and physical; it\nwas God\u2019s work on earth, and spirituality alone was not enough for the faithful.\nChristians had a sacred responsibility to achieve God\u2019s will on earth, and Fludd\nbelieved that alchemy was one of the most sacred responsibilities God ever gave\nto humanity.\n44\nAlchemical Belief\nHowever, in \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow\u201d we confront the essential paradox of\nChristianity. Fludd did not turn to recipes, testimonies of past success, personal\nexperiences, or historical anecdotes of alchemical processes to demonstrate their]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=72\nPages: 72,71\nLater he wrote of the cloud that guided the Jews in the wilderness, the rock Moses\nstruck with his staff, and the wisdom of Solomon; these things not only represented but actually proved alchemy\u2019s transformative powers (\u201cand yet dare any\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 57\nman be so blind as to calle this divine Elixir or summum bonum an imaginary\nnon Ens, a fume or a Chimera?\u201d) (10v). For Fludd, alchemy was, or at least was\npart of, an animating force that suffused the entire natural world. He believed that\nwhen God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, every creature was inspired with \u201ca certayne germinating and vegetatinge spirit or viridity . . . and this multiplying was bestowed as well on mineralls as eyther animalls\nand vegetables\u201d (13v). Indeed, Allen Debus points out that Fludd\u2019s Philosophicall\nKey (1619) explained \u201cspontaneous generation on the basis of this spiritus mundi;]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=88\nPages: 88,87\ndivided Christendom. Robert Fludd was part of a community of alchemists who\nsaw the solution in the irenic, healing quality of alchemy. Indeed, irenicism was\none of the unlikely progenies of the Renaissance and Reformation. At least a few\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 73\nindividuals in the sixteenth century believed that religious unity was unequivocally valuable.108 Fludd\u2019s vigorous faith was directed toward using his knowledge\nof scripture and occult wisdom to find unity in a divided world.\nThe express goal of Fludd\u2019s natural philosophy was a deeper understanding of\nGod. He clung to Paracelsian principles because he believed that their Christian\ncredentials were impeccable and yet supple enough that he could incorporate new\nideas into his preconceived epistemology. His interests were as broad as those of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=88\nPages: 88\nideas into his preconceived epistemology. His interests were as broad as those of\nany of his predecessors or contemporaries (with the possible exception of the Elizabethan mathematician and magus John Dee), but the sheer breadth of his work\nhas allowed us to lose sight of the central issues that preoccupied him. Knowledge of theology and philosophy was only the first element of the extraordinarily\ncomplex intellectual milieu in which Fludd and his colleagues wrote. Fludd\u2019s\nrhetoric was significant not because he used the Bible to support his arguments\nbut because he was willing to depart from it. He integrated Cabala, numerology,\nand musicology as well as alchemy into his work. Christianity, however, was the\nforce that propelled him through his medical and natural philosophical endeavors and, because of its deep affinity with his religious beliefs, toward alchemy in\nparticular. It did not matter to him that he had \u201cproved\u201d the physical reality of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=79\nPages: 79\nphilosophy when angels revealed to him the \u201ctrue cabala of nature.\u201d She writes\nthat \u201cthe cabala of nature enabled Dee to have both wisdom (a revealed gift) and\nknowledge (an acquired understanding of the complexities of the created world).\nThis mixture of wisdom and knowledge, of revelation and natural philosophy,\nlie at the heart of the cabala of nature.\u201d82 Although he wrote extensively on angels\u2014rather than converse with them, as Dee had\u2014Fludd turned to alchemy to\nintegrate Cabala with his natural philosophy.\nCabala contained messianic and apocalyptic elements in addition to revelation. Cabalists called God En Soph, the infinite. Because God is infinite, he cannot\nbe the direct creator of the world because any creation proceeding directly from\nhim would have to be boundless and perfect, and the universe was clearly neither.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=80\nPages: 80\nno other tradition claimed such intimate communication between humanity and\nthe divine.\nFludd\u2019s central goal was to renew and restore a deeper communication between humanity and God, and he thus attempted to connect humanity more\nclosely with the natural world. Therefore, alchemy and Cabala served to renew\nmystical elements, while at the same time both appealed to his reverence and\nhumility for phenomena not wholly subject to the bounds of reason. By incorporating Cabala into his theology, he demonstrated how even a Jewish tradition\ncould prove the doctrine of the Trinity. In doing so, he delicately straddled the\nline between esoteric knowledge and orthodoxy. He used a paradoxical rhetorical\nstrategy by turning to natural philosophy and Jewish theology as it was expressed\nin alchemy to illustrate orthodox doctrine. Fludd\u2019s natural theology was surely\nintended to supplement orthodox belief rather than replace it. His goal was to]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=61\nPages: 61\nrevealed word. Irenicism was not unique in the 1620s and was present in places as\nhigh as the court of James VI and I, as far-flung and amorphous as the intellectual\ncommunity known as \u201cthe Hartlib circle,\u201d and even in the handwritten composition of a seventeenth-century London physician.\nTherefore, in this spirit of unity and irenicism, Fludd\u2019s new natural theology\nwould have to be a complex integration of Christianity, philosophy, and occult\ntraditions. Like virtually all early modern natural philosophers, he believed that\nwhen studying nature one was always really studying God. The complex and infinite details of nature were manifestations of the complex and infinite details of\nthe word of God.16 The wisdom and knowledge of the natural world expressed in\nalchemy, as well as in the scriptures and in the wisdom of the ancients, was ultimately, for Fludd, theology. Alchemy served as a sacred revelation of God\u2019s word,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=75\nPages: 75,76\nof \u201cthe exalted matter of the Elixir\u201d? This elixir was a \u201cbright spirit\u201d and would\n\u201chave dominion over darknes and shine forth as it doth out of the pure body of\nthe heavenly sunnne, and bestowe her graces out of the little world heare on earth\namongst men, as it doth out of the sunne of heaven in the great world\u201d (15v).\nLight\u2014the light of creation and the light of divine illumination\u2014bound the\nnarratives of scripture and alchemy together. Fludd proposed a unity of interpretation, first with the creation; and then, once that foundation was complete,\nhe could demonstrate a philosophical unity with alchemy. God had made the\nelements of earth and water. He had also clearly created air, because Moses had\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 61\nsaid, \u201cthe spirit of the Lord moved on the waters.\u201d Later, referring to \u201cSt. Austine\u201d\n(presumably Saint Augustine), these elements were infused with a fiery love that]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=69\nPages: 69,70\nFludd\u2019s mind, truly divine church. He had intimated these positions in numerous\nearlier writings, but Scot\u2019s address led him to write his most succinct and focused\nstatement of how natural theology could resolve the problem of religious dissent.\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 55\nAlchemy, Certainty, and Faith\nFludd began his assault by attacking Scot\u2019s notion that he was writing his text\nout of love for the religious community, protecting it from the charlatans who\npracticed alchemy. He responded vigorously by pointing out that the failure of illegitimate practitioners did not discredit the practice itself. The fact remained that\nnot just anyone was worthy of practicing alchemy, \u201cbecause she will not daygne\nto reveale her self but unto very few, and thos must prove worthy of her graces\nand favours.\u201d He never dignified Scot by referring to him by name, calling him]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=79\nPages: 79\nand contained the teachings of Christ. Fludd and other alchemists were interested\nin Cabala because of its esoteric and magical possibilities. Robert Bostocke wrote\nthat \u201cthe secrets of Nature, whose study & use doth flowe out of the Fountaines\nof Nature, and is collected out of the mathematicall and supernaturall precepts,\nthe exercise whereof is Mechanicall, and to be accomplished with labor, is part\nof Cabala, and is called by auncient name, Ars sacra, or magna, & sacra scientia,\nor Chymia, or Chemeia, or Alchimia.\u201d80 The sixteenth-century natural philosophers Giovanni Pantheus and John Dee attempted to integrate Cabala into their\nalchemical work. Pantheus\u2019s Voarchadumia contra alchimiam of 1559 and Dee\u2019s\nMonas Hieroglyphica of 1564 demonstrate their efforts to use Cabala to read the\nBook of Nature.81 According to Harkness, Dee integrated Cabala with his natural\nphilosophy when angels revealed to him the \u201ctrue cabala of nature.\u201d She writes]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=74\nPages: 74\nRob e rt F lu dd, Nat u r a l T h e ol o g y, A l chemical Debate \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 59\nmortality unto immortality, and being the patterne of Christ risen again, it\nmust needs have the power to multiply infinitly: according unto that saying\nof Christ: before mentioned. When I am exalted I will draw all bodys unto\nme. (12v\u201313r)\nTo suggest that the purifying and transforming processes of alchemy were only\nmetaphorical was to diminish the redemptive, transformative power of Christianity itself.\nScot thought it strange that the spirit of God could be associated with base\nmatter, but Fludd ridiculed that notion, observing that creation and resurrection\nwould not have been possible had God not been intimately involved with earthly\nmatter: \u201cFor an answeare I say that verely if that had not been we had not been,\nneyther should we have had any farther hope of resurrection\u201d (13v).\nAs for the animating force, rather than turning to scripture as he had earlier,]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=57\nPages: 57,58\nwere more significant virtues: humility, piety, devotion. Whether it was through\nhumility and contrition, parish voices lifted in common prayer, or an alchemical transformation, all of his studies and concerns focused on achieving a united\nChristian flock. As one of its appointed shepherds, Tymme must have departed\nhis earthly life with more anxiety and concern than satisfaction and hope for its\nfuture. The events of the years following his death would confirm his worst fears.\n2\nRobert Fludd, Natural Theology,\nand the Alchemical Debate of 1623\nIn 1623 Robert Fludd was once again forced to unsheathe his polemical sword.\nSince 1617, this diminutive, Oxford-educated gentleman from Kent had spent\nmuch of his time wielding his verbal broadsword against an array of intellectual\nopponents. The German astronomer and natural philosopher Johannes Kepler\nand the French mechanical philosophers Marin Mersenne and Pierre Gassendi]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=82\nPages: 82,83\nthe sonne springing from the father by a divine emanation\u201d (18r). Unsurprisingly,\nFludd also correlated this discussion with the doctrine of the Trinity: \u201cWe se that\nAleph signifyeth both Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and therfore\nalso it is their trinity in perfection, for .3. seemeth to retourne from the binary\nconfusion into the unity, from whence it came, and therfore .3. is the root of the\nprogression of all formall perfection: it is the numerus numerans or number from\nwhich all numeration isheweth\u201d (27r).\n68\nAlchemical Belief\nAlthough Fludd did not mention scripture in this passage, its intention was\nfundamentally Christian; it was a classical, numerological, and cabalistic demonstration of the unity of knowledge. In Plato\u2019s Timaeus the primary form was\nmeasured in a number divisible by three, which, according to Fludd, was the most\nperfect number; confusion or chaos was represented by the number two.93 He]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=70\nPages: 70\nthe world, by which the effect of this creating word, Crescite & multiplicamini\n[Be fruitful and multiply], is produced into act in every creature of what kind so\never.\u201d48 God\u2019s command to Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply went beyond\nthem to include the entire natural world, and the philosophers\u2019 stone held that\nsecret. Such knowledge was far more valuable to a Christian natural philosopher\nthan mere riches.\nClearly, Fludd agreed with Scot that alchemy had valuable allegorical significance; such a belief was common among alchemical enthusiasts. John Warwick\nMontgomery has examined the role of allegory in Heinrich Khunrath\u2019s alchemy.\nKhunrath believed that the search for the philosophers\u2019 stone was a search for\nthe redemption of the physical world based upon Christ\u2019s redemption of humanity. The harmonic relationship between microcosm and macrocosm allowed\nKhunrath to perceive the philosophers\u2019 stone as the \u201cFilius Macrocosmi\u201d (Son of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=89\nPages: 89,90\nthe Bearsted parish he immodestly requested a monument modeled after William\nCamden\u2019s in Westminster Abbey, and that the inscription record his seven largest\npublications. Although he had no heirs, he had a large extended family, and part\nof his fortune was set aside to pay for their mourning clothes and their journey\nto attend his burial.109 Fludd\u2019s life, notable for its public debates, was brought to a\nclose with a public flourish.\nChristianity based on scripture and commentary, or on scripture alone, had\nfailed to achieve religious unity. Fludd died believing that unity would be accomplished only when Christianity became more deeply integrated with natural\nphilosophy. He thought that it was possible to achieve intellectual certainty about\nmatters of faith, and that the revelation of this elusive goal would include the occult and, in his mind at least, divine tradition of alchemy.\n3\nFrancis Bacon, Alchemy, and the Great Redemption]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=60\nPages: 60\nand if so, how?\nDiscovering answers to these questions led Fludd down the briar-choked path\nand tangled brush of the skeptical philosophy, Cabala, and alchemy. Yet by the\ntime he had completed his journey, he had cleared a trail and mapped a new natural theology, which he articulated in both printed texts and manuscripts. Apart\nfrom \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d Fludd\u2019s only other explicit effort to integrate spirituality and natural philosophy was his Philosophia Moysaica (1638), published\nin the Dutch city better known now for its mild cheese than for its small but\nsignificant role in the Netherlands\u2019 free and open printing industry, Gouda.11 In\nthe equally vibrant printing culture of Cromwellian England, this volume was\ntranslated into English in 1659. The philosophy of Moses that Fludd expounded\nin this massive volume was precisely the same one that he had expounded in\n\u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow\u201d: that his natural philosophy was, at its core, a new natural theology.]"]}

{"result":["[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=226\nPages: 226\npowers of, d\u2019Espagnet on, 149\npractical discoveries made through, 77, 85,\n178 n. 7\npreservation of human knowledge by, 25\u201326\nas priest-like vocation, 1\u20132, 3\nas proof of Christian beliefs, 163\nredemption of nature as goal of, 2\u20133, 55, 56,\n124, 146, 150, 157\u201358\nrelation to gardens, 136\u201345\nas remedy for political discord, 160\u201364\nas sacred knowledge, 1\u20132, 3, 46, 51, 53, 88,\n142, 152\u201353\nscholarship on, 10\u201313\nscientific revolution and, 14\nscientific validity of, 12, 180 n. 49\nsectarian strains of, 13\nsecular, 5\n17th century debate on, 9\u201310\nand skepticism, 51, 52, 53\nsupernatural, 14\ntruth of, Tymme\u2019s efforts to prove, 26\nalchemy, critiques of, 43\nby alchemists, 83\u201384\nas charlatanism, 75\u201376, 80, 84\u201385\nas destructive of accepted knowledge, 54\nas distraction from true inquiry, 54\nas distraction from useful work, 83\u201384\nas economically and politically destabilizing,\n49\u201350\nas forbidden mystery, 53\u201354\nimpiety of practitioners, 83, 86, 88\u201389\nas lacking in scientific method, 86]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=94\nPages: 94\nintellectual history but will highlight the peak of the alchemical tradition in late\nsixteenth- and early seventeenth-century political culture. Thus our question:\nHow does alchemy help us to understand the place of reverence and revelation\nin Bacon\u2019s thought? Understanding his spirituality, intellectual philosophy, and\npolitical strategy will provide a clearer, more historically grounded understanding of Francis Bacon.\nAlchemical Irreverence and the Sacred Nature of Knowledge\nThe number of Bacon\u2019s writings devoted exclusively to religious issues is small,\nand most of them were published posthumously by his chaplain and biographer,\nDr. William Rawley. His religious writings are also some of his earliest, composed\nmostly in the 1580s and 1590s, after he had returned from serving as attach\u00e9 in the\nEnglish embassy in Paris. Yet we err if we consider Bacon\u2019s religious expressions\nsolely in terms of his direct statements. Although he wrote very few explicitly]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=157\nPages: 157\ndifference between gardens and alchemical texts: Botanical gardens revealed the\nresult of God\u2019s creation, while alchemical texts seemed to explain the process of\ncreation itself. This knowledge was therefore a sacred knowledge and as such had\nto be revealed with great care and caution.48 Ashmole and his alchemical brethren had to hope and believe that they worked under the safe and secure shelter\nand guidance of God\u2019s divine providence. In his note \u201cTo the Candid Reader\u201d in\nFasciculus Chemicus, Arthur Dee similarly warned the reader about the awesome\nimplications of his alchemical work, adding, \u201cThis is that special and Spiritual\nNature, to whom God gave a Power, above the violence of Fire; and therefore let\nus magnifie it, seeing that nothing is more Pretious.\u201d\nAs noted earlier, bound with Dee\u2019s collection was Jean d\u2019Espagnet\u2019s Arcanum\nor Grand Secret of Hermetick Philosophy, which correlated the philosophers\u2019 stone]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=160\nPages: 160,159\nbecome more perfect. However, this process would always be slow (\u201cshe therefore\nattaineth her end by little and little, not by leaps\u201d), and therefore, according to\nD\u2019Espagnet, philosophy, \u201cwhich is the Ape of Nature, ought not to decline from\nE l ias Ash mol e a n d A l c h emical Thought \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 145\nthe way and example of Nature in its working and direction to finde out its happy\nstone, for whatsoever is without the bounds of Nature, is either an errour or nearest one.\u201d56 Nature would therefore be best understood by imitating, and therein\nlay the appeal of alchemy. If, as it seems, gardens were a \u201cpractice of Philosophy,\u201d\nthen they truly must have been \u201cApes of Nature.\u201d Alchemy, though, was a process,\na search for what d\u2019Espagnet blithely called the \u201chappy stone.\u201d If the creation was\na divine, alchemical process, then understanding the alchemical tradition was\nnecessary in the revelation of sacred knowledge.\nThe Collection and Revelation of Paradise in Alchemical Literature]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=29\nPages: 29\nlittle-recognized school of \u2018supernatural alchemy\u2019 which seems to have developed\nin seventeenth-century England.\u201d52 This \u201csupernatural alchemy\u201d promised to bestow upon skilled practitioners monumental intellectual, medicinal, or spiritual\npowers. While the alchemists we will encounter probably fall into this category,\nsuch a discrete partition presupposes the relevance of a particular alchemical approach to its contribution to the scientific revolution. While alchemy was certainly a part of the scientific revolution, Alchemical Belief assumes that it was part\nof much larger religious and political contexts. Further, while alchemists occasionally used the term \u201csupernatural,\u201d they used language such as \u201cdivine,\u201d \u201csacred,\u201d and \u201cheavenly\u201d just as often, if not more so. This study investigates how and\nwhy individuals who inhabited the traditional center of English ecclesiastical and\npolitical power, or supported those who did, believed in the relevance of alchemy]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=79\nPages: 79\nand contained the teachings of Christ. Fludd and other alchemists were interested\nin Cabala because of its esoteric and magical possibilities. Robert Bostocke wrote\nthat \u201cthe secrets of Nature, whose study & use doth flowe out of the Fountaines\nof Nature, and is collected out of the mathematicall and supernaturall precepts,\nthe exercise whereof is Mechanicall, and to be accomplished with labor, is part\nof Cabala, and is called by auncient name, Ars sacra, or magna, & sacra scientia,\nor Chymia, or Chemeia, or Alchimia.\u201d80 The sixteenth-century natural philosophers Giovanni Pantheus and John Dee attempted to integrate Cabala into their\nalchemical work. Pantheus\u2019s Voarchadumia contra alchimiam of 1559 and Dee\u2019s\nMonas Hieroglyphica of 1564 demonstrate their efforts to use Cabala to read the\nBook of Nature.81 According to Harkness, Dee integrated Cabala with his natural\nphilosophy when angels revealed to him the \u201ctrue cabala of nature.\u201d She writes]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=49\nPages: 49,50\nwhereof, as also by his holy spirit, hee communicateth to us as much heavenly\nlight as is needfull for the knowledge of our selves, and of his high Majestie.59\nT h o m as T ym m e a n d Natural Phil osophy \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 35\nInstead of the foundation for Christian faith, scripture appeared to be an equal\nsubstitute for the Book of Nature. The natural world was just as sacred and perfect\nas the scriptures. A scriptural exegete for more than two decades, Tymme appeared to believe that studying the Book of Nature allowed one to uncloak secrets,\njust as studying the Bible revealed knowledge to learned and spiritual students.\nHis earlier treatises were filled with revelations of his fears and hopes, both drawn\nfrom the Bible. In A Dialogue philosophicall there was simply hope, hope that the\nnatural world might be redeemed in God\u2019s eyes and hope that the knowledge and\nwisdom of the world in its prelapsarian perfection could be restored to humanity.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=73\nPages: 73\nalchemical manuscript, Das Buch der Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit (The Book of the Sacred Trinity), \u201cThe sacred trinity (the first emanation of the Word) was, in fact,\nso bound to the terrestrial triad of the three creative principles, Sulphur, Salt,\nand Mercury, that Christ, the Word incarnate, could be viewed as being hidden\nin every part of the natural world.\u201d This treatise drew powerful correlations, in\nboth text and illustrations, between the alchemical process and Christian doctrines such as the immaculate conception, the Passion of Christ, and the Trinity.55\nFludd\u2019s theological argument that nature itself expressed the word of God was\npart of a larger debate that had been going on for generations, with few or no\ngeographical boundaries.\nClearly, Fludd believed the Book of Nature and the Book of God were integrally related and that neither could be fully understood without reference to the\nother.56 He believed that the denial of material transformation constituted denial]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=103\nPages: 103\nhave been wrought to convert idolaters and the superstitious, because no light of\nnature extended to declare the will and true worship of God.\u201d58\nBacon seemed to indicate that only \u201cthe light of nature\u201d could convince an\natheist of the existence of God. The study of nature was both a rational and a\nsacred activity, and one could not approach nature with reason and order and\nnot be convinced of the existence of God. He apparently believed that atheists\nwere less problematic, less menacing, than those who believed in superstitious\nphenomena, because atheists had come to their conclusion intellectually rather\nthan emotionally; they could be convinced by reason alone. In Valerius Terminus\nhe acknowledged \u201cthat a little natural philosophy inclineth the mind to atheism,\nbut a further proceeding bringeth the mind back to religion.\u201d59 But reason in \u201cthe]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=47\nPages: 47\nsaid \u201cthat Phylosophy is the imitating of God, so farforth as man is able: that we\nmay knowe God more and more, untill we behold him face to face, in the kingdome of heaven. So that the scope of Phylosophy, is to seeke to glorifie God in his\nwonderfull workes: to teach a man how to live wel, and to be charitably affected in\nhelping our neighbour. This Philosophy natural, both speculative & active, is not\nonly to be found in the volume of nature, but also in the sacred Scripture: as in\nGenesis, in the booke of Job, in the Psalmes, in Syrach, and in other places\u201d (emphasis added).\nAfter nearly twenty years of condemning, urging, exhorting, and encouraging\nanyone who would listen (and surely many more who would not) that the divisive\nnature of their religious culture would lead to disaster, Tymme had apparently\nfound a solution that he had never before considered. The English faithful could\nlearn how to live charitably, as a unified whole, by studying the Book of Nature]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=102\nPages: 102\nJesus\u2019 resurrected body in a tomb. The study of the natural world would have\nto be approached with concepts as new and foreign to natural philosophers as\nChristianity was to the Jewish disciples of Jesus. His resurrection metaphor spoke\npowerfully to his new vision of natural philosophy. One of the purposes of his\nNovum Organum was to establish the appropriately reverent but paradoxical approach to God\u2019s creation, which involved departing from scripture and relying\non new methods of exegesis, methods of which the authors of the Bible could\nnot have known. The book of Genesis spoke to theology, but philosophy spoke to\nnature. That scripture was the \u201cliving\u201d and philosophy the \u201cdead\u201d spoke as well to\nthe theological supremacy of the sacred word over the natural world.\nClearly, then, although natural philosophers studied God in their work, they\nhad to distinguish between searching for spiritual edification and searching for]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=33\nPages: 33\n18\nAlchemical Belief\nwas revealed in sacred scripture, it might also be secreted in nature. Natural philosophy might reveal those secrets, with wondrous consequences for the redemption of humanity. Alchemy might even reveal God\u2019s providence for humanity.\nAt the very least these may appear to be unusual if not unorthodox ideas for an\nAnglican clergyman.7 Indeed, he turned to alchemy to demonstrate the \u201cproof \u201d\nof that most orthodox Christian doctrine of all: the Trinity. In studying Tymme\u2019s\nalchemical and religious writings, we can begin to appreciate the lively nature\nof the Elizabethan and Jacobean church, belied by the Book of Common Prayer\nand concerns that dissenting believers raised within the English church decades\nbefore this conflict erupted into civil war\u2014as well as the equally vibrant nature\nof the London book trade\u2014and we can see how Tymme was able to use this new\ninstrument quite effectively. In Thomas Tymme we see ministerial and alchemical]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=44\nPages: 44\nBody because it is the Bond of them both. And thus this one thing [mercury] is\nBody, Soule, and Spirit in divers respects.\u201d However closely this passage operated\nalong alchemical principles, it clearly went beyond that to an instructive spiritual\nplane. After his brief discussion of lead, tin, iron, copper, silver, and, of course,\ngold, he observed that \u201cthis noble Science is the way to caelestiall & supernaturall\nthings, by whiche the ancient Wisemen were led from the worke of Arte & Nature\nto understande, even by reason the wonderfull powre of God in the creacion of all\nthings: & their finall purificacion by alteracion through fire in the day of doome.\u201d\nTymme did not think people should fear this \u201cday of doome,\u201d for on this day\n\u201cuncleane faeces & corrupcion\u201d would be separated from the four elements and\nbe made into a \u201cChristalline cleerenes.\u201d He reassured his readers that nothing\nwould be destroyed in a fire, because \u201cGod by his power will change all things &]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=69\nPages: 69\nvirtues of \u201cquintessence, content and true reputation\u201d would be extracted from\n\u201cpoverty and contempt.\u201d Those who were bound would be liberated, the impoverished would find wealth, and earthly crosses would be borne only briefly before\nbeing multiplied \u201cinto Celestiall permanent joyes.\u201d Scot believed that divine philosophy, not occult sciences, would transform this world into a better one. \u201cIt is\nPhilosophy that in adversity (as steele from flint) draweth from us that sparke of\ndivine fire left in our soules.\u201d46 \u201cPhilosophy\u201d was a divine system of thought that\nvalued faith over reason and orthodoxy over heterodoxy. Its goals were conformity and stability. The physical wealth that alchemy promised, despite what those\nwho defended it might say, prevented individuals from pursuing such a divine\nphilosophy.\nFludd had a different understanding of divine philosophy. Flexibility and individual expressions of piety were critical to the creation of a truly inclusive and, in]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=45\nPages: 45\nand Hermeticall Physicke. In his dedication to Charles Blount he reassured his\nreaders that alchemy was not concerned merely with the transmutation of metals,\na common error, he noted: \u201cFor Halchymie . . . hath also a chyrurgical hand in\nthe anatomizing of every mesenteriall veine of whole nature: Gods created handmaid, to conceive and bring forth his Creatures.\u201d Alchemy was God\u2019s assistant, the\n\u201chand-maid\u201d who responded to divine direction.\nAlchemy demonstrated the power and wisdom of God. It imitated nature by\nseparating salt, sulfur, and mercury from vegetable, mineral, and animal matter.\nBy separating these elements, one \u201cshal by that mystery, as in glasse, discerene\nthe holy and most glorious Trinitie, in the Unitie of one Hupostasis Divine.\u201d Although he understood the three elements as \u201cdivine,\u201d he went further, referring\nto Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans: \u201cthe invisible things of God (saith the Apostle) that]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=25\nPages: 25\nmight act as a sacred balm for its political and religious crises.\nEven now we can see how belief permeated virtually every aspect of society.\nAlchemical Belief purports to examine many manifestations of belief in sixteenthand seventeenth-century England. The beliefs we will encounter will usually be\na Christian doctrine, such as the Trinity. However, the alchemists we encounter\nbelieved in more than orthodox Christian doctrines. They believed that the alchemical process could demonstrate the veracity of those orthodox beliefs and\ntherefore was as essential to their work as mercury and the fire in their furnaces.\nThe subject of alchemy has received generous and sophisticated attention in modern historical scholarship, beginning with the pioneering work of Allen Debus,\nwho began in the 1960s to document the influence of Paracelsianism in early\nmodern science and medicine.36 R. J. W. Evans identified the important role of]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=58\nPages: 58,59\nThe result was a ten-thousand-word manuscript, \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow,\u201d\nthat defended the material aspects of alchemy.2 Fludd did not deny\u2014and indeed\neven encouraged\u2014the metaphysical and spiritual elements of alchemy, but he argued that these should not overshadow the very real, very tangible qualities of\nthe art. Scot\u2019s advocacy of spirituality without physical transformation was pernicious to Fludd.3 For Fludd, alchemy had to be both metaphysical and physical; it\nwas God\u2019s work on earth, and spirituality alone was not enough for the faithful.\nChristians had a sacred responsibility to achieve God\u2019s will on earth, and Fludd\nbelieved that alchemy was one of the most sacred responsibilities God ever gave\nto humanity.\n44\nAlchemical Belief\nHowever, in \u201cTruth\u2019s Golden Harrow\u201d we confront the essential paradox of\nChristianity. Fludd did not turn to recipes, testimonies of past success, personal\nexperiences, or historical anecdotes of alchemical processes to demonstrate their]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=126\nPages: 126\nwas devoted to the study of matter, which was corrupt and imperfect. However,\nhe thought that faith, precisely because it was not material, was higher and less\nsubject to \u201ccontingency\u201d and \u201cerror.\u201d49 Faith, for Digby, was almost Platonic in its\nimmaterial perfection.\nEvidently, Digby saw individuals\u2019 ability to record the intent of God as a prelude to their ability to read the Book of Nature accurately. The perfection of faith\nexpressed in Catholic doctrine provided him entr\u00e9e into the study of the perfect\nand regular order of the natural world. In making this argument he was not simply equating Catholicism with unity but demonstrating its triumph. If the reformers were right, then the church fathers and Christian tradition must be wrong. But\nthis was not possible, because, he reasoned, God provided inspiration, internally\nthrough the Holy Ghost and externally through miracles, and these two sources]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=29\nPages: 29,30\nseventeenth centuries did not simply study the physical world but examined God\u2019s\nprovidence and provenance. Seventeenth-century English alchemists appropriated Renaissance syncretism. Paracelsianism, with its emphasis on imagination,\nwas melded with Jewish mysticism, particularly the Cabala, and the result was a\nIntroduction \u2003\u2003\u2003\u2003 15\nJudeo-Christian vision of alchemy and the occult. Prophecy and natural theology\nled the alchemists examined in this book to extend the boundaries of Calvinist\nand Anglican orthodoxies to their farthest reaches. They debated whether the\nBook of God (the Bible) or the Book of Nature (the natural world) was the more\nperfect. Some saw alchemy as a physical process that confirmed God\u2019s presence\non earth\u2014almost an occult incarnation. Their writings show how these adepts\nbelieved God veiled and revealed the secrets of his creation.]","[url_for_citation: https://myaidrive.com/3Qh4Den7xFaCTiVQvnxT5h/_The-Magic-i.pdf?pdfPage=29\nPages: 29\nsuch a one as is altogether conversant in things divine. And (as Plato affirmeth)\nthe Art of Magicke is the Art of worshipping God.\u201d53 Seventeenth-century English\nalchemists agreed with Raleigh and turned to their particular \u201cmagicke\u201d not only\nfor purposes of personal worship but as a result of their belief in the potential of\nalchemy to demonstrate the continuing presence of God to an intellectual community that was beginning to call into question all previous religious and philosophical assumptions about the universe.\nAlchemical texts, both printed and manuscript, are the foundation of this\nstudy. Alchemical Belief views them not only in the context of early seventeenthcentury intellectual thought and religious belief but also in the context of contemporary political tensions. Alchemy and natural philosophy in the sixteenth and\nseventeenth centuries did not simply study the physical world but examined God\u2019s]"]}